We round up the reviews for Caryl Churchill’s satire, revived by Dominic Cooke.
Broadway World: “Cloud 9 is a remarkable piece of writing, and Cooke’s production gives it the space to ask questions that extend well beyond its original setting. Its most uncomfortable observation becomes how easily the certainties of one generation become the blindspots of the next.”
The Guardian: “The play still has great cumulative emotional power, alongside asking philosophical questions of all the people we contain within us which history will or will not allow out. And Churchill is not just examining racial dynamics or same sex desire but intersectional gender theories of fluidity and performance that had not fully spread beyond academic circles by 1979.”
The Standard: “The first half is played as farce, with a lot of front-facing mugging, as if the cast are posing for a box camera. The second, after a dramatic visual coup by designer Miriam Buether(YES) which I won’t spoil, is broadly naturalistic and played with the house lights mostly up on the audience. The performances are spot on. It’s good to re-evaluate a landmark work by a giant of a writer, even if it now feels like a historical artefact rather than a work that speaks to today.”
London Theatre.co.uk: “Most of all, though, this is a wonderful ensemble to behold. Troughton’s transformation into a screaming, ice-cream-licking Cathy is bonkers, while Charlotte Ritchie moves from playing a stiff-upper-lipped Maud to a gradually more free-spirited older Victoria. All of it is gloriously good fun, with ideas about societal progress, both then and now, bubbling beneath it all.”
WhatsOnStage: “It’s a great play, superbly staged, dazzlingly rich. The politics of gender may have changed in the intervening years, but Churchill’s always rigorous willingness to grapple with the hardest questions makes its ultimate tolerance and acceptance of the right to be different piercingly relevant today.”
All That Dazzles: “Every cloud has a silver lining, however, and Cloud 9 is the kind of show that lingers in your mind long after you leave the theatre, and the more I thought about its themes and the ingenious way they were realised on stage, both through staging and multi-rolling actors, the more wowed I was. It may have a few flaws still, but ultimately Cloud 9 has a strong sense of identity and knows exactly what it needs to do, even if it doesn’t always quite look the part.”
Time Out: “Churchill is still going strong at 88, but she doesn’t write ‘em like this anymore: her modern plays are short, neutron-dense works of shimmering intellect. Cloud 9 is more human than all that, a little more tied to its era, but no less genius, I think – and this is an immaculate revival.”
The Stage: “Dominic Cooke directs a quicksilver staging of Caryl Churchill’s dazzling 1979 gender-political drama.”
The Reviews Hub: “Troughton’s dual performance as Clive and Cathy is hilarious; Stuart Thompson is particularly fun as Betty while Tom Mothersdale enjoys the caddish Harry. The Act One characters have more flesh and more stage time, their presence more surefooted. But that’s also Churchill’s point: these stereotypes and expectations are hard to shake, and 45 years since the play was written, they haunt us still.”
London Unattached: “Cloud 9 is funny, but I suspect the political and sexual arguments would have been more impactful for late 70s, early 80s audiences and the workshop genesis gives us a lot of vignettes without feeling like a relatable organic whole. Definitely worth seeing; it is an important play in the history of theatre, and it is beautifully realised in this top-notch production.”
City AM: “At 88 years old, Churchill is still going strong as one of our greatest living playwrights. Her oeuvre has consistently demonstrated a great skill for responding to our time, but this revival doesn’t make the case for Cloud 9 as a play for today. That doesn’t lessen its importance – much of the intersectional gender, sexual and racial dynamics are still relevant – but overall makes it feel more like a fascinating historical piece than a work of theatre offering a fresh perspective.”
The Upcoming: “The production finds its groove when the performance breaks the fourth wall, welcoming front-row guests directly into an interactive, rhythmic musical sequence. Even if the shifting timelines and older tropes leave viewers struggling to follow the narrative thread, the electric acting and bold design make it a fascinating piece of theatre.”
The Telegraph: “A triumphant revival affirms the Seventies comedy as a modern classic, its themes especially pertinent in today’s cultural landscape.”
West End Best Friend: “This is the National Theatre doing what it exists to do: taking a great, difficult, thrilling play and giving it the scale, the craft and the intelligence it deserves. This play is a true spectacle that is amusing, furious and fantastically made.”
To book tickets visit: https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/cloud-9/