Review by Simon Jenner, June 4th 2025
They’ve always been there, most of us knew it. But it’s taken Charlie Josephine’s I, Joan to reimagine Joan’s opening address: “Truth is, queerness is magic, pure magic! We are beautiful, and powerful, and for that we are killed.” Present tense of course. With its Globe premiere in September 2022, Isobel Thom made their professional debut: probably the greatest in living memory, certainly the greatest I’ve seen. No pressure for Daisy Miles, full-time Joan of Arc impersonator, making her BLT debut in a blazingly committed team helmed by director Mimi Goddard (with onstage Bradley Coffey as assistant director). Miles storms it in an outstanding performance.
Laurits Hiroshi Bjerrrum and Lionel De Swarte Danko. Photo Credit: Miles Davies
There’s more of that in this two-hours-30 traversal of a voice we always suspected, which even with a near 30-mimute interval, shaves 20 minutes off the Globe’s production, and three cast-members. This pacey, sprung production is always moving: it happens fast, furious with all the Fs between (a lot of Fs).
Miles grabs Josephine’s (and Thom’s) creation with their own throat, Puck in a shimmering breastplate spinning like some centripetal force through and above the BOAT audience on occasion; and mostly onstage in the grassy lozenge stage. Blocking and movement is excellent, so Coffey’s and Godard’s costumes throw bright-coloured actors around a curvy rampart that bends danger with precision. Even to Patti Griffiths’ wig. It’s vertiginous, exhilarating. Great shields and gear too, though surely the wooden swords might have made a braver show. Steven Adams as ever supplies some scene-painting.
The sheer energy of it is amplified in Millie Edinburgh’s sound and Beverley Grover’s (latterly) lighting. A riffing of 80s beat music ends wittily with Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Go Your Own Way’.
We open with more BLT debuts. Lionel De Swarte-Danko’s striding Charles the Dauphin “bored” which despite his terrific energy (he doesn’t yet know how strong his voice is, even in open air) is a scene a bit long before the real power emerges: storytelling Shaw managed more wittily, that Josephine relays here like a duty.
Ensemble. Photo Credit: Miles Davies
To have pulled this show together at short notice with this degree of energy is exceptional. There’s a few unadjusted vocals and positioning but it’s the first night, Josephine’s text throws first-play challenges and the achievement here is astonishing.
This is to judge at the highest level Josephine’s play demands. BLT’s cast and creatives deserve the highest praise for believing in and lifting a behemoth of lyrical ecstasy, trimming occasionally diffuse minutes. Don’t wait, though. It’s the first blaze of summer, and we need Josephine’s fire and Joan’s voices for the furies ahead.
Miles, supremely, Bjerrum and Bloy excel in a fine cast and prove this clarion of a play can rise again triumphantly even without Thom, at Brighton’s answer to the Globe. Groundbreaking.
Stage Manager Vicky Horder
Set Design Painting Steven Adams,
Wig Patti Griffiths, Photography Miles Davies
Claire Wiggins and Daisy Miles. Photo Credit: Miles Davies
