Writer: Joseph Aldous
Director: Piers Black
You’d be hard pressed to find a better monologue this year than Joseph Aldous’s thoughtful and funny Get Happy, now playing at the Omnibus Theatre. The story of 29-year-old Adam trying to be as happy as his recently engaged best friend is pitched perfectly in a shining production.
Adam has just learnt that Ryan, his friend and flatmate, is getting married by scrolling through Instagram. He’s upset that he wasn’t told in person, but the news, and the fact that he will soon need a new flatmate to pay the rent, inspire him to sort out his life. He has three aims, each lit by a vertical fluorescent tube in Hazel Low’s swishly handsome set: to secure a permanent job, to acquire a boyfriend, and finally, to find a new housemate. So busy is he with his life plans that he ignores his father’s phone messages and dismisses his circle of friends.
He’s helped in his endeavour by a supercharged Alexa, quite naturally represented by a circle of blue light. She’s more intelligent than the everyday domestic AI assistant; she even wants to go trawling through Soho with Adam. However, despite her talents, she can never find that one underrated Ke$ha song that he’s desperate to dance to.
Aldous is terrific as Adam, never missing a beat in the whole 75 minutes, which rush by, so gripping in his tale. Rather than giving a different accent to his cast of characters, Aldous gives each one a physical trait. Ryan is incredibly tall, condescending as he looks down upon Adam. One of his dates is unimaginably stiff-backed, while Felicity, his colleague at work, encourages him with tiny waves.
It is at his new job – its business delightfully vague – where Adam realises that he has to ‘perform’ gay to the straight staff who binge on Drag Race and the songs of Chappell Roan. They greet him with “Hey Queen!” and prepare a birthday lunch of pink foods, including rhubarb fool and taramasalata. And then they want him to vogue.
Working seamlessly with Anna Short’s ingenious sound design and Jonathan Chan’s clever lights, Aldous is energetic, racing around the stage and standing on podiums. But he also knows when to be still as he gives the audience the occasional sly look or casts his shadow on the stage, remembering a long evening shadow that his mother once made in his hometown of Milton Keynes.
Even with the serious issues that arise later, Get Happy never feels overwrought or worthy. Instead, it feels excitingly authentic. Shout ‘Hallelujah’, indeed.
Runs until 12 July 2025
