Manic Street Creature
Maimuna Memon’s Manic Street Creature did the rounds at the Edinburgh Fringe a few years back, where – I’m ashamed to say – I studiously avoided it because I thought it had a silly name.
I still think it has a silly name, but Memon has since shown herself to be a truly formidable talent. Her most obvious achievement is an extremely well deserved Best Supporting Actress in a Musical win at last year’s Oliviers (for her turn in the Donmar’s Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812). But she’s a gifted musician too, having done the score for the National Theatre’s luxuriant stage version of The Grapes of Wrath, and due to do the honours for the Open Air Theatre’s imminent A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
And now Manic Street Creature is back in a slightly expanded form. A gig-theatre show that mixes Memon’s original songs with her spoken-word storytelling, she’s joined on stage by a three-strong backing band (cello, drums, guitar), the members of whom speak the odd line but largely leave the acting to her.
The story concerns a young musician named Ria, who moves to London and falls for Daniel, a sensitive soul who struggles with his mental health – he is the titular Manic Street Creature (by which I mean there’s a song called that, he’s not a monster or anything).
At heart the show is a relatively straightforward affair: Daniel is depressed; he takes antidepressants but they totally change his character; Ria struggles, caught between her love for him as a person, her concern...