Review: IN THE SHADOW OF THE BLACK DOG, King's Head Theatre

"Where do men go to grieve?" a failed relationship, a fixer-upper job in a pub, a sudden fear of dying, and now his best friend's suicide are breaking Daniel Hallissey's character. In the Shadow of the Black Dog (written by Hallissey and directed by Conor Neaves) tackles men's mental health in a long stream of consciousness. Unfortunately, it doesn't give any solution, or insight, or way out. It's sadly full of stereotypes, excused machismo, and a propensity to victimisation.

The series of anecdotes is sometimes perplexing; he asks the 999 operator out because "she sounds hot" and flirts with nurses left and right (to the point where it's truly uncomfortable to witness) while most of his sentences end up sounding like uptalk. These high-rise terminals don't help his often declamatory delivery.

Confronted with the possibility of his own death, he spirals out of control before landing on his feet thanks to a lady he helped when she was being harassed on the street He even has a brief encounter with some armed bikers out for blood. What comes off is that men don't know how to cope with grief and stress - big surprise. By the end, the show grants him a new beginning, but the arbitrariness of this is based on little-to-none real character growth.

Hallissey doesn't explore the tools and paths available to recover from a breakdown and settles for a poor study of toxic masculinity, leaving it at that. The piece doesn't bring much to the table at this stage, but shows potential. Cutting some awkwardly bad jokes and giving more of an introspective angle rather than projecting the issues onto the outer world might be a start. Nothing few rewrites can't aid. Cool title, though.

In the Shadow of the Black Dog runs at the King's Head Theatre until 11 September.

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