Oh, Mary! (Starring Catherine Tate)
★★★★ (4/5)
Walking into the Trafalgar for Oh, Mary!, you're greeted by a deceptively modest Oval Office set — simple, almost old-fashioned in its staging, with big double doors flanking the President's desk that practically announce "farce is coming." And it delivers on that promise almost immediately. This is a show that trades the polish of a glossy West End import for something scrappier and more anarchic, and it's all the better for it.
Cole Escola's premise is gloriously stupid on paper: Mary Todd Lincoln, reimagined not as a tragic historical footnote but as a whisky-soaked, thwarted cabaret star, stuck in a marriage to a closeted, weary Abraham Lincoln who's desperate to keep her occupied — and away from the stage — by hiring her an acting teacher. It backfires spectacularly, and what follows is 80 unbroken minutes of escalating chaos, mistaken identities, and gleeful bad behaviour.
Catherine Tate is the reason to see this particular run. She throws herself into Mary's tantrums, side-eyes, and nonsensical outbursts with a bratty, unfiltered energy that feels tailor-made for her comic instincts — decades of sketch work and stage experience clearly at play here. She's loud, unhinged, and completely committed to the bit, but she also finds real pathos underneath it: a woman who's bored out of her mind, drinking to cope, and desperate to be seen as more than a First Lady. It's a performance that's both very funny and, in flashes, quietly sad.
Scott Karim brings a lovely, exasperated warmth to Abraham, playing the straight man beautifully against Tate's mayhem without ever disappearing into the background. Dino Fetscher, as the hapless acting teacher caught in the crossfire, and the rest of the ensemble keep the pace relentless — the show moves so fast that you barely have time to process one joke before the next lands.
What struck me most is how the production seems to breathe differently depending on who's playing Mary — it's less a fixed show and more a shifting one, shaped by whichever performer is currently in the role. That's part of the fun of it: you're not just watching a script, you're watching Tate's specific comic DNA get grafted onto this deranged character.
It's not a play with much interest in subtlety, satire, or historical accuracy — it knows exactly how silly it is and never winks at you about it, which is precisely why it works. If you go in ready to laugh loudly at something completely ridiculous, you'll leave grinning. Just a heads-up: Tate has occasionally missed performances due to a knee injury, with understudy Georgie Langdon stepping in, so it's worth checking the day-of cast notice before you head to the theatre
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