REVIEW: LONDON ZOO by Farine Clarke at The Bread and Roses Theatre 23 August - 3 September 2022

‘The acting by the ensemble was well-coordinated and delightful … with sparkly and humorous dialogue’ ★★★★

The Great Resignation may be the trend of the moment, but according to the play London Zoo there are still people who are committed to their jobs, their companies and the work they do. Yet, these dedicated people deal with sneaky colleagues who pretend the team is their family, strange bosses who (barely) conceal their racist and misogynistic thinking, and back-room Board decisions about mergers and acquisitions that impact people’s careers.

This piece is also about the decline of the newspaper industry, and though set in 1999, this is still a tale that continues to be relevant in the present day. Print media is dying a slow death in an ever online world, but there are people who still want to make it profitable. Especially interesting were the allusions to who makes the editorial decisions when running a paper.

The acting by the ensemble was well-coordinated and delightful, the pace moved along well with sparkly and humorous dialogue. The quick transitions between scenes with lights down by people in white masks felt symbolic of the facelessness of business and built some tension. Most impressive were the subtleties of the racist ideologies expressed by a South Asian man towards a Black man who was an executive at another company that was due to be acquired. Often presented are the standard racist tropes, but this story investigated the biases of minority groups towards other minority groups intelligently. And of course, with only one female in the cast, there is plenty of misogyny to display.

Though the ending doesn’t exactly fit tonally with the rest of this thought-provoking play, it poses a clever twist and carries a lovely double entendre about loyalty in a story all about the ‘family’ of colleagues.

London Zoo

produced by UnEqual Productions

At Bread and Roses Theatre

23rd August - 3rd September (tuesday - saturday + saturday matinee)

Box Office https://www.breadandrosestheatre.co.uk/

Written by Farine Clark – directed by Catriona Clancy

Performed by Natalie Lauren, Harris Vaughan, Paul Condon, Odimegwu Okay, Anirban Roy, Dan Saski

Reviewed by Mariam Mathew