A Very Very Very Wasted Opportunity

Having heard the very mixed reviews for Martin McDonagh's A Very Very Very Dark Matter, on at the Bridge Theatre, I went in with an open mind. To be honest, I was slightly expecting my opinions to side with the fairer reviews. I'm from South Africa and we tend to have a more relaxed stance on the subject of PC', resulting in a culture that isn't afraid to talk about our past or make light of our differences. Just look at our Nandos adverts for some wonderful examples. Unfortunately it wasn't too long into the play that I realised that even that upbringing wasn't going to justify McDonagh's writing enough to call it good theatre.

The story circulates around Hans Christian Andersen (played by a very adept Jim Broadbent) and the dark' secret he has living in his attic, namely a Congolese lady name Majory who has one leg (this is not a spoiler alert). Turns out Andersen isn't much of an author and Majory is actually the source of all his stories. Sadly she is a greatly undervalued character, by both Anderson and McDonagh, and seems to exist mostly to give the other (numerous) strange potlines a centre point.

The Bridge Theatre is one of London's newest theatre venues. It's located outside of the West End, stages edgy-but-accessible works, and has an array of patron options. I'm pretty sure this situates it right in the upper end of middle class. Needless to say, on the night I went to watch it, the theatre was filled with a mostly white, middle-to-late age audience. Watching a play about colonialism and racism, where the protagonists are all white - laughing along to racist humour cloaked as art. It just didn't sit right, with me or the two ladies in front of me who left midway.

I've been trying to unpack why it made me feel so uncomfortable. Other theatre has made me feel uncomfortable, and that's ok. Theatre shouldn't always be comfortable or comforting. But the issue with A Very Very Very Dark Matter is that it was indeed A Very Very Very Wasted Opportunity. Both The Bridge and McDonagh had an incredible platform to say something of value on this very current and very emotive subject. To bring a new insight or make us think of our privilege - yes, I said it - in a new way. But he didn't. Old themes were interspersed with constant swearing and thick cockney accents - cheap tricks to create controversy but without adding to the actual issues at hand.

And when it was over, I just felt sad for the Congolese character Majory, and Johnetta Eula'Mae Ackles who played her. It was almost a play-within-a-play where the outer layer was us, the audience, laughing and being entertained much the same as Andersen and Dickens were entertained by Majory. Was this the point perhaps? To make use feel this shame anew? I would hope so, just for it to have had some substance. But I doubt it. I suspect it was a draft brought to life far too soon.

View our show pages for more information about A Very Very Very Dark Matter, Bridge Theatre.