Double Act by Nick Hyde. Southwark Playhouse, the Little, 77 Newington Causeway, London SE1 to 05 April 2025, 5☆☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Charles Flint.

Double Act by Nick Hyde. Southwark Playhouse, the Little, 77 Newington Causeway, London SE1 to 05 April 2025,

5☆☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“Poignant and perfect.”

A man, planning to commit suicide, calls off work as sick, takes all his money out of the bank, heads for Victoria Station and the train to those cliffs people jump off. The subject is serious but actually this play by Nick Hyde is very funny as he has been inspired by all those double acts mostly it would seem Laurel and Hardy, where the clowns are two sides of the same person. The two sides here, one played by Hyde, the other by Olly Maynard, are dressed in white, have chalked faces and dark teardrops below their eyes. Olly Maynard is the depressed, despairing one, Hyde is the tougher personality and we follow what happens from dawn to dusk when that decision has to be taken. The serious problems about men's mental health are all there but Hyde has used comedy to turn what could have been a lecture into a thrilling piece of theatre. Time and again one gets plays or monologues about mental health which sometime impress, occasionally stimulate interest in the problem, and possibly depress but all too often they fail to use theatre as it can be used. Hyde achieves that aim splendidly. You get entertained, which is what theatre must do, you get enlightened, which it also should do, and the laughter he and Maynard conjure up does not conceal that the tears of the clown are perfectly real. Maynard is sloppy, confused, and desperate, a bundle of tics and evasions, while Hyde, the tougher, more worldly aspect of the man, tries to shake some sense into his other half, to realise life is worth living in spite of everything. We learn about his disappointments, his rotten job, his relationships with his mother, his ex girlfriend, and he encounters with the world with the ones in the gents at Victoria station, the moment on the train when, minus a ticket and confronted by a ticket collector but with all that cash to pay, arguable outstanding. There is something to be said about the tears of the clown – Pierrot is, of course, another inspiration for the man - and this play says it perfectly, poignantly and powerfully.

Cast

Nick Hyde

Olly Maynard

Creatives

Director Jeff Hall-Flavin

Set Designer – Christopher Eynde

Lighting Designer – Holly Ellis

Sound Designer – Frederick Waxman