Not a fan of musicals

not a theatre critic either

Is this how a grown-up behaves?

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I preferred “Delroy” to “Michael” on pretty much all counts other than props – Michael had more props and they were a more pronounced aspect of the performance, which I enjoyed. In “Delroy”, the dialogues between characters enacted by the same person were less jarring, the acting more powerful, and the story maybe a bit more credible, even if it seemed to have a bit of random moments, like the Brexit tirade, that were bizarre and probably not necessary.

I am however even more confused about the age of the characters. In “Michael”, we learn that the protagonist is already divorced and part two is set a couple of years after the funeral in part one. So, I would imagine, the character must be in his thirties, early thirties maybe. But so much about him comes across as behaviour I would attribute to early twenties at best. The way he describes his feelings towards a girlfriend of many years, for example. A man talking about his pregnant partner in a manner reminiscent of teenagers describing their current crush in high school TV dramas is simply odd.

Similarly, there is his behaviour at the hospital. He may talk about the love and care his mother showed him. He says he never went hungry; he does not consider himself to have been brought up poor. He does not, however, say much about the experiences that have resulted in the levels of internalised anger that he feels towards British society and that spill over in his reaction to being stopped by the police and inability to maintain decorum at court. I recognise that I have no credible point of reference of my own and I cannot imagine what these must have been. But I have given birth. Any man who wants to hold the mother of his child to account for what she may have said in the pangs of childbirth is, himself, a child and a very selfish one at that. I inherently felt that I was meant to empathise with the character, but it is hard to empathise with a grown man throwing toddler tantrums and putting his own hurt feelings above his newborn.

But maybe that is on purpose, to allow to show the character starting to grow up in the last couple of minutes of this 100 minute monologue, when he seems to, for the first time realise that he is now responsible for the life a tiny girl who has a white mother and a black dad. I guess I have to wait to see part three to find out, whether he does step up and mature.