Like its subject, this playful, exuberant theatrical happening wins you over with sheer heart and good humour. Staffordshire’s Neil ‘Nello’ Baldwin, now 76, was diagnosed with learning difficulties – “they didn’t call it that back then” – aged four. He didn’t let that stop him becoming a circus clown, a kit-man for Stoke City FC, a fixture at Keele University, a minor celebrity and a fearless autograph hunter who numbers Harold Wilson, Kevin Keegan and our new king among his conquests.
He’s already been immortalised in a book and a TV film starring Toby Jones, and now he storms the West End’s newest theatre in the protean shape of Michael Hugo, to disrupt and disarm the other actors assembling a stage-collage of his life. Director Theresa Heskins has assembled a neurodiverse troupe, all of whom play versions of Neil – under the beady gaze of Hugo’s “Real Neil” – and countless figures from his life. One actor fell ill yesterday and two understudies stepped seamlessly in. Talk about triumph over adversity, and life imitating art.
