Oh, Mary! Reviews: Is it the most outrageous comedy in London?

"Oh, Mary! boasts the funniest performance in the West End"

"The camp frivolity, arch gags and OTT antics of this comedy about Abraham Lincoln’s wife bring the year to a screamingly silly end"

"Oh, Mary! is the show London didn’t know it needed."

"Again directed by Sam Pinkleton, this knowingly bogus portrait of the First Lady as a dipsomaniac and frustrated cabaret star is a riot, laced with a truth about the necessity of self-expression, in which American actor Mason Alexander Park gives the funniest performance in town."

"... this is more snappy lark than history lesson."

"The camp frivolity, the arch gags, and OTT behaviour spell pure artifice yet in a way that expresses a relatable type – people not allowed to be themselves."

"... in a bullet-fast 80 minutes, it delivers a transgressive charge, and finishes the West End year on a screamingly silly high."

"Oh, Mary! turns US history into a ridiculously funny melodrama"

"Cole Escola’s play at London’s Trafalgar Theatre brings crazed comic energy to the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham"

"Step up American comedian Cole Escola, who is here to fill in the gaps with a wickedly camp, historically outrageous and ridiculously funny melodrama, in which Mary is very much not the figure from history"

"It’s all, in essence, utterly daft and relies on top-drawer performances to keep the plates spinning."

"Park, who was superb as Ariel in Jamie Lloyd’s Tempest last year, is fabulous as Mary. Barrelling about the stage, ringlets bobbing, crinoline dipping and swaying like a circus marquee in the wind, their Mary remains in an almost constant state of perplexed outrage"

"Each of them walks a line between arch comedy and earnestness. Park, a fine comic actor, can wring several minutes entertainment out of trying to climb down off a desk, but also, importantly, a great deal of pathos."

"... for all the giddy hoop-la, this is a show about feeling trapped in a world that doesn’t understand you, whoever you may be."

"A boozy glitter bomb of outrageousness"

"This show can’t see a top without going over it"

"This queer Broadway hit comedy lands on the London stage like a glitter bomb of outrageousness."

"The London version... has a bravura, freewheeling, eye-rolling, ringlet-frisking turn from the non-binary actor Mason Alexander Park in the lead."

"This show can’t see a top without going over it. Park’s performance is the polar opposite of subtle but it is exactingly precise and finely detailed.... Their timing and delivery is impeccable."

"Terera has a ball, clearly relishing the symmetry of playing a wildly different, frock-coated American politician after originating the role of Aaron Burr in the London production of Hamilton. Fetscher is very camp and funny as the Teacher"

"... for the hectic, 80-minute running time Park makes her as riveting as a tractor beam."

"... I’m delighted that the London stage is now so flexible and responsive that producers managed to import this non-Virgin Mary to the West End before Christmas. Oh, Mary, I’m so glad you’ve come."

"Hysterical, captivating Broadway smash arrives in London"

"Cole Escola imagines Mary Todd in an ahistorical comedy fizzing with energy. Could this be the new ‘Hamilton’?"

"The historical record is pretty divided on what kind of woman Mary Todd was... But what she almost certainly wasn’t is anything resembling the nightmarish, clownish, puerile star of Cole Escola’s hysterically ahistorical comedy Oh Mary!"

"This imaginary version of Mary is a captivating creation – melodramatic, childish, and monstrously self-absorbed."

"... non-binary actor Mason Alexander Park plays the part with the dark energy of a crinolined poltergeist"

"As Lincoln, Giles Terera is her subtler, sleeker adversary, wittily capturing the hypocrisy of a powerful man who wanted to marry an interesting woman – then make her life as dull as possible."

"Escola’s writing fizzes with confidence and brash, crude wit in this play’s early scenes."

"Oh Mary! is full of queer, subversive and very silly twists that it would be a shame to spoil. But if there’s a message to this frivolous creation, it’s that repressed things turn into monsters that emerge from the shadows to destroy your whole life."

"Its initial energy peters out, a little, towards the end of its short 80-minute runtime, with a glitzy finale that feels dangerously close to showboating. But isn’t that Mary’s prerogative? Like a drag queen milking her turn for every last drop of laughter, this fabulous confection has earned our attention."

"There is nothing else like it in the West End"

"I don’t think I have ever seen anything quite like Oh, Mary!. And that’s an entirely good thing."

"It’s silly, irreverent, and utterly irresistible, full of shocks and surprises."

"It would be a shame to give too much away because that might stop the laughter that rises at multiple moments. One gag is executed so swiftly and so beautifully that you can hardly believe what you are seeing."

"They [Mason Alexander Park] romp around the stage, hoop skirt and ringlets flying, utterly dominating the action with their sardonic delivery and narcissistic demands."

"If you squint hard and at a distance, then there might be a sense that the play is examining the frustration of people who are neglected. But not really. This is a piece almost entirely without sub-text, a celebration of the camp, queer humour that Escola has made their own."

"It’s also a wonderful example of physical theatre, with director Sam Pinkleton controlling each joke, each vigorous movement and every gesture with absolute precision."

"Joyfully kooky oddity"

"Star turn from Mason Alexander Park makes this outlandish comedy about Mary Todd Lincoln weirdly wonderful"

"This is not a herstory levelling up of the history books, just a weird and at moments wonderful ‘what if?’ farce which, in a brisk and playful production directed by Sam Pinkleton"

"It takes an actor with unusual oddball charisma to bring her eccentricities to life. Enter Mason Alexander Park, who physicalises the dichotomy of her external boredom and internal wildness with cat-like hisses and tongue-out silent screams. She’s riveting"

"... the story doesn’t end with the particular shotgun bang you might expect – but even with its riotous addendum, this joyfully kooky oddity leaves you wanting more."

"A great cast salvages this bafflingly overhyped ’70s-style Broadway comedy"

"It would be a mistake to say the humour in Cole Escola’s massive hit Broadway comedy has been lost in translation to the West End: there was a lot of laughter when I caught Oh, Mary! on a Wednesday matinee. However, I’m afraid it was lost in translation to me."

"Really it’s broad, dated humour salvaged by a tremendous cast headed by Jamie Lloyd veteran Mason Alexander Park as Mary and the redoubtable Giles Terera as ‘Mary’s husband’ (ie Abe)."

"... Oh, Mary! is an old-fashioned farce built on two gags: one, Mary is a boozy narcissist – borderline feral – who dreams of the stage; and two, Abraham Lincoln is gay."

"... what we’re left with is basically… Kenny Everett with an NYC twist. Which as I said, a lot of people seem to like."

"The performers throw themselves into it with absolute conviction. Park is a marvel... it’s the physical business that really delights"

"Existing at the point in the curve where subversive New York cabaret and naff ‘70s British comedy overlap, there’s clearly an audience over here for Oh, Mary! But that’s not the same thing as living up to the hype."

"US history lewdly revised as American Pie-grade comedy"

"Arriving from Broadway with much fanfare, Cole Escola’s play about Mary Todd Lincoln is loaded with obvious jokes and squanders the talents of its cast"

"Oh, why, when Cole Escola’s play comes garlanded from Broadway for its send-up of the 19th-century first couple, did this critic sit with a frozen face through the whole sorry fandango?"

"Escola’s show left US audiences in stitches with its camp chaos but contains the kind of low-hanging fruit that Kenny Everett’s team might have rejected. You can virtually see the jokes coming around the corner before the punchlines drop."

"It is big, loud, crowdpleasingly obvious."

"You wonder what the purpose is behind the larking. Oh, Mary, maybe there is no purpose and I am being contrary?! Because the room on the night I attended was lapping up the panto spirit, even if I felt cheated of story, character, wit or wonder."

"Mary is simply repulsive and every other character laughs at her behind her back. It is such an overheated sophomoric comedy that it becomes exhausting to watch, even at 90 minutes. Not so much Oh, Mary! as Bye, Felicia!"

"The best thing about this US import? It’s brief"

"While there’s no lack of sparkle in Cole Escola’s ultra-camp comedy about the wife of Abraham Lincoln, the script and jokes remain ridiculously thin"

"What’s the most positive thing I can say about this much-trumpeted ultra-camp import from New York, hailed as one of the hottest tickets of the year? Well, thank heavens it’s only 80 minutes long."

"Cole Escola’s deeply weird comedy"

"The performance I attended at the Trafalgar Theatre was greeted with some of the most maniacal cackling I’ve ever heard from a West End audience. Which is very, very odd when you consider that, deep down, Sam Pinkleton’s production is really a Saturday Night Live sketch stretched to improbable lengths."

"There’s certainly no lack of sparkle in Park’s display. Every line is milked for maximum effect, every gesture is delivered with leering intensity."

"Some of the physical humour is worth a chuckle. But, honestly, the script and the jokes remain ridiculously thin."

"Am I too much of a puritan to get the joke? Well, I laughed myself silly at Titanique... Oh Mary! is infantile by comparison. We are living in a strange world. A clown is in the White House, and this show is riding high on Broadway. Can things get any madder?"