Hand to God
Vaudeville Theatre,London W2
3/5

Robert Askins’s Tony award-winning play is set in small-town Texas, where recently-widowed Margery has been asked by the local pastor to run the church’s puppet club.

There are only three people in it — her son Jason and teenagers Jessica and Timothy and, when Jason realises that his puppet Tyrone is beginning to take him over, he rips him in two.

But Tyrone refuses to be cast aside and returns, this time with teeth and an attitude.

It’s at this point that Hand to God really takes off and by it’s conclusion we have had the lot — blood, sex, blasphemy and swearing.

Lots of swearing, by everyone.

Even the pastor, who to start with resolutely refuses to swear — “Son of a biscuit!” he exclaims at one point early on — has joined in.

But is it Tyrone who draws the focus as he increasingly takes control of Jason, saying the things that the latter would rather have left unsaid and causing carnage as he does so.

Harry Melling’s terrific performance, doubling as Jason and Tyrone, creates two convincing and distinct characters, even though Tyrone is constantly on the end of Jason’s arm and you can see him speaking Tyrone’s lines.

But the difficulty with a play in which one character dominates, even when that character is a grey sock with a tuft of red hair, is that the other characters never get the chance to develop.

In the scenes featuring them I found myself thinking: “This is all very well but let’s have Tyrone on again.”

There’s also the question of whether audiences on this side of the Atlantic will believe that puppets can be used in religious practice.

But, apparently, that’s the way it is across the pond.

And in real life over there, when you have an offensive character with synthetic hair, he might just decide to run for president.

Runs until June 11, box office: vaudeville-theatre.co.uk

Review by Mark Dean