The Man Who Thought he Knew Too Much review

Good news! This review is going to be relatively spoiler free, and all spoilers are out of context.

I thought about asking ChatGPT to write a review for me so we could compare the two, but unfortunately when I did it was actually pretty accurate. It even included the Easter Egg which appears in all my posts! I put it up on the blog for you to read anyway; find it here.

Of course, I know you actually came for some unrelated colour, so here it is.

We saw the show at the Birmingham Rep, where we've seen several other shows. However, on this occasion, we weren't in the main auditorium at all, but in the secondary theatre The Door ("How many theatres are in this theatre anyway?"

Fun fact: I just spelled weren't incorrectly twice before getting it right.

The Door is a perfectly fine performance space, but it is a lot more intimate than the main auditorium. I was expecting this. what I was not expecting was for the theatre to be in darkness when we arrived. There were some lights on the performance space (I hesitate to call it a stage as it was level with the first row of seats), but very little on the seats for the audience.

In order to get to The Door, you have to travel through several corridors, one of which was underneath the seating and I don't think had any lights on (I saw some lights as we were leaving but they remained off throughout). Luckily, as a wheelchair user, I had my headlights to use, but I imagine others were not so lucky.

As we entered, music was being played on a keyboard by music director Frederick Waxman. He played music throughout, on several instruments, including several gunshots synthesised* using a high hat.

*this word feels wrong but I can't think of the correct one.

Obviously the name The Man Who Thought he Knew Too Much (Voloz Collective, you could have been inspired by many aspects of Mischief Theatre productions. WHY did you choose to copy their penchant for long titles?!) is a play on the 1956 Alfred Hitchcock Movie The Man Who Knew Too Much. I have not seen that movie, but if it is anything like the only Hitchcock movie I have seen, Rear Window, the plot probably boils down to:

A man accidentally sees some (possibly criminal) activity taking place. The individuals involved notice him, and now he is being chased by every organisation in the world, including but not limited to:

MI6

The KGB

The CIA

The Mafia

The FBI

At some point, he will still be running, but the movie will finish and we will stop following him.

No, I'm not irritated that a movie just stopped with no resolution, why do you ask?

It seems like the play was written by coming up with the name and working backwards, but the play doesn't suffer because of that; if anything it makes it better! Such a premise thrives on being nonsensical, confusing and surreal. The basic concept is obvious from the title and Voloz Collective certainly take advantage of the creative freedom, taking the story in every possible direction with many homages to works such as James Bond, Alfred Hitchcock and the Mission Impossible franchises.

Onto the play! (again) A lot of my notes contain spoilers, so don't be disappointed if some of your favourites don't show up in this post. Some of them are spoilers but I have some constructive criticism for them so I have left them in but with no context.

Firstly, some context. As I mentioned earlier, the show has little to no set, with actors and props doubling as tables, beds, laser alarms, facial recognition systems, windows and even a typewriter at one point.

Fun fact: typewriter is the longest word you can write on a single line of a qwerty keyboard.

The story follows Roger Roger Clement , a Frenchman working as an advertising copywriter in new York. He has a simple, boring routine that he follows every day, illustrated by the four performers Paul Lofferon, Olivia Zerphy, Emily Wheatman and Sam Rayner (who all co wrote and co directed the show).

There are several pieces of simple but impressive close up magic in this part, in particlar when Zerphy as a worker in independent coffee shop Starbucks hands a coffee to Roger Roger (Lofferon), who from the other side of the performing area pulls the cup out of thin air.

It should be noted at this point that Lofferon only plays Roger Roger, but the many other characters are played by the other three actors, similar to a New Old Friends production*. However, unlike NOF, VC does not have the luxury of going offstage for costume/wig changes, so characters are distinguished using hats/glasses.

*For anyone thinking I shouldn't be comparing Voloz Collective to other works, rest assured, I am not comparing their quality, merely their style of perfiormance. In this case, I actually admire VC above NOF for their collaborative approach to writing/direction.

There's even a moment late in the show where a character wears a hat low over their face to disguise their appearance, then lifts it to reveal a pair of glasses showing which character it is. On one occasion, a character's hat blows off, making them difficult to identify. Therefore, they pull an identical hat out of one of their apparently bottomless pockets "I always carry a spare."

The show is set all over the world, but is almost entirely in English for obvious reasons (there is an important plotpoint that needs to be said in Russian and a few lines in French are hilariously captioned by Wheatman).

Newspapers make up a large part of the show, functioning as clarifying the location via language and prioritisation of headlines, clarifying the date (incidentally, announcing Alec Douglas-Home's new premiership comes about a month too late), but mostly representing props such as birds or windows. I was in awe of how the performers got the right newspaper every time, as I don't think any of them were double sided.

On to my first piece of constructive criticism, which is a very subtle anachronism possibly not noticed by anyone else. I already mentioned Alec Douglas-Home, who became Prime Minister in October 1963, a month before the play's setting of November of the same year, but there was another anachronism. As soon as I realised the play was set in early November 1963, I knew immediately that it was leading to 22 November, i.e. the death date of CS Lewis and Aldous Huxley and no one else you've heard of*.

*This joke would be a lot funnier if more people knew American history.

However, I also know that this date immediately preceded an important date in BBC TV history, something I took particular note of when Roger Roger decides to watch some British TV. This is simulated by a light shining on his face and the other actors doing voiceovers. One such voiceover was "EXTERMINATE!". I think that most people would recognise this as a reference to the sci-fi show Doctor Who. However, the first episode of Doctor Who was not broadcast until 23 November 1963, and the first use of Daleks was not until 21 December, so there is no way that Roger Roger could have been watching on the 19th.

My word you're boring - Ed.

So is my criticism that they should take this out? No. There's far more important anachronisms that actually affect the plot that don't really matter. I instead think this should be left in as an Easter Egg for the few people like me who notice this stuff, and maybe even to pepper in a few more blatant anachronisms.

I realise that wasn't really constructive or criticism, so I'll mention my second criticism, which is that at one point, Roger Roger tries to place a large bet on an unlikely horse causing a lengthy interchange between the rest of the cast:

Rayner: On Bluebird?! That's 200 to 1! Hey, Bill*! This guy wants to put his money on Bluebird!

Wheatman: On Bluebird?! That's 200 to 1! Hey, Diane*! This guy wants to put his money on Bluebird!

Zerphy: On Bluebird?! That's 200 to 1! Hey, Steve*! This guy wants to put his money on Bluebird!

*Actual names may vary

You may have noticed that they've now run out of cast members. That's because they also told the music director and the sound/lighting technician. However, having got the pattern established, I think it could have been improved if they'd also asked an audience member. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm sure if they asked me I would have given the required reaction.

I appreciate that some people don't like audience participation, but as it's only one line, I think it would have worked, and the show isn't completely adverse to 4th wall breaks.

Constructive criticism 3? 2 1/2? - The end of the first half ends with a countdown, 3...2..1... Go*! Ther performers then said. "To be continued..." before the lights went up. It worked, but I think it could have been improved by instead saying, "Three...Two...Be... Continued!" This would turn an expositional line into a funny line, which still worked with the story but added a bit of humour.

*It's not actually Go but I used Go to avoid spoilers.

One of the later scenes contains a complex knife fight, which involves a knife being thrown and nearly everyone getting stabbed, including the musician! It's quite clever but also pretty obvious how this is done, but I won't ruin it here.

The final thing I wanted to mention was that at one point, Roger gets shot. Another actor then mimes the bullet's movement, in an obvious reference to Hamilton*, but this is different because in this case the victim takes advantage of the bullet's slow movement, trying to step out of the bullet's path. If Alexander Hamilton had thought to do this instead of standing still while rapping, he might still be alive today.

However, the bullet follows Roger around, so he has to pull a very clever trick to escape. I won't spoil what.

*Anyone who now thinks it's unreasonable of me to compare TMWTHKTM (It's even ridiculously long as an acronym!) to Hamilton, I'll point out that it might be nice to have Hamilton on your side.

In summary, TMWTHKTM is a very funny and creative show, and I would definitely recommend seeing it. It's also quite short, running at less than two hours including an interval. Book your tickets here. I shall certainly be following Voloz Collective's future projects, and I suggest you do too.

BONUS: to see one of the more impressive stunts in the show, scroll to the bottom of this page.