Kerouac: And - All - That - Jazz

It's hard to write an homage to the Beat King that does him justice. Kerouac: And-All-That-Jazz demonstrates this excellently. The writing pales dismally in comparison to extracts read out loud from On the Road and other works. This plodding, slow-paced and poorly-acted production makes the audience partake in the nostalgia of the show, as they wish for the real, undeniably talented Kerouac or Ginsberg to be on stage, rather than their contemporary enactors.

The plot initially revolves around Kerouac reconciling himself with his older self – the two hug at the end of the play in a superfluously cheesy moment. But the story turns into a cacaphony of narrative voices, as Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady's first wife explain to Kerouac's mother the incestuous love lives of Kerouac and his friends. Why the old fashioned Catholic lady would have wanted to know about their menages-à-trois in the first place is up for debate.

The only redeeming quality of this production is its worthy subject matter: the “angel-headed hipster” and his writings, plus the soundtrack of Mingus and Fitzgerald. Yet it is not enough to dress up in fifties-style clothes and recite beat poetry to be cool. And the cast, though playing the part of sexually-frustrated, exhilirated and sleep-deprived young men in their twenties, are old and unenergized, barely able to muster an occasional bebop rant. The Beat generation is dead, and sadly, this production helped in killing it.