Kids will enjoy this new show at the West End’s newest theatre more than adults: Marvellous, @sohoplace, reviewed

London has a brand-new theatre – yet again. Last summer, a cabaret venue opened in the Haymarket for the first time. More recently, the Marylebone Theatre near Regent’s Park held its debut show. And now Nica Burns of Nimax Theatres has announced a new venture, @sohoplace, which she says is the first West End venue to open for 50 years.

The playing area is a hoop-shaped enclosure with rising tiers of seats overlooking a deep oblong pit. Cage fighting and mud-wrestling could be staged here to great advantage. The poster for the debut show, MARVELLOUS, features the title in bright pastel letters with a yellow balloon, a pair of clown’s shoes and a perky budgerigar.

The image suggests a heart-warming children’s comedy or a feelgood high-school musical. In fact it’s a biographical play about a working-class oddball, Neil from Newcastle-under-Lyme, who led a peculiar life as a casual labourer. His story unfolds in a series of vignettes. He inherits minor cognitive and physical handicaps which expose him to bullies at school. His mother asks him about his future and he announces his plan to become a clown or a vicar. He achieves both ambitions. He wants to study at Keele University but rather than applying for a place, he simply shows up on campus each day and turns himself into a regular fixture. (A smart move – no fees to pay.)

He’s employed by Stoke City Football Club as a boot-polisher and a mascot. He joins a circus. He becomes a minister. He seeks autobiographies and bags the signatures of Harold Wilson and Kevin Keegan. Do you get the idea? The show is a list of actions which don’t add up to a drama. Neil bumbles through life, like Zelig or Forrest Gump, observing events without affecting them.