Just over a week ago I was privileged enough to attend a performance of ‘Mojo’, written by Jez Butterworth, at the Harold Pinter Theatre just off Leicester Square, and I am still exhausted yet hyped up by the experience. Compelling, mesmerising and very, very funny.
That the cast will have managed to perform the play six more times since then speaks volumes about their fitness and dedication. The amount of energy expended must be enormous, let alone the vocal strength required to deliver lines at such a high volume and speed throughout the evening. Mojo, at least this production of it, is a thrilling and fast paced black comedy – the audience needs their wits about them to catch all the jokes and banter.
And that’s not taking account of the amazing amount of talent crammed on to that smallish stage.
If the play was cast with one eye to attracting a cross section of the populace who are not necessarily theatre goers, they succeeded: for the older Downton Abbey afficianados, there was Brendan Coyle, strutting around the stage without the aid of a walking stick using language that would give the Dowager Countess palpitations; for the younger Harry Potter set there was Rupert Grint in his first live theatre show, and I did spot a few familiar Ron Weasley scared faces on stage; and in between there was Colin Morgan, fresh from his TV exposure as Merlin, which I have to admit I’ve never seen, but may do so if Morgan’s performance on screen is as good as on stage.
Add in Daniel Mays, who everyone recognises from somewhere, and the relative newcomer Tom Rhys Harries, and you already have a stellar cast list, but for me the icing on the cake was the chance to see Ben Whishaw on stage: a much anticipated treat. And he didn’t disappoint – if there was a star of the show – and it was very much a collective piece – he was it, albeit by a short way.
The play is set over a couple of hot July days in 1958, in a seedy Soho nightclub which, judging by an article in the programme, is very loosely based on the 2i’s coffee bar where real life Elvis wannabes were discovered – Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde... In the first scene we see their fictional counterpart, Silver Johnny, backstage preparing for his performance which, we later learn, is being watched by some important people. Right from the start, the tone is set as Johnny struts, jives, drinks, adjusts his hair – among other things - and generally gives off an aura of extreme nervousness.
The next two characters we meet are Potts and his sidekick Sweets (so called because he provides the pills most of the characters are forever popping, which does nothing to dispel their edginess). Mays’ Potts is a sharp suited, oily quaffed fifties spiv, who anticipates a share in the dosh Silver Johnny’s talent will make for the team. He and Grint’s Sweets sit at a table in the upper room of the nightclub while the show is going on below them, and via their nervous banter the audience learns that Sam Ross, so rich his shoes are made of ‘baby fucking buckskin handstitched by elves’ is being schmoozed by the nightclub owner, Ezra. Sam, Potts asserts, will take Johnny to America and make them all rich. Given his physical jitters, one wonders who he is trying to convince.
As the rest of the cast appear, the atmosphere becomes even more stressed as the tensions between the characters add to their individual anxieties. Skinny Luke (Morgan), the cloakroom attendant, is clearly in awe of Ezra’s son Baby, simultaneously wanting to copy his clothes, for which Baby derides him, and in constant fear of possible violence from him.
Baby himself (Whishaw) is a complex mix of psychotic tendencies, one minute chasing Skinny around the room armed with a sword, or throwing chairs through the air, the next almost catatonic and unresponsive, the next demanding and menacing. In one memorable scene he goes out to buy toffee apples for everyone, as a gesture of solidarity, but no sooner has he handed them round than his personality has undergone another change and he demands that Skinny pay him for them. Gradually we learn a few facts about his background - that he has been abused by his father for instance - which help us sympathise with him.
The following morning we meet the final character, Ezra’s manager Mickey, who brings the news of Ezra’s murder the night before. In the face of the disbelief of the others, Mickey and Skinny, who aligns himself to the person he believes has the power to protect him, assert the truth of the murder by announcing the body was found in the bins. In two bins, they clarify. Silver Johnny meanwhile has disappeared, presumably kidnapped by Sam Ross who was reluctant to share the proceeds of his talent.
The rest of the play explores the effect of the murder on the depleted team as Mickey and Baby vie for control and the rest desperately try to hold on to some form of sanity and security in the face of the threat of Sam coming back to deal with the rest of them. Mickey clearly knows what Baby is capable of and by turns placates and confronts him.
Nervousness, insecurity and fear are at the very centre of Mojo, which can be read as a study in these emotions and their impact on characters who are already damaged. While Sweets and Skinny try invasion to find security in the shadow of peopple the wrongly perceive as more powerful and assured than themselves, Potts blusters his way through, Mickey bullies and Baby is terrifyingly calm and violent by turns. The only character who has recognised talent meanwhile is treated, quite literally, as a piece of meat by the others.
In the end, despite Mickey’s posturing and assumption of the role of leader, he can only throw out pointless orders, and it is left to Baby to finally take action to get Johnny back, which he does armed with a cleaver which – he tells the assembled horrified cast – has left Ross with a bit of a headache. In recovering the star however, the psychotic Baby has made a discovery about the betrayal of his father which forms the climax of the play, leading to another murder and finally destroying the nightclub team forever.
Judged purely on the plot, Mojo would be a depressing play. However, there is so much comedy of character, such as Potts' immediate joy on discovering Silver Johnny has returned (albeit that he is strung up by his ankles with Baby watching him intently) - Potts' exclamation of his trademark 'Fish are jumping and the cotton is high!' betrays his complete failure to understand the situation. Baby meanwhile, asserts that he has been spurred into taking action because: 'There's nothing like having your Dad cut in half to focus the mind'.
Can't argue with that!
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