Cole Escola’s smash Broadway hit makes a hilarious West End landing in yet another play that sends up a piece of American history.

This time, it is Mary Todd Lincoln (Mason Alexander Park), wife of Abraham Lincoln (Giles Terrera), who gets the theatrical treatment, with Escola’s script fictionalising her relationship with her presidential husband, as a woman on the edge of a clear breakdown, desperate to return to the stage and to the cabaret stardom she so dreams of. 

It is a delightfully funny comedy, riotous in form and in punchlines, with increasingly more outrageous and outlandish skits that are impossible not to find amusing. Park’s tremendous portrayal of Mary Todd is an awful lot of fun, with Escola’s script providing Park with plenty of opportunities not just for wordplay comedy, but silly slapstick routines too. Mary flits around the stage, causing great chaos for Abraham and those in the White House, with Park’s energy a terrific blend of Mary’s fierce anger to be heard and fierce determination to cause trouble. Mary, permanently drunk and gloriously resentful towards her husband, stomps and stamps across the stage yelling, cursing and gyrating much to the disdain of those around her. You cannot help but be swept up in the chaos of it all, from Mary’s drunken, explicit rants, through to a brilliant sequence as she tries to get off of Lincoln’s desk. Over the 80 minutes, it is a masterclass in comedic acting, and timing, and Park scintillates in making this very American role and its very American sense of humour translate well to a West End audience. 

Alongside Park, Giles Terrera is on great form as Abraham Lincoln (billed as Mary’s Husband), who, in this version of his life, is not just trying to hold his country together in the face of a civil war, but is also grappling with his own sexuality too. Making Lincoln’s closeted character the punchline could be misinterpreted, yet in this version, it is played brilliantly by Terrera, whose poise in the role is a neat contrast to Park’s deliberate chaos. It is over the top and outrageous in equal measure, with Lincoln’s pleading to God a repeated motif that gets funnier with each crudely funny conclusion. Both Park and Terrera ooze comedic class in this play, and it is a deft touch by Escola, as well as director Sam Pinkleton, to have each performer almost continuously one-up each other in the comedy stakes, mirroring the powerplay between embittered husband and wife.  

The pair are supported by a strong, small ensemble who each bring something to the play’s bawdy humour. Kate O’Donnell’s Louise (Mary’s Chaperone) is instantly memorable for one particularly outlandish sequence, while Oliver Stockley’s mistreated assistant to Lincoln enhances the openly lewd comedy. Dino Fetscher rounds off the cast as Mary’s acting teacher (a neat twist when his true identity is revealed), adding even more melodrama to the already larger-than-life production.

Dots’ set design works well to add to the farcical nature of Escola’s script. Characters fly in and out of winged entrances to keep the piece’s punchy pace going, while the move to a saloon in a later scene is a perfect capture of Wild West Americana. It is a neat design that works well to give space to Mary’s chaos, rather than impede it. 

By the end of this frantic comedy, it is hard to keep pace with Mary’s whirlwind life and even harder to catch your breath, such is the sheer volume of jokes that fly out. Oh Mary! is a brilliant, bold, brash comedy that puts Mary firmly in the spotlight in an increasingly unhinged and hysterical way. A welcome Broadway addition to London’s West End.