Ordinary Days

Review by Rowan

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐️

A Love story that's somewhere between ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ and ‘In Pieces’; Ordinary Days tells the story of - what exactly it says on the tin - the ordinary days of Warren a surviving artists PA, Claire and Jason a couple with very different interests and directions and Deb, a burnt out grad student trying to survive the big city. All four characters are searching to find the big picture and their life story - sometimes it’s found at the met and others on a rainy Central Park evening.

The Joint Stock as a theatre is very intimate (dare I say one of the smallest in the UK) with less than 100 seats, meaning the actors end up performing extremely close to the audience, leaving you to sometimes be looking at prop photos, holding characters laptops and directly in eye-line of their struggles, frustrations and even questioning to their faces why they do what they do! The set is only produced of 8 grey boxes, umbrellas on the ceiling, hundred upon hundreds of coloured paper as well as a big frame that gets brought on and is placed directly in the middle of the theatre.

All four leads give truly outstanding performances as Dora Gee, Aidan Cutler, Melisa Camba, and James Edge, perform the catchy pop musical soundtrack to underscore each of their journeys. Many of the songs, such as the act two opener, will be highly recognisable to audiences as they have a ‘this TikTok sound is from this show?!’ feel to them. The lighthearted story has multiple twists and turns, as well as some deeply moving moments all culminating in a piece of theatre which not only is excellent, but a clear demonstration of all the things which makes musical theatre the thing I love.

With its run at The Old Joint Stock in Birmingham as well as an upcoming run in London, I can't wait to see the future life of this superb production and what other shows will pave this course across the UK.