Oh, Mary! at the Trafalgar Theatre Review
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**There’s something about *Oh, Mary!* — it’s a comedic bullet to the brain, with every gag on target.**
Sometimes a long show doesn’t equal more value for your money, and this tight 80-minute whirlwind proves it. **Cole Escola**’s Tony-winning comedy squeezes every ounce of humour into a show that moves at lightning speed. The rapid-fire scene changes are perfect for those who have genuinely short attention spans (and for everyone else convinced they have ADHD these days!) It feels like you're scrolling from reel to hilarious reel getting hit after dopamine hit.
**Mason Alexander Park**’s Mary Todd Lincoln serves a perfect cocktail of alcoholism, suppressed desire, and cabaret obsession that the audience greedily drinks down. Their delivery reminded me of Moira Rose from Schitt's Creek meets Just Jack from Will and Grace meets drunk Karen Walker from Will and Grace meets Veruca Salt with her neat curls and feral brat energy. And a moment please for Mary’s costume itself; it’s like someone Googled “giant oversized Wednesday Addams’ themed doll toilet roll holder.” (That’s my outfit for next Halloween sorted, then.)
The plot flips the script on history: Mary is suffocated, misunderstood, and hilariously mismanaged by her scheming husband Abraham Lincoln (**Giles Terera**) and her charmingly duplicitous acting teacher John Wilkes Booth (**Dino Fetscher**), who’s in on Abe’s secret plans to ship her off to Bellevue Sanitarium. **Dino** dishes up massive Fiyero energy, trotting around in his slutty little glasses boots, with his “pretty face and fat arse”. I mean, isn’t that what we’re all striving for?!
Unrequited love and secret trysts abound — Abe busies himself forcing his poor assistant, Simon (**Oliver Stockley**) into various role play scenarios “Quick, you're at school and you need glasses and I'm the optometrist!” whilst Mary, bored with her recreational crossstitch, painting lessons and throwing her chaperone (**Kate O'Donnell**) down the stairs, yearns for her past life as a well-known but niche cabaret legend, famed for her short legs and long medleys.
I know little to nothing about American history, most of my knowledge has come from *Hamilton* / that Founding Fathers episode of *Gilmore Girls*, and, let’s face it, I probably know more about the Who Shot Phil (Mitchell) scandal of 2001 than I do about the Abraham Lincoln shooting but I’m sticking with **Cole Escola**’s version of the events. There’s decidedly more hilarity, madcap medleys, and every short scene lands like a perfectly timed TikTok reel.
The final cabaret scene is a crowning glory, giving Mary the elegant, musical moment she’s been craving; she’s just a simple “fan of elegant stories told through song” after all. If you haven’t already booked your pre-Christmas tickets, do it now. This is the knees-up romp to carry you through the next few frigid months. With non-stop laughs, it invites all of us to enjoy a Brat Girl Winter at the [Trafalgar Theatre](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/venue/trafalgar-theatre-london).
Tthis 80-minute treat is pure, distilled hilarity that Mary would gulp down like paint thinner… IYKYK! Book your [*Oh, Mary!*](https://www.londontheatredirect.com/play/oh-mary-tickets) **tickets today.