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The Missionary’s Position

Published Monday 27 April 2009 at 15:20 by Mark Shenton

Presented in the style of an authentic, old-style music hall entertainment, complete with audience singalong (to I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside), there can hardly be a more appropriate place to have launched Penny Dreadful’s latest production than Hoxton Hall, a venue that the Theatres Trust describe as “one of the most important early music hall buildings now to be seen anywhere” that first opened in 1863 and has now been reinvented as an increasingly dynamic youth arts centre, and where The Missionary’s Position will play again in June following its current UK tour.

Appropriately, too, the subject of this delightful, engaging entertainment is Harold Davidson, a regional vicar who was also intent on improving the lots of others, in particular, young women of the night and those, like waitresses at Lyons Corner House, that might be lured into following in their footsteps - it was a calling that saw him come to be known as Prostitutes’ Padre. But the story suddenly lurches into darker territory when he is accused of the rape of one of them and is subsequently defrocked, before ending his days as a fairground attraction.

This terrific real-life story is played out with bravado, humour and eventually a poignant spirit in Mick Barnfather’s production that meticulously maintains its air of contrived theatricality throughout. The proceedings are finely orchestrated, in every sense, by Matt Devereaux at the piano, with Greg Haiste at once hilarious and touching as the vicar and Marie Lawrence as Barbara, the agent of his downfall.

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