My Cultural Life - London

‘Madonna and Me’ by Tommy Kearney is a charming coming-of-age story that centres around a group of six friends growing up in the working-class Liverpool of the 1980s and 90s, and follows the events that challenge their notions of friendship and loyalty. As unemployment, date rape, homelessness, unrequited love and infidelity deepen the bonds and divisions within the group, it is the discovery of Adam’s homosexuality that marks its eventual breakdown. The collapse of the group consolidates Adam’s new sense of his own identity and punctuates the beginning of his adulthood.

Madonna is the seventh character in the play and her influence on Adam is as great as any of his friends': she dares him to dance at the local disco while the other boys are hanging back at the edge of the floor; challenges him to come to terms with his attraction to her male troupe of dancers; and reassures him that it’s okay to ‘Express Yourself’ by coming out. As in real life, though, she isn’t without mischief, bringing trouble when highly-sexed Leanne uses the erotic ‘Justify my Love’ as a means of seduction, much to Adam - the homosexual object of desire’s – alarm.

If Madonna is the catalyst for Adam’s self-realisation, it is the lovely Paula who makes it possible. Feisty but fragile, she is a beautifully drawn character whose petite, exuberant blondeness is rather reminiscent of Madge herself, albeit with a broad scouse accent. Annmarie Hodson gives an energetic, heartfelt performance that adds depth and poignancy to each of the scenes she is in. The other female actors also give impressive performances: Suzanne Roche, who plays the sensible, virginal Mandy, is particularly believable, while Madeleine Harland, the sassy and somewhat shallow Leanne, displays some fine comedic acting. The whole cast do an admirable job, through their body language and speech, of evoking teenagedom in the early scenes and manage to sustain high energy levels throughout.  

The play drips with authenticity, taking you right back to the days of hanging around on the street, school discos and your first clumsy experiments with love and sex, although a couple of scenes (like the one at the 'Who's That Girl?' concert) seem a little too faithful to the playwright’s memories and would benefit from more brutal editing. Others (including the narration) are less convincing. An unexpected comic sketch of a job interview, although well-written and performed,  seems out-of-place and has the effect of jolting the audience back into reality.

The story also isn't quite what it says on the tin: Adam, in narrator mode, asks us to ponder a couple of questions too many on the nature of friendship and loyalty, even though the real themes of the play are surely less about friendship and more about sexual awakening, the journey into adulthood, and, crucially,  the ability of music to add definition to our experiences (as the title would suggest).  Personally, I would have liked to have seen Madonna’s music woven into Adam's narrative to an even greater degree and a little less attention paid to his mates' stories.

Despite these small gripes, the play’s affectionate humour and rampant nostalgia combine to make ‘Madonna and Me’ a toe-tappingly enjoyable and engaging experience, no doubt all the more so for those of us whose own adolescence was played out to the music of the incomparable Madonna.