The Lion. Southwark Playhouse.

Southwark Playhouse’s revival of Benjamin Scheuer’s one-man 2014 show, The Lion, is a resolutely enjoyable way to while away 75 minutes.

27 May 2022

When designers festoon their sets with bare bulb lighting, you can generally be pretty sure that you are going to hear some uninhibited confessions emerge from the characters on stage.

In my experience this is because unshaded and unsparing lights communicate, in the designer’s palette, the readiness to bare a character’s soul for inspection.

There are bare bulbs aplenty in The Lion. It also mostly takes place with the house lights up, which adds, along with an unexpected air of intimacy, a feeling that in this story there is no place to hide.

And boy, there is certainly much soul-baring (perhaps castigating is a better word) to see in Benjamin Scheuer’s award-winning, one-man, autobiographical 2014 show, The Lion, an enjoyable revival of which is illuminating the Southwark Playhouse for a month.

Growing up with a hyper-intelligent father whose depression causes him to be demanding, unpredictable, and on one occasion even violent, the teenage Benjamin responds like a selfish, if troubled, brat. He pins a vindictive note to the bedroom door of his parents’ New York apartment and freezes his father out of his life, only to bitterly regret it when dad dies suddenly, leaving mum alone to cope with three sons.

The family move back to the UK and Ben is sent to boarding school, where he leaves flippant notes for examiners and generally gets the back up of everyone around him. A return to New York sees him pretty much cut off contact with siblings and mother, with only the mediating presence of girlfriend Julie dissuading him from a definitive break-up with them.

A drive-by encounter with cancer leaves Ben alone and unable to cope in New York, but also provides an opportunity for redemption and for the loving return of brothers and parent to his life. He emerges chastened and an awful lot more adult from the experience.

The show is headlined here by Max Alexander-Taylor, who sings attractively and plays a stupendously mean guitar, but is, I think, a little too nice to tell Scheuer’s story with the level of revelatory self-flagellation the plot demands.

You can tell Alexander-Taylor is nice, because he had a ton of supportive friends among the preview audience and gives off the vibe of someone who people naturally warm to. It takes a talented solo performer to hold an audience for 75 minutes, a feat he managed with consummate ease.

Indeed, the singer’s effortless charm makes the show a kind of mash-up between musical, gig, southern Baptist revival meeting, and drama school reunion. There is nothing wrong with that, and he got a standing ovation at the end (not just from his mates) but there is something of a mismatch between the performer and the troubled, self-centred, and self-indulgent character he plays.

There are a couple of good songs, particularly the anthem to stoicism ‘Weather the Storm’ and the eponymous ‘Lion’ and some fabulous riffs from the five different guitars the performer has on stage.

There are few easier or pleasanter 75 minutes on offer on the London stage at the moment, and that is reason enough to wish the run every success.

Ben Max Alexander-Taylor

Directors Alex Stenhouse & Sean Daniels

Musical Supervisor Jordan Li-Smith

Set & Costume Designer Simon Kenny

Lighting Designer Emma Chapman

Sound Designer Andrew Johnson

Duration: 75 mins

Full Disclosure: I paid full box-office price for the ticket.