Broken Legs Blog

Rounding off the annual Classic Thriller Season at Nottingham Theatre Royal is Karoline Leach’s “The Mysterious Mr Love”, which takes the audience back to 1910 for a romantic comedy with a sinister twist.

The play tells the story of the eponymous George Love (John Goodrum), a scoundrel who begins by proudly telling the audience all about his various romantic scams, in which he seduces vulnerable women and takes their life savings. Love is an inherently dislikeable character, and yet there is something in Goodrum’s delivery that makes you appreciate his blatant indifference to the sorry situations that he inflicts on his victims. His lines are delivered with a cheeky grin, a wink at the audience, and a slight skip in his step that suggests he enjoys the art of seduction and subterfuge even more than the money he earns from it.

Enter Love’s next potential victim: Ms Adelaide (Sarah Wynne Kordas), a young woman who works in the backroom of a milliners (as she puts it, she is not pretty enough to be customer facing). Love immediately sizes Adelaide up as a worthy conquest – her brown clothes and shy nature suggesting to him that she is naturally unlucky in love. Thus he begins his game of charming her, whilst continually turning to the audience with witty asides that allow us to see his true motivations.

This opening act is fairly enjoyable, and the cat-and-mouse nature of George and Adelaide’s initial encounters is incredibly fun. This playful seduction results in a spur-of-the-moment wedding, and a honeymoon in Weston-super-Mare, where things take a slightly darker turn as Adelaide reveals some horrifying details of her childhood. It is clear that George is beginning to develop feelings for her, and has doubts about continuing with his plan to steal her savings, and this culminates in a rather lovely scene where George and Adelaide spend their entire wedding night playing card games and drinking tea.

The play is an incredibly slow burn, made enjoyable by the natural chemistry between the two actors. In the second act, the play slams on the brakes even further, with the story becoming more and more focused on the small character moments, although this feels incredibly repetitive. It is difficult to understand why this play would be chosen for the “thriller” season, as nothing about it is very thrilling. If you’re looking for an in-depth character study, then this will be right up your street, but don’t expect any surprises or heart-stopping tension.

The set design is rather interesting – abstract cloth pillars displaying hats from Adelaide’s shop, which occasionally the actors wear or use as other objects, such as music records. The staging allows for easy transitions between scenes, as the action takes us to various different locations, and the transitions between these locations are done rather well.

A final twist arrives in the closing moments, which seemingly undoes a lot of the groundwork set up earlier in the play, and ends up feeling rather unnecessary. It makes a lot of the previous moments feel pointless, and Goodrum’s performance does nothing to foreshadow this sudden turn of events. The entire play, which is seemingly all leading up to a happy ending, instead leaves you feeling cold and cheated – perhaps in a similar way to Ms Adelaide.

Would I recommend this show? There is certainly a stellar display of acting, and Goodrum and Kordas realise these two characters and their fraught relationship perfectly. Those expecting anything as thrilling or surprising as last week’s show are bound to be disappointed, but if you are looking for an easy watch, with characters that are easy to invest in, then you will find this an enjoyable evening.

Tom Morley, August 2024