What you need to know
Edinburgh Festival stage show Wingman has transferred to the Soho Theatre, London. The two-man show by Richard Marsh (writer of last year's Edinburgh hit Dirty Great Love Story) combines poetry, comedy, drama and prose.
Marsh plays a fictional Richard Marsh, a man who has never recovered from being abandoned by his feckless dad, Len (Jerome Wright). After the death of his beloved mother and the discovery he is about to be a father after a one-night stand, Marsh finds Len back in his life, and must confront his attitudes to fatherhood. Runs until 20 September, then touring.
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What the critics like
This cute, but not too cute, two-hander is "vividly written" and confronts some big questions about parents and children, says Lyn Gardner in The Guardian. Better still, Marsh the writer and performer is hard on Marsh the character, which adds ballast to a show that could easily be lightweight.
In this enjoyable lo-fi show Marsh turns his "gentle rhymes and acute observations" onto the question of whether we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of our parents, says Fiona Mountford in the Evening Standard. His skill lies in conjuring whole worlds on a bare stage with bittersweet narratives and personable characters who are not permitted easy answers.
Marsh's latest poetic play sees him exploring fatherhood with "the same mix of wit, warmth and poignancy" that made his Dirty Great Love Story such a treat, says Natasha Tipney on The Stage. While Marsh still revels in rhymes, his writing also features some wonderfully evocative imagery and is thoughtful and tender in the way it approaches what might otherwise feel like an over-familiar subject.
What they don't like
Sometimes it feels a little pat, says Lyn Gardner in the Guardian. "The verse, however ingeniously handled, occasionally amplifies the feeling that life can be reduced to a clever rhyming couplet."
