1st – 25th May 2024
Ten years on from a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and a nationwide tour, Alistair McDowall’s Captain Amazing is back, and the one-man show will run at Southwark Playhouse, Borough, until 25 May, with Mark Weinman returning to the role.
The show lasts for 65 minutes with no interval, and in the space of just over an hour, you are
transported through home improvement stores, homes that need improving, as well as a superhero universe, and the school run. The set is incredibly simple: a plain white stage onto which comic-like scribbles are projected, and in terms of props, Weinman relies on little more than a red cape and a red chair.
“We’re all Captain Amazing in our own little ways”
However, despite the simple set, the way in which Weinman transports the audience through numerous spaces, and most impressively, numerous characters is demonstrative of why theatre is such an important medium through which to tell stories.
Weinman transitions between a B&Q retail assistant advising on filler to fix a cracked sink, a bachelor, a Dad, a daughter, an evil villain, and of course Captain Amazing, in a totally seamless and smooth way. As you sit back to enjoy the show, you truly feel as though you’re watching several different people on the stage. In fact, the meticulous way Weinman embodies each and every character is pretty amazing in itself, and it all comes together in a very authentic and believable exploration of what it means to be human, to be super.
The simple yet effective dialogue between father and daughter came across as both profound and entertaining. A particular example of this is when he’s walking his daughter, Emily, to school. She is fretting that no one will like her, so in the most deadpan way possible, her Dad reassures her that because there’ll be loads of kids there, “someone’s bound to like you”.
Yes, it’s a simple piece of dialogue, but Captain Amazing is quite simple. It’s not pretentious in any way or overly complicated, although make sure you’re concentrating as the play as it bounces from character to character in a sort-of nonlinear approach. What it is, however, is a very clever and emotional exploration of what it means to be amazing.
We’re all Captain Amazing in our own little ways – even if your superpower is getting your daughter to school on time.
Maggie John
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