The Flea @ The Yard Theatre - Review

Tone, casting and delivery turn tragedy to farce. ★★★

Oct 08, 2024

At The Yard Theatre, Hackney Wick, until 30th November 2024.

Tickets from £10.

Rating: ★★★

The Flea is based on a true story of Victorian male prostitution, with a promising set of characters from a young postie to Queen Victoria. The story has all the hallmarks of deeply impactful tragedy- systems and randomness come together to force complex characters into bad choices, but the only choices they could possibly have made. A boy chooses sex work over starvation; an aristocrat must choose between a friend and a lover; a Queen between family and country. There is an extended metaphor throughout- a flea bites a rat, a rat spooks a horse, a horse kicks a man, a man dies. This promise of randomness, of the wrong place at the wrong time, is a really promising framing for a story about queerness and poverty in Victorian England. This setting lends itself fantastically to queer tragedy, a period of severe moralistic crackdowns while also being close to our modern world. Unfortunately, the casting is all wrong, and tone turns this into a pantomime farce with little time to reflect on the crushing sadness of it all.

Nobody on stage is a bad actor, but many are simply not right for this play. The lead, Tomás Azocar-Nevin as Charlie Swinscow, is particularly poorly cast. He’s a good, believable actor, exuberant and expressive with a flamboyant, modern stage presence and style. I want to see him as a small town artist finding himself, or as the romantic lead in something set in the 1990s. He does not imbue the role with the complexity it needs- this is not a man happily choosing sex work because he likes it, as it comes across, this is a boy with a dead father choosing sex work because the other option is eviction or starvation. It needs a sadder, more subtle actor. There is multi-roling in this piece, and Azocar-Nevin is much better as Bertie, the heir to the throne, where his uninhibited, expressive acting facilitates a hilariously off-putting lech. Stefan Race is the best fit of the cast, doubly playing with an impressive range that takes him from conflicted pimp to dandy. What this production really lacks is a straight man, in the comedic sense. We need someone bringing us back down to earth to the tragedy, to slow the pace so we can really absorb the impact of the choices made under the laughs. Brefini Holahan, as Emily Swinscow, makes a solid start on this, she effectively channels a sad and reflective mother who did the best she could, but she is not present in every scene, allowing all that outside of the Swinscow family dynamic to descend into farce.

But it’s not all poorly executed. Costuming (by Lambdog1066) is absolutely fantastic. Camp and Victorian inspired with mixed materials and a punk, DIY feel, strongly channeling Vivian Westwood. Particularly charming is a dress with a solid Victorian silhouette built over a velour tracksuit top. The use of fabrics to signify class is very clever, as are the quick-changes, which see costumes entirely change in minutes between scenes as actors slip between characters.

The staging (by Naomi Kuyck-Cohen) is equally impressive, with no attempt at realism. A multi-leveled stage keeps movement ongoing and engaging, while furniture being used for unconventional purposes (a filing cabinet becomes stairs, a high-chair a jail), provides both visual interest and intriguing commentary. Three TV screens are used lightly but impactfully, adding to a truly stunning visual experience.

I saw this show with a friend who saw the first run 5 times, obsessed. They felt the casting had significantly flattened it, making it more simply funny than the first time round. I desperately want to see this with the original cast, or just a different cast, just to taste something worthy of obsession. I am particularly sad that I missed a sinister, seductive characterisation of God- in this run, God channels The Book of Mormon, shallow atheist satire, focusing on the sillyness of religion.