Between Riverside and Crazy in London – Reviews Round-up

"An ex-cop soaked in whiskey and grief"

"Danny Sapani rakes over insults and injuries in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s snappy play"

"It’s a play with a serious centre — about money, racism, love, second chances and, perhaps above all, dignity."

"Director Michael Longhurst revels in the text’s rollercoaster, tragicomic structure and draws rich, believable performances from the cast as a bunch of messy, messed-up people trying to keep their lives on track. Sapani is excellent, switching from warmth to wrath in an instant: infuriating one moment and endearing the next. In his stubborn insistence on his honour he reminds you of another great dramatic character: Willy Loman."

" A retired Manhattan cop’s foul-mouthed but affecting fight with the world"

"Danny Sapani is a force of nature in this punchy revival of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2014 drama"

"Michael Longhurst expertly handles these wild tonal shifts, and Danny Sapani, who was recently an excellent Lear, is similarly titanic here as this sly, savagely funny, belligerent patriarch whose authority is ebbing away. However, on press night he occasionally tripped over his lines."

"Ultimately, the radical daring of Guigis’s play comes not from the sudden bursts of violence or projectile vomiting, or the many, many “f---s”, but from the suggestion that even the most flawed of us deserve love, freedom, family, even salvation – and, if we’re very lucky, a prime piece of real estate."

"Danny Sapani’s ex-cop faces down the past"

"Strong performances and jibing humour propel this exuberant but flawed revival of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s 2014 play about racism in the New York police force"

"This revival of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s 2014 play about an alcoholic ex-cop and his disputed case of white-on-Black violence within the police force feels simultaneously more timely since George Floyd’s killing and also entirely of its time."

"In a production snappily directed by Michael Longhurst, there is much half said about institutionalised racism alongside a picaresque slice of New York, working-class life. But the serious issue and the rambunctious comedy butt up against each other and, while always entertaining, it does not play out as penetratingly as it might."

"There is earthy humour, some brash plot twists and verbal pummelling in angry dialogue, delivered so fast and loud that it is occasionally hard to catch."

"The performances are so strong, especially Sapani’s, that they propel the drama with lively, jibing humour. The exuberance remains even when scenes take on the hue of a fever-dream."

"Overstuffed play goes for easy laughs"

"There are two or three plots crammed into Stephen Adly Guirgis’s uneven drama about a retired New York cop at the Hampstead Theatre in London"

"Stephen Adly Guirgis’s play about a retired New York cop won a Pulitzer in 2015, but if some of the streetwise language has a flick-knife edge, too many underdeveloped characters are jostling for attention. While there’s a hint of David Mamet and a sliver of Quentin Tarantino’s gleefully twisted humour, we never quite shake off a nagging sense of implausibility."

"... Danny Sapani, fresh from playing Lear at the Almeida, is a brooding central presence as Walter"

"There are two or three plays crammed in here; for all the jokes, Guirgis never makes us care enough about any of them."

"Danny Sapani is on great charismatic form"

"There’s a lot to enjoy here even if Stephen Adly Guirgis’ tricksy script hides a mawkish redemption arc"

"There’s a lot to chew on and a lot to enjoy here, but Guirgis’s trademark use of heightened and racially-charged street language – he won the Evening Standard Best Play Award for The Motherf***er with the Hat in 2015 – feels jarring after the Black Lives Matter protests. His tendency to spring surprise plot points and jokes is manipulative. The script’s ostensibly savage wit also hides a mawkish redemption arc."

"Michael Longhurst’s energetic production is marred by a fussy set by Max Jones of living room, bedroom and graffitied streetscape, through which the characters make a slow progress. Sapani and others fluffed some lines in the first half on opening night but the mix of rude, crude vigour and sentiment got the show over the line."

"It’s ‘Antigone’ with rent control as Danny Sapani stars as an embittered ex-NYPD cop in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s entertaining Pulitzer winner"

"Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Pulitzer-winning play is a meaty watch, a pungent, spikey mix of laughs, tears and doomed defiance that centres on a multiracial group of misfits headed by Danny Sapani’s retired NYPD officer Walter."

"Much of Guirgis’s writing here is about unhurriedly enjoying the characters, and in this respect Michael Longhurst’s production very much rises (slowly) to the occasion. Fresh from playing a very different troubled patriarch - King Lear at the Almeida - Danny Sapani is excellent as recent widower Walter, who combines an extreme amount of not giving a shit with an unshakable sense of honour."

"It’s familiar, but as it gains momentum it becomes increasingly thrilling, and increasingly weird, too, the hallucinatory introduction of Ayesha Antoine’s nameless Church Lady really throws a different quality into the mix - a suggestion that perhaps there may be some divine presence in this godless city."

"Funny, sparky and sharp"

"Danny Sapani gives a rich central performance in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ tragicomedy"

"Investigating intersecting themes of grief, race, shame and addiction, Stephen Adly Guirgis’ knotty dramedy is overstuffed and tonally inconsistent – yet still gripping."

"Guirgis’ dialogue is funny, sparky and sharp, capturing a demotic working-class New York register that is heavy with attitude, irony and gritty wit."

"Longhurst gives the piece a pleasingly dynamic staging, leaning into the humour and providing purposeful movement."

"Daniel Lapaine pursues a more antagonistic angle as her fiancé, police Lieutenant Caro, a morally flexible cop desperate to climb the ranks. His increasingly vicious arguments with Washington drive the drama, gradually exposing the fact that every one of these flawed characters will stop at nothing to get ahead. But still, Guirgis ends the play on an optimistic note, engineering an unlikely, if uplifting, hopeful ending."