Review: Mon Droit, Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33)

By Jay Richardson
Published on 29/08/2012 15:34

Mike McShane is captivating in this fictionalised retelling of the final days of American Robert James Moore, a sufferer of De Clérambault’s Syndrome whose obsession with the Queen ended with his body lying unfound for two years in St James’s Park.

* * *

With his admiration for the monarch assuming chivalric proportions in his mind, he resists his medication, quits his stressful car hire job and flees to London. Suki Webster portrays the various women who exploit this gentle but agitated man, eventually coming to know him as runaway Ellie; two lost souls embarking on an impossible quest together.

Suffused with sadness throughout, director John Nicholson doesn’t permit the impending sense of tragedy to overwhelm this exploration of delusion and obsession. A simple but versatile set keeps the focus firmly on McShane’s portrait, which is so finely nuanced you begin to wonder if Webster’s various roles are figments of his imagination, unreliably filtered back to the spectator. The dialogue is less convincing, and the brief sallies of social commentary are clumsy. Still, they don’t detract from a fine central performance.

Until 27 August. Today 2pm.