Art and soul

Things that will mostly cheer you up this week and beyond

Tessa Albertson and Anders Hayward in I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire at the Southwark Playhouse Borough. Photo: Manuel Harlan

I’ve been party to some interesting conversations recently about the ways in which, regardless of what’s actually happening, emotions remain in the body well past what the body, at least, would consider to be any kind of advantageous use-by date.

Those conversations allowed me to recognise that, after a comically atrocious weekend, the Feels™ still coursing through my system meant I was going into the things I was seeing with a smaller, meaner spirit than usual - and on most occasions, I’ve been surprised and touched to experience joy in return.

This is one of the many reasons I bloody love doing this. At the risk of sounding deeply woo woo, art gives, endlessly and unconditionally. It helps.

This week

I definitely did not expect so hugely to enjoy I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire at the Southwark Playhouse Borough, which is the second play about an unhinged teenager kidnapping a global superstar that I’ve seen in as many weeks (the other was Fangirls, which ultimately left me cold). Unlike that show, which descended into a bludgeoning earnestness, I’m Gonna Marry You… knows it’s completely batshit from the start, and really owns it. 

Tessa Albertson is terrifyingly committed as the intense, damaged Shelby Hinkley, a bullied, lonely 14 year-old who has somehow kidnapped the Spider-man star (Anders Hayward, who embodies the famously awful Maguire with petulant gusto) from a dental appointment several states away, and handcuffed him to a pole in her basement - which is covered, covered, with posters of his face (the entire theatre, including the toilets, have been plastered in them. It makes for a disconcerting ablution).

Though we learn a fair bit about how horrible Shelby’s school and home life is, and how unpleasant some of Maguire’s on-set experiences have been (not to mention all the heat around his brief relationship with Kirsten Dunst, who by 2004, when the play is set, is dating Maguire’s professional nemesis Jake Gyllenhaal) there’s not much of a message - except for possibly that if you treat people badly, from middle-schoolers to movie stars, they might not be OK. 

It’s messy as hell, but Samantha Hurley’s play, like its protagonist, swiftly releases its grip on reality to skip merrily down the path of completely deranged from the get-go, and, amazingly, it works. (Tobey: “Who are you?” Shelby: “Shelby Hinkley [beat]. I’ve sent you, like, all my baby teeth.”)