Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Is this the worst production of all time? Royal Court’s The Glow reviewed

Plus: with a fresh script, a larger cast and a general rethink a new play about Ava Gardner could fly

Fraudulent tripe: Ria Zmitrowicz and Rakie Ayola in Alistair McDowall’s The Glow, directed by Vicky Featherstone. Image: Manuel Harlan

It’s getting silly now. London’s subsidised theatres aren’t just competing to put on the worst play of the year but to create the worst production of all time. The Young Vic’s new effort, Conundrum, is an impenetrable rant which even the Guardian criticised.

The Royal Court enters the fray with Alistair McDowall’s The Glow, directed by Vicky Featherstone. Act One is a flatshare sitcom set in the 19th century and features a pompous spiritualist, Mrs Lyall, who forces her chippy son, Mason, to live with a lunatic called Sadie. Mrs Lyall purchased Sadie from an asylum and together they conjure up a host of ancient spirits including an angry Jesus figure who has a sword and an Irish accent. Drippy Sadie doesn’t get on with Mason, a petulant halfwit driven nuts by his hectoring mother.

Everyone hates each other. Mason sees Sadie cuddling his teddy bear. So he rips it to pieces. Violence takes over. Mason starts shoving Sadie around the drawing room and when he suffers a nosebleed she gives his conk a savage twist. Mrs Lyall, who holds a black belt in aikido, gets Sadie into a complicated arm lock and snaps her hand in two. CRUNCH goes the soundtrack. But the wound heals thanks to a miraculous light which enables Sadie to travel through time. End of Act One. It’s so bad that the BBC could easily turn it into an award-winning series watched by nobody.

London’s subsidised theatres seem to be competing to put on the worst production of all time

In Act Two, Sadie time-travels to the 14th century, and then to the stone age, and then to the 1990s. She meets no one of interest. This isn’t surprising as she’s a characterless airhead with the IQ of a heart valve. She spends a lot of time with the angry Jesus figure who works as a freelance knight.

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