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Theatre Reviews

REVIEW: ⭐️ ⭐️ The Clinic📍Almeida Theatre

The Clinic. Maynard Eziashi and Donna Berlin
Photo: Marc Brenner

A quarrelling family’s lives are brought centre-stage in this piece that sees several themes tackled but rather lost in a magnificent space.


When you walk into the Almeida, you get to see a nice set. It is, after all, by the same lighting designer and set designer as Frozen. It’s swish, sleek and modern; instantly, you’re brought to the centre of a British-Nigerian’s £2million home and are front row ready to watch the drama unfold.
The play begins with pizzaz, and an energy that I wish was kept up for the entire piece. The storyline, and evolution of the characters is what I couldn’t get beyond. The unrealistic nature of the youngest daughter (Ore, played by Gloria Obianyo) bringing home her patient’s widow (Wunmi, played by Toyin Ayedun-Alase) seemed too out of the ordinary. It felt like it was a forced plot point, and the safeguarding issue never really left. I was hoping for a turn to the thriller genre, with lots of blood. That did not proceed to be the case. As I found, it felt like it was dragging on, and the action – though it ended spectacularly – left me feeling bereft and almost exhausted from watching such intensity on stage.
Dipo Baruwa-Etti’s writing really soared when it needed to, but the production was perhaps better suited once it had several reworkings and some time to evaluate what it sought out to achieve. The politics, dynamics of class all started off as something that could have been further developed in terms of the profound nature of displaying the disparity in the lifestyles of the middle-class and working-class.
The actors, however, were very convincing in their individual performances but the glue seemed to be missing from this piece. In the end, what we saw was a somewhat rushed – and overly long – piece, that could have shone light on the issues without having so much packed in.
On until 1 October https://almeida.co.uk/whats-on/the-clinic/3-sep-2022-1-oct-2022
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