Magnificent: The Deep Blue Sea, at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, reviewed

Spectator

21-05-2025

Richard Bean appears to be Hampstead Theatre's in-house dramatist, and his new effort, House of Games, is based on a 1987 movie directed by David Mamet.
The script sets up a rather laborious collision between two vastly different cultures. A gang of small-time crooks in Chicago are visited by a beautiful, high-flying, Harvard-educated academic who wants to investigate their lives. The catalyst for this unlikely set-up is therapy. Dr Margaret Ford is a successful shrink whose latest book has become a bestseller and she needs a new theme to write about. She speaks to a troubled young patient who owes $2,000 to a betting syndicate and when she visits their seedy gambling den she's welcomed by the crooks and given an integral role in the team. Just like that. Her job is to observe a drunken card player and to raise the alarm if he gives a 'tell' by touching his crucifix during the game. Margaret performs her role brilliantly and she's embraced by the thugs like a long-lost sister. Despite her chic clothes, perfect hairdo and educated manners, she fits in perfectly with the druggie hoodlums. She even persuades them to let her write about their criminal hustles in her next book. By this stage, Margaret has started to dispense sexual favours to certain members of the gang and this may explain their readiness to accept her as a colleague. To prove her worth she helps them persuade a couple of strait-laced bankers to join a corrupt game of Texas hold 'em.
This daft narrative keeps throwing up more and more twists that seem barely credible.