REVIEW: Look up at the Stars at The Hen and Chickens Theatre 24 – 27 September 2026
“made with tender love and deadly detail” ★★★★
Stephen Wyatt’s LOOK UP TO THE STARS premiered in 2019 and is now on Islington’s pub theatre stage. A camera can take as much as it gives from a film star. And Patricia Meadows, beloved of the screen in the 1954 hit Look Up at the Stars, is no different. After all, the camera light is “burning her skin” but this one-woman show, set in the 1980s after Meadows’ fall from grace, has a more tricksy plot than merely having this actress cry for help.
Its genius comes from what the script doesn’t tell us. Does the showbiz hack she has hired ever actually arrive, and how many of her so-called ‘truths’ will stay true by the end?
It’s a certain hit for anyone who loves gossip, sumptuous dialogue and human-led drama revealing the person behind a celebrity sketch. Actress, singer and illustrator Jessica Martin, who many may know from the 1988 Doctor Who serial The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, plays the perfect drunken heroine, Meadows. Wyatt and Martin have mastered the whole show-not-tell affair that makes theatre zing, whether through how often Meadows stares over at her brandy glass or, even better, the real reason she will only mention her second husband in passing and never fully describe him.
Martin has a wondrous ability to make a film set of the stage. Using her eyes to establish where the camera sits in the audience and making Meadows come alive in front of it - she gives the character a narcissistic magic that keeps us hooked. Wyatt’s words only affirm this when she has a meltdown, wailing that “...nobody is interested, no one turned up at court,” when she stole a pound of mince from Fortnum & Mason. One would expect no less from a Sony Radio Award-winning writer whose theatre and TV work has received plenty of critical acclaim.
Despite the play becoming a tad too repetitive and some of the pauses feeling a little too long, the lighting was aided by a detailed set to make this play a treat. A woozy, jazz-filled soundtrack straight from the 1950s only helped with the audience’s ability to float in this world of lights, camera, action.
It’s, all in all, a wonderful show made with tender love and deadly detail. With a few tweaks here and there, one only hopes it will be a sold-out hit at the box office.
LOOK UP TO THE STARS by Mirror & Mask Productions runs at The Hen and Chickens Theatre
Cast
Jessica Martin
Creatives
Written by: Stephen Wyatt
Directed by: Jason Moore
Produced by: Mirror & Mask Productions
