Review Round-Ups

Did Lindsay Lohan convince critics in Speed-the-Plow?

‘Of all the people called Lindsay involved in this production, it is Lohan who actually comes off best’

Michael Coveney
WhatsOnStage
★★

Lindsay Lohan… certainly isn't pulling her punches. She gives Karen… all that she's got. Admittedly that's not very much, but she does have a smoky, alluring voice, looks the part, and is vacuously convincing enough… The trouble is, though, that Lohan moves around with marionette-like stiffness, hands flapping as if disconnected from her nervous system. She has no sense of playing to the audience, or embracing them… The play is swiftly, brilliantly written in three short scenes but director Lindsay Posner inserts a needless interval after the first (presumably to bump up bar sales), destroying its rhythm… This is not so much Speed-the-Plow as hold your horses.

Paul Taylor
Independent
★★★

Did Lindsay Lohan turn up to this most intensely – not to say, morbidly – awaited First Night of the theatrical season? Yes, she did. Did she stay to the end? Indubitably. Did she remember all her lines (the prompters who jogged her memory during the painfully scrutinised preview period have garnered the bulk of the kudos so far in this venture)?… bravo to Lindsay Lohan for transcending these considerations and turning in a deftly delineated characterisation… Richard Schiff and Nigel Lindsay are in fine, darkly frisky form as the pair of producers whose longstanding friendship she threatens to sunder… A good but by no means a great night out.

Dominic Cavendish
Daily Telegraph
★★★

Well, the doomsayers, the mockers and those quick to bitch on Twitter can go hang. On Thursday night, Lindsay Lohan, that notably notorious American actress and the most gossiped-about celebrity invitee to London’s theatreland in ages, made her stage debut with a surprising – and smouldering – degree of style.
True, she fluffed a line and needed an off-stage prompt – but given the pressure to prove herself, that’s just-about pardonable… Yes, her flat delivery needs more work, but so does the rest of the show… A hot ticket? No. But don't blame that on 'LiLo'.

Michael Billington
Guardian
★★

The first thing to say is that Lindsay Lohan gives a perfectly creditable performance in this revival of David Mamet’s acerbic, anti-Hollywood satire. Whatever her colourful past, Lohan brings on stage a quality of breathless naivety that is far and away the most interesting thing in Lindsay Posner’s otherwise tame, under-powered revival… Schiff looks about as excited as if he’d just won the office raffle which takes the edge off his later conversion to the radiation novel. It is left to Nigel Lindsay as Charlie to supply the energy that is missing… It is faintly ironic that a play attacking Hollywood’s cautious cynicism itself here relies on a piece of ostentatious celebrity-casting. But, of all the people called Lindsay involved in this production, it is Lohan who actually comes off best.

Henry Hitchings
Evening Standard
★★

Far from being the train wreck that’s been gleefully predicted, Lindsay Lohan’s theatre debut is competent – without being exciting… while there’s nothing here to suggest a stellar future on the stage, the sceptics who’ve been dying to see Lohan fall on her face will be disappointed… Mamet's real interest is the relationship between language and power. Though he has some smart things to say about the predatory nature of machismo, the story is flimsy and despite some sharp moments of comedy Lindsay Posner’s production is underpowered… Casting such a starry theatre novice in a piece that mocks the entertainment industry’s obsession with big names can be construed as cynical or ironic. Either way, the results are a bit tame.