OMNIBUS THEATRE LONDON – UNTIL 8th SEPTEMBER 2024
REVIEWED BY JACKIE THORNTON
4****
Beyonce’s Texas Hold -Em blasts out as we open on protagonist Conor (Harry Evans), alone in his bedroom, strutting his cowboy dance moves without a care in the world. “Country and Western is cool!” he later protests as his less than impressed bestie Zainab (Nusrath Tapadar) refuses to cut him any slack. Conor, played with charm, innocence and zest by Evans, has his heart set on competing in Croydon Peoples Day talent contest where first prize is a meeting with Leona Lewis’s American agent. This could be his ticket out of dreary Croydon and his unglamorous lifeguard job of blowing his whistle and telling off swimmers for pissing in the pool.
With a little help from the dance skills and borrowed cowboy boots of acerbic Zainab, brilliantly realised by Tapadar who manages to capture her feisty spirit but also a deep rooted vulnerability, Conor might just have a chance. But when fellow lifeguard Michael, with his own musical ambition and dreams of escaping Croydon, muscles his way into accompanying Conor with an unwittingly comic song about being a lifeguard, Conor’s priorities are tested. Callum Broome puts in several scene stealing performances as the dopey, melancholic geezer who finds practically everything “weird”.
Queer playwright Hugo Timbrell wanted to write about a protagonist from a marginalised group whose narrative isn’t about them being marginalised and he’s certainly succeeded in doing so. My Life as a Cowboy is about the power of friendship, ambition, dreaming big and although there are some references to what might be appropriate for a Muslim woman to do in public, the only threat to the trio performing are personal squabbles and their own nerves. Scott Le Crass’s direction leans into the vivid, individual voices of Conor, Zainab and Michael and capitalises on the character-driven humour of the piece.
Simple yet effective staging seamlessly shifts us between Conor’s bedroom, the swimming pool and the talent contest with a wonderful array of country tracks punctuating the changes. It all makes for an uplifting, camp and joyful evening’s entertainment calling on everyone to embrace their inner weirdo!