Childhood trauma and obsessive compulsive disorder collide in this somewhat perplexing studio drama at Hampstead Downstairs.
A woman, assured in a white suit, goads the audience in the guise of a motivational speech to look across at each other and ask who you would want to f**k.
A switch in scene places us in a basement office, boxes high, with Richie and Darwin, two researchers. One is driven and ambitious. The other couldn’t care less. They bicker, chat, goad.
We are tricked from the start as Richie listen to the voice in his head, a voice he imagines to have the persona of his boss, Nicole. A being he’s listened to since he was a frightened young boy. This is something of a horror story.
Nicole is also Darwin’s mother and has known Richie since.childhood. Richie’s OCD is about imagining terrible things, overinflating his fantasies, and fixating on women (specifically Nicole, or his ideal of her).
The clues start early on with an executive toy and a playground game. But all too soon, this play loses its subtlety and becomes more tiresome than interesting.
I didn’t care about Richie and his lust for money, power and sex. I didn’t like Nicole in either form, although I almost warmed to her during a moment where her own weaknesses were tweaked.
Darwin is interesting. He has no drive, no focus, no need. He’s born to succeed. He’s the character you want to root for in this weird, perplexing drama.
Set in traverse with characters often set far apart, it feels as if you are at a tennis match where the score rarely progresses beyond love-all. I felt no tension, just irritation.
The performers do their best to make a mark. As Nicole, Allison McKenzie, is all steel and starkness, looking like a parody of a contestant on The Apprentice. An executive monster.
Nathan Clarke, as Richie and Ashley Margolis, as Darwin, have a playful relationship on the surface, but there is a definite leader-follower feeling between them.
The topic of mental illness and OCD is an important one, tackled in numerous plays. Giving the negativity a face is a different approach, but despite the sharpness of the writing, it didn’t work for me.
Perhaps Will Lord’s The Billionaire Inside Your Head got caught up in Richie’s rush to be a winner, a sense that unless you roll in wealth, you lose.
There are so many good ideas here that fizzle out before they are fully explored. Sadly despite Anna Ledwich’s direction mining both laughs and unease, this fell between the two.
The Billionaire Inside Your Head continues at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs until 25 Oct – tickets here.
2.5 stars.
Image credit: Rich Lakos