Review: Oh, Mary! Brings (More) Disrepute To The White House
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Last Updated 22 December 2025
If the White House's current incumbent has slathered that hallowed office in sleaze and disrepute, then Oh, Mary! is right behind him.
The on-stage desk only just about manages to remain resolute in this rollicking bad taste comedy — in which it suffers the indignity of having one of its corners humped by a horny Mary Todd Lincoln, as well as seeing an aide pleasure her husband from beneath it, before the post-coital POTUS vows to God: "No more gay!"
The seeds of this uncivil Civil War romp ("We defeated the South!" exclaims Mary's husband. "The south of what?!" replies Mary) were sown in 2009, when comedian Cole Escola wrote an email to themself. It was the nub of an idea for a play in which Mary Todd Lincoln is a wannabe cabaret star, stifled by her VIP husband. The resulting 80-minute farce-of-a-farce — which rocked Broadway last year — isn't actually fleshed out all that much more (plus a stern post-show email forbids us from revealing pretty much any of the plot) but if you're in the market for bucket-loads of camp gales of laughter (and at one point Mary does do something vile with a bucket), you've come to the right theatre.
On the West End, Escola's original role of catty boozehound Mary ("That Fucking Witch" as her own husband refers to her) is played with half-possessed flawlessness by Mason Alexander Park, swiping at long-suffering aides with her claws one second, careening at hunky acting teachers the next. This performance alone — how Park's hysterically impractical crinoline dress becomes a prop that magnifies Mary's abysmal traits — is enough to see the show through. Perhaps Oh, Mary! won't quite have the bombshell impact over here — a city where comedians like Kim Noble run riot — as it did in NYC. Still, it's dashed good throw-away entertainment, a fresh way to laugh at the White House without the usual afterthought: 'We're all going to die'.
We recently pondered whether Oh, Mary! might become the West End's next Hamilton. To be honest, four more years might be pushing it, but as a certain President might say, we'll see what happens.
Oh, Mary! Trafalgar Theatre, booking until 25 April 2026
