Review Roundup: Robert Askins' HAND TO GOD Opens in the West End

After its run on and off Broadway, the critically acclaimed five times Tony Award nominated play Hand to God (including Best New Play and Best Director) makes its way to London's West End officially opened at the Vaudeville Theatre last night, 15 February 2016.

HAND TO GOD features an all-star cast, including Janie Dee, Neil Pearson, Harry Melling, Jemima Rooper and Kevin Mains. This new play is directed by Tony Award nominated Moritz von Stuelpnagel.

Tony Award nominated Playwright Robert Askins goes for the jugular in this hilarious and provocative semi-autobiographical story with: One dead father, One messed up family, One girl who just wants to help, One school bully who always gets his own way, One man of the church offering comfort. And one Hand puppet called Tyrone who is completely out of control - Tyrone's shocking, dangerous and taking no prisoners.

HAND TO GOD explores the startlingly fragile nature of faith, morality, and the ties that bind us. Beneath Tyrone's crude jokes and vulgarity, however, do we hear an element of truth? This new play brings Tyrone to life in a refreshingly witty and brutally honest show, causing us to question whether there is something of Tyrone in all of us...something we would rather remain hidden?

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Tom Cox, BroadwayWorld: There is no doubting this play is base, vulgar and utterly outrageous, but when the puppetry makes Avenue Q look like a nice show to take your grandma, then we're happy to switch gear for some laugh-out-loud silliness. The plot is thin, but progresses quickly enough not to care...The stand out, of course, is Harry Melling, whose dual portrayal of Jason and Tyrone is nothing short of genius. Melling moves instantaneously between the two personas...Melling has developed into a terrific actor and his handling of both the comic and the moving mark him out as something special.

Mark Shenton, The Stage: Actors are often told to avoid working with animals and children, but as this so-called comedy shows they should also avoid working with sock puppets...if you find the idea of a puppet swearing liberally, throwing lots of insults around and eventually engaging in sex with another puppet hilarious, you may derive some pleasure from this dismal production...A really fine cast of British actors are swallowed up by this drivel. Neil Pearson has a particularly thankless task as the shouty pastor, while Janie Dee, as Jason's mother, has to surrender all dignity as her character urges her own sexual molestation. Harry Melling makes a good fist, so to speak, of Jason/Tyrone, though he is inevitably upstaged by the puppet.

Michael Billington, The Guardian: Although Robert Askins's play has made a five-year journey from the theatrical margins to Broadway hit, it strikes me as a coarse, crude satire that - not unlike The Book of Mormon - greets one form of excess with another...For all its obviousness, Hand to God is decently directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel and performed with a hectic energy. Harry Melling suggests that Jason is a strange solitary who finds an outlet for his rage and lust in Tyrone. Janie Dee lends his mother a comparable sense of a woman choked by her outward conformity, and Neil Pearson makes the much-mocked pastor a beacon of muddled decency. My objection to the play is that using violence and hysteria as a way of combating hard-sell religion and hypocrisy plays into the enemy's hands.

Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard: I first caught this odd show on Broadway last year and was perplexed by it then, unsure to whom Robert Askins's scattergun satire on religion, sexual desire and, ahem, mental illness would appeal...Tonally it's all over the place, leaving us feeling a murky combination of unsettled and dispirited. The only hope of salvation for Moritz von Stuelpnagel's production is for the five actors to go at this muddle with terrific energy and manic conviction and this, to their credit, they do...Yet still I fail to see what sort of audience this show hopes to attract.

Tony Peters, RadioTimes: Hand to God is a totally bonkers piece of theatre. It's violent, blasphemous, obscene, puerile and sweaty. Oh, and it's absolutely hilarious...It's a stunning display of physical comedy from Melling who skilfully voices the aggressive Tyrone while maintaining the shocked and embarrassed facial expressions of Jason. He's matched every inch of the way by Janie Dee who falls apart in front of our eyes...it's easy to see why Hand to God was nominated for five Tonys during its run on Broadway: it triumphs as it revels in bad taste. There really is nothing like it in the West End at the moment.

Emily Hardy, BritishTheatre: The comedy's set up is an ambitious one, so its weighty opening scenes move slowly. But once the dizzying exposition is in place, Hand to God spirals towards blissful hysteria. And my God, it's good...the superbly intelligible Melling reinvents ventriloquism, suspending the audience's disbelief and then some...It's utter filth but, in actuality, Hand to God is about more than foul-mouthed sock-puppets; as with Sesame Street, Book of Mormon, Avenue Q and The Little Shop of Horrors, there's substance to it - a lesson to be learnt.

Marianka Swain, theartsdesk.com: ...perhaps most shocking of all is that beneath the eye-wateringly explicit surface of Robert Askins' provocative farce, which began life Off-Off-Broadway in 2011, lies a sentiment that makes this one of the cuddlier shows on the West End...s. Askins' obsessive puerility won't be to everyone's taste - even if it does accompany a tale of growing pains - and his approach is frustratingly scattershot. But the exhortation to face our demons lands with real passion, even if it comes via the mouth of a diabolical puppet.