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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
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Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
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Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Henry Hitchings's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Kwame Kwei-Armah.
Cast: Cecilia Noble, Rebecca Scroggs, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Abhin Galeya, Karl Collins, Amelia Lowdell, Jimmy Akingbola, Simone James, Aml Ameen, Robert Whitelock, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Jaye Griffiths, John Boyega
Description: Kwame Kwei-Armah's drama about a black Londoner who wants to be elected as mayor.
Times: Nov 17-21, Dec 3 & 4, 7 & 8, 16 & 17, 8pm, mats Nov 21, 4pm, Dec 16, 2pm
Price: £10-£20, £35 for Category B/Seize The Day/Detaining Justice
Trains: Tube: Kilburn/BR: Brondesbury 
Phone: 0207328 1000
Website: www.tricycle.co.uk
Bringing vigour to the role: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith as Jeremy with Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Susan
Kwame Kwei-Armah is a playwright who engages with the politics of race in a combative but thoughtful style, and in Seize the Day, which he also directs, he turns his scrutiny to the question of race within the political sphere itself.
Jeremy Charles is a thirtysomething former insurance executive, now a national celebrity thanks to his performance on a reality TV show and subsequent career as a presenter. When he turns have-a-go hero during an altercation in a shopping centre, the event is caught on camera and popular enthusiasm for him redoubles.
Suddenly Jeremy seems an ideal candidate for public office. He is anointed by political kingmaker Howard Jones as the right man to try to become London’s first black mayor. His image can “chime with the general public”, Jones believes.
Conveniently, he appears to stand for nothing specific, which means he can be moulded.
Predictably, Jeremy’s ascent is bedeviled by problems. Some of these have to do with his pompous yet well-meaning patronage of Lavelle, the youth he tackled in the shopping centre.
Meanwhile he’s cheating on his wife with a woman who seems intent on activating his hitherto dormant racial consciousness.
The journey Jeremy makes is a fertile subject, but the character lacks complexity. In fact, he bears a more than passing resemblance to Carlton, Will Smith’s pedantic and preppy cousin in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Though Kobna Holdbrook-Smith brings vigour to the role, this strangely soulless figure is hard to like.
Karl Collins’s Howard is amusingly demonstrative, a cross between a kung-fu instructor and the geography teacher from hell. Alongside him, Jaye Griffiths oozes provocative self-possession. But the star turn comes from Aml Ameen as Lavelle.
Ameen vividly conveys the surliness and snarling wisdom of an urban tough, yet also endows his character with real charm. While his diction isn’t always perfect, his presence is magnetic.
There are other things to enjoy: punchy lines, neatly integrated video by Dick Straker, and of course the readiness to deal with pregnant issues.
However, although the first half of Kwei-Armah’s production is pacy, funny and intelligent, the energy level then drops off. Jeremy’s necessary crisis of conscience rings hollow, there’s too strong an urge to drop buzzy names in order to sound sharp, and several unconvincing plotlines are introduced. In the end the play, for all its appeal, doesn’t live up to the bold imperative of its title.
Until 16 December. Information: 020 7328 1000.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
