THEATRE / Rose English's My Mathematics - Royal Festival Hall, London SE1
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Rose English's one-night show relied on the assumption that the whole would add up to more than the sum of its parts: this was not to be. Despite her personal charm, the evening was a tedious ramble through mathematical musings which were never more than lightweight and failed to reach any form of coherence, let alone a conclusion.
The character English assumed for the evening was that of a faded circus performer, Rosita Clavel. Her glory days are over, and her troupe is reduced to one accordionist (Ian Hill) and a (real) palomino horse which appeared in the second half. Through her (one-way) conversations with the horse, 'my Mathematica', English came to the conclusion that: 'We are all animals.' Big deal.
Most of the show consisted, however, of English addressing the audience as herself, either wearing a silver fish-tail dress and 3ft-long false eyelashes, or, in the second half, a shiny white leotard, ankle boots and buttock-revealing tights.
The purpose of this latter outfit was to allow her to sit bare-back on the horse, facing away from the audience in a pose reminiscent of cowboys riding off into the sunset at the end of a western - an amusing visual image but, like the content of the show itself, this display of bare-faced cheek had no bottom.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments