The Narcissist at Chichester Festival Theatre: Review - This is why constantly checking your mobile phone can destroy your life

The constant distraction of incoming information on mobile phones is the addiction of the 21st century.

Texts, voicemails, and social media updates have rendered many people incapable of sustaining a face to face conversation for more than a few minutes.

Christopher Shinn’s new play The Narcissist at the Minerva Theatre at Chichester was delayed for two years due to covid – and some members of the audience have loyally held on to their tickets throughout that period.

It was worth the wait.

In a beautifully constructed format, we see how all these conflicting and various interactions play out in one man’s life. On a series of mini platforms, cast members speak their texts while the action of the play takes place on the stage in front of them.

In one sense it is a political drama – the debates between adviser Jim (Harry Lloyd) and Senator (Claire Skinner) who craves his help to establish herself as a US presidential candidate.

In another, it is a brutal assessment of modern cultures and changing public values.

Jim has come to the conclusion that the public are too angry and disillusioned to have much faith that politicians can make their lives better – that the world is now run by the big global corporations rather than the White House, and anyone seeking high office should understand where the public mood really sits.

As he argues his case to the Senator, a whole series of other dramas are unfolding.

His loss of focus on a book he is co-authoring, the breakdown of his marriage, his brother’s addiction to opioids, and his bi-sexual attraction to a waiter (Stuart Thompson) which leads him to sending some career-defining texts and private images.

The irony is that the only time he turns off his phone is when he misses the most important message of all about his brother. Nothing in life is quite straightforward.

This is a fabulous cast, ticking off a whole list of issues which dominate so many lives.

Harry Lloyd gives a stand-out performance in what will be a jewel of the season – two years’ late but in the current political climate never better timed.