Writer: Philip Ridley
Director: Brittany Rex
While the Karate Kid musical rages downstairs, Brittany Rex directs a new adaptation of Philip Ridley’s The Fastest Clock in the Universe, in the upstairs studio at the New Wimbledon Theatre. Although an award-winning piece of controversial theatre when first produced in 1992, boasting Jude Law’s professional debut, this second play in Ridley’s trilogy fails to reach the audience this time around. Whether the tide of time has been unkind to the play, or whether the actors fail to do it justice, remains to be seen.
In a loft flat in Brick Lane, Captain Tock (Brian Aris) prepares a birthday for his partner and flatmate, Cougar Glass (Frederick Russell). There is only one person invited. While the cuckolded Captain tries to reason with Cougar, whose intentions with his 15-year-old invitee are less than pure, a surprise guest threatens to ruin his carefully laid plans. Homophobia, violence, infanticide, pederastry and paedophilia all feature in this shocking play that feels, at times, like a contemporary Harold Pinter.
Cougar sits in his boxers, staring out at the audience as they find their seats. Captain Tock fusses about in the background. Russell’s Cougar is the forever young-but-not-really Dorian Gray, Aris’s Captain is Lord Henry. Besides some questionable accent work, think Hugh Grant in whatever Guy Ritchie film he happens to be in, the chemistry between the two is good, generally. However, Russell’s performance is too over-the-top. This is possibly due to the nature of the in-yer-face production, but his constant screaming and shouting doesn’t give the audience much time to feel any emotion for themselves. Aris fumbles his lines a few times but is generally a reliable tugboat, weathering the storm of Russell’s acting.
The Fastest Clock in the Universe is very much rescued in the second act by Sherbet (Naomi Preston-Law), who breathes new life into the play. Kim Whatmore, who plays Foxtrot, is also very good, and the pair’s chemistry on stage is fantastic. They give some much-needed comic relief after the tense first act.
Whether the fault of the actors, the writing itself, or the direction, the play falls apart at the end, after an impressive second act. The ever-traditional Sherbet produces a Desert Eagle, a staple of any East End home, apparently, a must-have for the pregnant soon-to-be-housewife, and the play descends into a farce. The emergence of the handgun instigates the final sequence. The ending is ridiculous. The 0-to-100 nature of the writing means the actors are all suddenly in a Tarantinoesque explosion of violence that doesn’t deliver on the promise of the play from the first act. For such a shocking, visceral ending, it feels unrealistic, and the audience is left baffled and uninterested.
In the final moments of the play, Cheegah Bee (Karen Holley) delivers an excellent monologue, and while it feels peculiar coming after such an absurdly violent sequence, it is powerful nonetheless.
The costumes are good: Cougar looks perfect, Sherbet a picture of an East End pregnant young woman, Foxtrot a classic naïve schoolboy. The setting is similarly impressive, and with very little work, the Cellar Door Theatre Company manages to transform the studio into a London loft apartment.
Ultimately, there are great bits to this play, but Rex fails to bring The Fastest Clock in the Universe back to its former glory.
Runs until 9 May 2026
