Reader Reviews
Birthday (Royal Court - Jerwood Theatre, West End)
Back to Show Details| Score | Comment | Date |
 | It was second-rate British TV sitcom from the beginning to end. A laboured premise (if you'll excuse the pun), cardboard characterisation (e.g. midwife and registrar) and not one funny line in the whole play. A disaster! Don't go! - Samsolo | 31 Jul 12 |
| A pretty standard play, entertaining and interesting during its duration but largely forgettable, mostly because the male character says alot of what we are conditioned to believe women say in these circumstances. It is also a 'shouty' play, with random moments of high energy. The actors are fantastic, and the midwife brilliant. - Karty | 24 Jul 12 |
| Joe Penhall's comedy about a husband taking on a pregnancy for his career driven wife is frequently very funny. The banal and patronising conversations in the delivery room take on new levels of humour simply by swapping genders and Stephen Mangan's reactions to the pain and undignified procedures he is forced to endure are hilarious. However, Penhall clearly has personal issues with the NHS and has chosen to write this play rather than fight through the often pointless complaints process. Some of his observations are sadly all too accurate: the nursing staff too busy to show real concern for their patients as people and a junior registrar left to cope as her consultant has left for the weekend (and as Lousie Brealey neatly observes, gynaecolgy is dominated by male doctors). Llewella Gideon is spot-on as the midwife just about keeping a straight face as she produces a giant probe to induce the waters to break and Lisa Dillon is edgy as the wife scarred by her own experience of labour, although Penhall does not explain exactly what is wrong with her son. Birthday is very funny at times and thoughtful at others but it's a bit of a one-trick pony and I did find myself glancing at my watch before the end of the 90-minute running time. - David Baxter | 20 Jul 12 |
| A joyful play with clichees beautiful executed by a splendid cast. A nurse who has seen it all too many times to be impressed, a young doctor who is already on track with the procedures and the parents to be who reveal their darker sides under the massive stress of the situation. Moving, hilarious and some harsh but justified criticism about the NHS. It's not the most intellectual play but transfering the choice of having a child to a man adds many thoughworthy moments. - elisabeth | 17 Jul 12 |
| Stephen Mangan was born insincere, and for a comic that is an enormous blessing, as it leavens the serious and primes an audience to laugh, but for a dramatic actor, it is a curse. Since this play has both comic and dramatic moments, this play is an extreme challenge for him. Mangan succeeds effortlessly with his comic moments, and the fact, that he almost succeeds with his dramatic ones, is for him is a mighty leap forward. Indeed, it is possible that by the end of the run, he may nail all his dramatic moments believeably. At the moment, he is hitting about 60 percent of his dramatic notes. I feel the play is extremely modern (despite hanging it's threads on a male pregnancy gimmick) in it's examination of male and female roles today, in it's consideration of the successes and failures of the NHS, and in it's examination of life's difficult balancing act between living for oneself and living for others. All in all, I feel the Royal Court is once again doing what it is supposed to do by exploring issues you just don't see explored elsewhere. This play is funny, dramatic and worthwhile. - steveatplays | 30 Jun 12 |
| Nothing new here. Just another painful labour anecdote, stretched way beyond anyone's will to listen. Mangan does his best, but the male pregnancy gimmick is just that - not the material for a full-lenght play. - peter | 29 Jun 12 |
