REVIEW: MERMAIDS HAVE NO TEARS at Barons Court Theatre 29 April – 17 May 2025

‘There’s potential for something really interesting and fantastical’ ★★

Bringing a Gen Z twist to a classic fairytale, Mermaids Have No Tears takes Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and uses it as a lens to understand the world in 2025.

Meeting at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, new-in-town environmental activist Fyn (Everleigh Brenner) begins a relationship with an idealistic, aspiring professional mermaid, Morgan (Olivia Van Opel), a young woman so committed to her ambition that she’s convinced herself she’s a real one and pretty much lives in a bathtub. This tongue-in-cheek, is-she-isn’t-she claim adds an intriguing element of magical realism to the piece, which stands it out from the crowd and does add a believable touch of magic from the off.

Over the course of a year, while Fyn explores their gender and Morgan opens up their relationship, into the mix comes Fyn’s friend, Wade (Jack Flammiger). He, while sleeping with Morgan, is secretly in love with Fyn. It’s a nice setup that quickly becomes bogged down by a series of socio-political issues and sometimes incongruous detours into Andersen’s life as told by Wade.

The coupling of environmentalism with the fairytale, however, is fascinating, bang on trend, and clever. It is an accessible and deeply poignant way of making a point about our precious planet, without ever coming across as preachy. There’s something wonderfully, politically cynical, culturally satirical, and heartbreakingly moving in Morgan’s response to Fyn’s observation that her tail can’t be real as it’s polyester, by remarking that her species is reclaiming plastic pollution.

The subject of gender though, while some interesting parallels can be drawn, feels more shoehorned in for topical relevance than a real and genuine exploration of the matter. It doesn’t mean or add anything, especially as it’s nobody’s story in particular. There’s Fyn’s journey of gender self-discovery; there’s Wade’s bisexuality, unrequited love and polyamorous epiphany (“should we be a throuple?!”); there’s Morgan’s slow acceptance of maturity, reality, and adulthood. There’s…basically too much. And this queerification of absolutely everything makes for cluttered and unfocused storytelling. That’s not helped by the fact that, ironically, they’re actually great performances, which means the characters seem to jostle unintentionally for position as the protagonist and the audience can’t develop any connection to them.

At times then, it comes across like an underdeveloped play and an overdeveloped stand-up routine, as Wade’s smart, witty, and wacky monologues (albeit slightly random in the context of the story) throughout the show provide the real star quality here, meaning the actual action, the duologues, feel like plotless padding. Really, Flamminger kind of makes the piece, with his full-throated, though inconsistently characterised, performance as Wade, a literature lecturer, whose eccentric lessons punctuate the show. His hilariously camp portrayals of Hans Christian Andersen in various skits about the legendary writer’s own sexuality and unrequited love are fun and modestly disguise their own intelligence.

In this way, Ellis Stump is clearly a great writer, and the 85-minute runtime is well-sustained, even without much of a driving force to speak of. The pace, structure, and actual words are good, with a natural professionalism. The jokes are funny, though sometimes drowned out by double-speed, and the waves of maritime puns are excellent. Julia Sopher’s direction is creative and thoughtful, if a bit frantic, and the set and costumes of recycled materials are richly considered.

Overall, I think there’s potential for something really interesting and fantastical in this play. For me, though, it’s a bit thematically confused. With this amount of weight, it was either going to sink or swim, and at the moment I think it might be closer to the former. Or it’s at least treading water. All that said though, there is something here. These are interesting seas. In the grand scheme of things, this mermaid’s got legs.

MERMAID HAVE NO TEARS by Ellis Stump

Directed by Julia Sopher

Barons Court Theatre, 29 April – 17 May 2025

Box Office: https://www.baronscourttheatre.com/mermaids

Reviewed by Alix Owen