Joe Carstairs by Franka Figueiredo & Krysia Mansfield. The Omnibus Theatre, Clapham Common North Side, London  SW4 to 22 June 2024.

4✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“Rediscovering a rebel who did it their way.”

Joe was born Marian in 1900, child of wealthy parents who insisted on living live on their own terms as Joe, served in the First World War, raced speed boats, opened up the Isle of Wight, travelled and loved widely. Famous in their time but is pretty well forgotten now and this sprawling, but well staged and well acted play – Rhiannon Bell is a feisty, passionate and bloody minded Joe – is what one could call a rescue job on a larger than life person. To contrast then and now we get a parallel story about a playwright full of doubts – fine performance from Sarah Carvalho - working on Joe’s life and facing up to the queer identity problems of today. The four stars are really for the play as an interesting and challenging offering to open Pride Month as it is over long, and the two story lines can get confusing.Krysia Mansfield does some impressive doubling, trebling and more as various persons in the lives of both Joe and the playwright as do Catherine Warnock and Jazz Harbour but since the programme gives no accreditation as to the names of the roles not much more to say. There is a substantial chorus eleven strong to back them up and the set – a space with two white chests flanked on either side by rows of rods from which the dresses the cast wear are hanging is ingenious, simple and very effective. It is an evening full of interest and information and the message, presumably since it is quoted in the programme, in Joe’s words is – “It is the world that must change, not I.”

(Joe will return to the Isle of Wight in July. The show is to be staged therein the Quat Arts from July 3 to July 24 with a community chorus being assembled. It is hoped to tour it more widely later.}

Cast

Catherine Warnack, Jazz Harbour, Krysia Mansfield, Rhiannon Bell, Sarah Carvalho.

Chorus

Amelia Daisy Jean, Elizabeth Lauren, Emma Lomas, Grace Le Bachelet, Kennedy Jopson, Michael Sookhan, Rina Terakawa, Sarah Deller, Sayen Sanc,uz, Tabea Linz, Victoria Luna.

Creatives

Directors – Robyn Lexi & Selwin Hulme-Teague.

Musical Director/Composer – Catherine Warnock.

Set & Costume Designer – Emily Harwood.

Lighting Designer – Carlos Pina.