Review: Higher Ups (Old Red Lion Theatre)

Review by Daz Gale

⭐️⭐️

The Christmas break is over and 2025 is kicking off with the first new shows opening. First out the doors and our first theatre review of the year is the debut of satirical comedy Higher Ups, taking over the Old Red Lion Theatre in Islington for a few days this January. With an intriguing premise and a promise to be a riotous comedy, would this start the year off strong and prove to be a theatrical high?

Set in a top talent agency, the pressurised situation of their annual “Big Daddy” meeting takes an unexpected turn when their boss and mogul Brian Douglas turns up late claiming he has been abducted by “higher beings”. With long-suffering employee Daisy having to deal with co-worker Samuel already on the edge, new employee Natasha having the most eventful first day at work ever and Glynn, a random man who found Brian and has no business being there, this is anything but a normal day at work. The question is how can they stop this day descending into chaos and ruining the legacy of their agency and, most importantly, their bonuses.

There is a lot to unpack in Higher Ups and that is part of the problem itself. The plot becomes convoluted with too many strands, never quite fully developed and extreme changes happening at rapid speed, never allowing the story to fully breathe. The frustration is there is a good story in here and it has plenty of potential but it feels drastically undercooked with uneven writing that shows promise at times but falters at others. Tonally, it feels a bit all over the place, eventually settling for a dark comedy but with an extremely dark shift that hasn’t been set up in the right way so comes across too jarring. Crucially, and one of my biggest issues with the play, it advertises itself as a comedy yet I didn’t find it very funny aside from a couple of moments that raised a smile – I sat in that theatre ready to split my sides from laughter and it didn’t even gain a chuckle. Of course theatre is subjective and I did note laughter from fellow audience members, though this noticeably subsided as the play progressed.

There’s also no way to sugarcoat this – Higher Ups is a weird show, but I believe that was the intent. An acting agency seemingly being overtaken by the instructions of aliens following an abduction is hardly going to be the most subtle of shows, but it becomes a bit too tough to swallow at times. It also thinks it’s a lot funnier than it is with the scenes of Brian listening to a tin of Baked Beans not quite the can of hilarity it hopes to be (though I have to give credit for the ultimate payoff regarding that). Yes, this is meant to be satirical but this satire needed to have layers to it and that was lacking. It’s not as if aliens taking over an acting agency is beyond the realms of possibility – for all I know it’s already happened. That would certainly explain a lot anyway. It just didn’t play out as naturally as you would hope in a story like this, which becomes messier and harder to identify as it progresses.

The direction also felt flawed throughout. While the play was clearly bigger than the extremely limited space the theatre had to offer, the multiple rooms, corridors and doors (meaning they were off stage for too much time) minimised impact and caused problems with sightlines in a production that hadn’t been thought through as meticulously as expected. One pivotal moment was only noticeable by a couple of audience members due to the positioning of two of the characters in the audience itself – simply moving them to the other side of the stage so that the whole audience could clock this key moment would have been the simplest touch but one I believe would have made the moment more impactful.

The cast of five also proved uneven, though I believe this is more to do with the limitations and complications in the writing than their talents. A couple of them did make the best of the situation and attempted to elevate the material with notably the two female characters, Daisy and Natasha, played by Alice Marshall and Gemma Casely-Kirk, delivering the strongest performances. One of the other characters felt incredibly miscast though in a performance that wasn’t so much a caricature but felt as if he was appearing in a different play altogether with not a single nuance to be found.

A note from the writer and director talks of the play’s aims to satirise untouchable men and reclaim the power by laughing at them, putting the womens voices first in male dominated workplaces. It is certainly admirable and I see the irony in having to criticise this in my review. However, I feel their intentions didn’t translate to the stage as well as they could and whatever basic premise and hope they had for Higher Ups somehow got lost along the way.

This was a tricky review to write and not the way I wanted to kick off the year. Higher Ups grabbed my attention from its description, feeling very much like my kind of show. Though this is a two star review, it is not to say that it isn’t without its potential. On the contrary, this is a show that definitely has something to it and I could see it progressing to a higher life once it finds its voice. However, it still needs to workshop itself and develop to pull together all the elements and create one cohesive narrative in order to get there. I do hope there is a further life for this show, however, and will be keen to observe where it goes from here.

Higher Ups plays at the Old Red Lion Theatre until 4th January. Tickets from https://www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk/higher-ups.html

Photos by Charlie Lyne