Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Tickets and more information: https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/show/cops/
Booking until: 1st February 2020
Run time: 2hr 15mins
Production photos by: Robert Day

Set in a late 1950s Chicago police department, Cops follows the dynamic between 5 police officers who are all facing their own internal secrets in their own lives while maintaining suspicion of their fellow colleagues. In a play with not much plot, the play itself is just so uninteresting that it ultimately becomes a boring artefact of the times.

The main gripe I had with the play was that the tone of it felt very off. I found that the play wasn’t sure if it wanted to be a buddy cop comedy with the way the characters riffed off each other. Or if it wanted to be a serious drama. The main themes the play tackles is toxic masculinity and societal racism which it does well through writer Tony Tortora’s dialogue. But then the tone shifts by the inclusion of time fillers, such as misogynistic dialogue and mocking deaf people that just isn’t funny like it tries to be. I just didn’t see the point of it. As well as this, I just found that overall it was a really boring play. Not much happens but I found the characters weren’t interesting enough for me to be invested in the play. And I was just bored for a lot of it, particularly in act 2.

That said, there are some great performances that make up for it. Daniel Francis delivers a great performance as Rosey and Jack Flammiger makes an impressive professional stage debut as Foxy. The set design by Anthony Lamble packs a lot into the Little space and transforms from each location in the play effortlessly. But overall, I did find the play to be mostly boring with the exception of some wonderful performances.

Until next time,