November 14, 2013 - Express.co.uk - Awesome Review of Mojo - Colin Morgan, Daniel Mays, Ben Whishaw, Rupert Grint

Mojo at the Harold Pinter Theatre - review

Daniel Mays is the stand-out talent in this star-studded revival of playwright Jez Butterworth's Nineties black comedy

By: Simon Edge

Published: Thu, November 14, 2013

Ben Whishaw stars is brilliant as the creepy, capricious Baby in Jez Butterworth's Mojo [SIMON ANNAND]

JEZ Butterworth’s black comedy about a bunch of clubland wide-boys getting sucked into gang warfare in Fifties Soho made a huge splash when it was first produced at the Royal Court in 1995. It won an Olivier Award and established the author as a name to watch, promise he amply fulfilled with his later hit Jerusalem.
Nearly 20 years on, in a revival by original director Ian Rickman, the play remains huge fun but its limitations are more apparent.
Butterworth has a superb ear for dialogue and a particularly creative way with swearing that it’s better not to reproduce here but his fascination for the London underworld now seems a little passé, part of a Nineties obsession with torture and geezer chic from which we have thankfully moved on.

From left to right: Brendan Coyle, Colin Morgan, Daniel Mays and Rupert Grint in Mojo [SIMON ANNAND]

The cast list is as big a galaxy of current stars as you’ll see on a stage together. Ben Whishaw is spoilt Baby, son and heir to indisposed club boss Ezra; Brendan Coyle is his older rival Micky; Rupert Grint is none-too-bright pill-dealer Sweets; and Colin Morgan is Skinny, a would-be young stud with halitosis.
That means you’ve got 007’s Q, the valet from Downton Abbey, Harry Potter’s mate Ron Weasley and Merlin the boy wizard all in one gor-blimey gang.

Downton's Brendan Coyle plays Mickey, rival to Ben Whishaw's Baby's father [SIMON ANNAND]

Whishaw is brilliant at creepy, capricious menace, and Morgan (spoiler alert) does one of the best death scenes I’ve ever seen. But amid this embarrassment of screen riches, which at times feels like one of those all-star Agatha Christie films from the Eighties, it’s hard to forget some of those previous roles.
Grint still looks like he has inky fingers and it’s shocking to hear Lord Grantham’s Mr Bates using quite so many f-words.

Harry Potter's Rupert Grint, with Daniel Mays, can't quite shake off his Harry Potter associations [SIMON ANNAND]

Actually the real star turn here is the least stellar name. The ever-compelling Daniel Mays, with the look of a permanently surprised toilet brush and a Chaplinesque physicality, is in danger of acting everyone else off the stage as numpty tough Potts.
The twist mid-way through the second act remains a good surprise as the rivals vie for supremacy. The problem for me is that this plot shift is more interesting than the characters themselves. 

Colin Morgan is would-be stud Skinny with the ever-compelling Daniel Mays, centre, and Rupert Grint [SIMON ANNAND]

Baby’s evolution from embarrassingly inept brat to psycho master-strategist doesn’t entirely ring true, however well Whishaw plays him, and the subtext of sexual abuse and homoeroticism adds more cliché than nuance. But it all races along so cheekily that you may not mind.
VERDICT: 4/5
Mojo runs at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London, until January 25. Visit mojotheplay.com or call 0844 871 7622 for information. For tickets log on to expresstheatretickets.co.uk