The title is, in a certain sense, misleading. Sure, this is a play about the celebrated late fashion designer Lee “Alexander” McQueen, who committed suicide five years ago just before his 41st birthday. But what this strange and compelling piece by James Philips isn’t is a bio-play leading us diligently down the years. Instead, the trippy action unfolds over one long night of the soul somewhere very near the end of McQueen’s troubled, high-achieving life.
The play opened to mixed reviews at the St James Theatre in May but, reworked somewhat, it’s not unworthy of a limited run in the West End. There’s a dreamy gauze to John Caird’s stylish production, as dancers got up to look like fashion mannequins spin and strut between scenes. There is too an oddly beautiful design from David Farley and Timothy Bird, with kaleidoscopic video imagery nodding to the themes of McQueen’s catwalk shows.
Lee (Stephen Wight), anxious and wakeful, comes across mysterious young Dahlia (Carly Bawden) intruding in his house; she wants, she says, a beautiful dress and a night of adventure. Together they set off on a surreal journey through McQueen’s dreams and nightmares, past and future, with Dahlia remaining admirably at the less irksome end of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl spectrum. Could she, perhaps, be a projection of McQueen’s own restless mind?
The play certainly has its peaks and troughs, but Bawden and Wight are never less than watchable. Wight is particularly fine, with warmth and wit shading constantly into something far darker. He’s the stand-out piece from this particular collection.
Until November 7 (020 7930 8800)
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