Review: THE NARCISSIST, Chichester Festival Theatre

Back in the 90s, it was deemed newsworthy that Alastair Campbell, spin doctor to Tony Blair and high priest of New Labour (which was at its newest in its communications) had, wait for it, two mobile phones! How could anyone need two - to say nothing of the challenge of actually keeping up with them?

Things change and Jim, in this world premiere held over and updated from 2020, conducts conversations with the person in front of him and the one (or more) on the end of his phone all day, every day. His life is one of continual distraction - but, given its state and Jim's attitude towards it, that might be the best he can hope for.

Christopher Shinn sought to write a reaction to the US Presidential Election of 2016, a play that dealt with the political and personal fallout from that shocking (in every sense) result. What we see works rather better in the political arena than it does in the personal.

Much the best work on Jasmine Swan's metallic grey but remarkably effective set (never have I seen texting better represented on stage) is done by Claire Skinner's Elizabeth Warrenish senator and Harry Lloyd's maverick, troubled, mercurial comms consultant.

Ideas about how the internet has changed politics forever, how cynicism and hope clash in campaigning, what really motivates human beings at their most atavistic, bounce between them, clever people doing clever talk. Were there a post-production Q&A, I'd vouch that 90% of the questions would come from these exchanges.

But the personal? That's all a bit soapy and, at times (unless you're buying a self-sabotaging subtext that's barely visible) hard to believe. Jim's brother is in the midst of an opioid addiction (a hot button issue in the US, less so over here) and his girlfriend is a fashion designer / influencer without much influence. Simon Lennon and Jenny Walser do what they can, but both parts are underwritten and it's hard to care much about either of them, the real people buried in the kind of American therapy-speak discourse that is gaining popularity in the UK, but still sounds impersonal and distant.

There's a old flame with problems of her own with whom Jim is writing a book in which she is more invested than him, a toyboy waiter / actor who shares intimate pics of Jim - who is exploring his bisexuality - and provokes a scandal (wouldn't both be more savvy?) and a sterotypical mother-in-law who might play less irritatingly to anyone who did not grow up watching 70s sitcoms. They all pull Jim hither and thither - to say nothing of the absent wife from whom he is about to be divorced. It's all too crowded for any of them to grow beyond their functions as illustrators of the chaos that surrounds Jim (and, by extension, us all these days).

A two-hander might have been less commercial, narrower in scope, but a stronger play - though Shinn made revisions to update the play for 2022, you get the feeling that he has more to say about what is, of course, an ever-shifting political milieu. Director, Josh Seymour, keeps the personal and the political intertwined - it's just that the former is as bland as white bread toasted with margarine and the latter as spicy as a Birmingham Balti. Putting both on the same plate doesn't really work.

The Narcissist is at Chichester Festival Theatre until 24 September

Photo Credit: Johan Persson

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