What happens when an influencer meets a would-be thief? Well, Matthew Greenhough’s The Death of Molly Miller is going to tell you.
When influencer Molly Miller comes home to find Tommy burgling her house, the situation quickly devolves into an accidental hostage solution. The pair talk and find they have more in common than first thought.
For much of The Death of Molly Miller, you find yourself rooting for the unlikely pair. Molly in particular steals the show with sassy quips and eyerolls galore. While Tommy’s plight is undoubtedly rocky, especially once you learn more of his backstory in lengthy anecdotes, the overacted screaming and sobbing goes on for a little too long to be believable.
In general, the conversations between the pair don’t always translate as genuine. One moment, they are bickering, the next they’re patiently listening to each other in a relationship trajectory that doesn’t quite track.
I’d be willing to look past these inconsistencies, but the frustrating end to the play does leave me wondering what the point of the entire debacle was.
Directed by Jonny Kelly, the staging of the play is undoubtedly impressive, with edged lighting around its circular edge evoking thoughts of a ring light popularly used by influencers. The literal centre of the stage is occupied by a chair, on which Molly will sit and Tommy will panic around from various angles for much of the play.
What’s more, there are several moments of genuine comedy, coupled with interesting discussions around class and wealth. However, it does feel that The Death of Molly Miller fails to over something new to the discussion around influencers and class inequality, two topics of conversation that are both very well-trodden.
Ultimately, The Death of Molly Miller needed to go a step further and higher in order to pull off the cutting commentary that it aimed for.
