For a show built on confusion, pressure and the strange logic of modern life, BoHo seems to leave audiences with something surprisingly simple: relief. The production, a co-production between Hijinx and Theatr Clwyd, follows David Jones, a man trapped in the grind of city life, who is pushed into a surreal space called BoHo after he can no longer keep pace with the system around him. Hijinx describes it as a “dystopian musical misadventure” about what it means to be good enough, to fit in and to keep up.
That premise could easily turn bleak. Instead, reviews suggest the opposite happens on stage. In one account from the show’s 2017 premiere run at Theatr Clwyd, the production was praised as a funny, intimate and oddly uplifting experience, with its small cast holding the room through humour, music and sheer presence. Another review called the work “openly peculiar, different, surprising, and often illogical,” but said that strangeness is exactly what gives the show its force.
At the center of the story is David Jones, an overworked corporate everyman who appears polished on the outside but is quietly buckling under the pressure to perform. According to Hijinx’s synopsis, he is “just another cog” in the city’s wheel until he falls out of sync and is forced into a journey of self-discovery. What follows is less a tidy plot than a descent into a dream state, or maybe a reckoning, where rules collapse and individuality suddenly matters more than efficiency.
That’s where BoHo appears to connect most deeply. Beneath the playful absurdity, the show is really circling familiar questions: What happens when keeping up becomes exhausting? What do people lose when they spend too long performing success? And how do they find their way back? One Welsh review argued that David is not just a finance-world caricature but “an avatar for us all,” a figure carrying the self-doubt and strain that many people know too well.
The production’s surrealism seems to be part of its comfort. Reviewers compared it to a mash-up of Alice in Wonderland, Trainspotting and A Clockwork Orange, with nonsense doctors, symbolic shoes and a world where reality bends just enough to expose the absurdities of ordinary life. It sounds bonkers because, frankly, it is. But that looseness gives the show room to breathe. Instead of lecturing the audience about burnout, identity or social pressure, it turns those anxieties into music, images and odd little jokes.
Music plays a big role in that effect. The original score was composed and directed by Hannah Noone, while Barnaby Southgate served as performer and musician. Reviewers singled out the songs as unusually catchy, with one calling a number from the show impossible to shake. The official Hijinx page also lists Jonathan Dunn as video director and editor, underscoring that the production blends live performance with film and visual design rather than relying on dialogue alone.
The cast itself reflects Hijinx’s wider mission. The company is known for inclusive performance-making, working with disabled and non-disabled artists, and BoHo was presented as part of that approach. Verified cast listings name Daniel Lloyd as David Jones, alongside Lucy Green/White and Kenny Harman, with reviews praising the ensemble’s charm, comic timing and ability to keep the audience engaged in a deliberately unstable world.
In the end, that may be why BoHo lingers. It doesn’t offer a polished, corporate version of hope. It offers something messier and maybe more useful: permission to stop pretending, to lean into the weirdness, and to imagine that survival might begin with stepping outside the script. For audiences worn down by the demand to be efficient, presentable and always “on,” that kind of show can feel less like escapism and more like shelter.
