London stages have recently seen a wave of masterful one-person shows—from Sarah Snook’s twenty‑plus characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray to Andrew Scott’s virtuoso Vanya. These performers show how a shift in posture or voice can populate entire worlds. Jack Holden now joins that distinguished company with Kenrex, embodying the residents of a small Midwestern town who decide to take justice into their own hands.
Holden’s performance is nothing short of a tour de force. Dressed in a nondescript brown suit he shape-shifts between characters as he recounts the story of Ken Rex McElroy, who terrorised Skidmore, Missouri in the early 1980s with guns, petty crime and a constant aura of menace. A few simple set pieces—a doorframe, a ladder, a reel-to-reel tape recorder— form the spare scaffolding for the tale, all sharpened by Ed Stambollouian’s confident direction. An array of microphones not only help Holden distinguish characters, but take on symbolic weight of their own.
Holden’s co-performer, John Patrick Elliott, provides a live score of guitar, drums and original composition that threads through the evening, adding depth and atmosphere. Additional offstage sound design enriches individual moments: a phone keypad, a dog’s growl, the hum of distant traffic. These touches never overwhelm but deepen the world Holden is conjuring.
Holden is in near-constant motion, his energetic storytelling doesn’t allow him a moment’s rest – there isn’t a chair in sight. The show runs two hours, including an interval, but the evening never drags and Holden is never less than mesmerising to watch as he shifts from lawyer, to judge, to shop keeper, to McElroy or his child bride. With such rapid transformations it can at times be overpowering to keep track, but Holden never loses precision.
As the story unfolds, the townspeople reach the limit of their fear and paralysis, and McElroy’s unscrupulous lawyers grow more interested in profit over justice. The tale of the town bully prompts the comparison to a contemporary American politician who is currently terrorising his own country, with a complicit Cabinet and a population unable to organise effective resistance.
Things don’t end well for McElroy as the town finally finds the means to extract revenge. Holden guides us through a tangle of emotions – fear, anger, and sympathy, demanding we also examine our own reactions. The piece recalls the group-think vengeance of Durrenmatt’s The Visit.
Kenrex is gripping, unsettling and a deeply impressive piece of storytelling. Holden’s performance has emotional depth and physical range, supported by direction and design that match his talent at every turn. Both the production and its moral questions linger, and in the best way possible, challenge us to ponder our own moral understanding of true justice, and the rule of law.
Kenrex
Written by: Jack Holden and Ed Stambollouian
Performed by: Jack Holden
Music composed and performed by: John Patrick Elliott
Directed by: Ed Stambollouian
Sound designer: Giles Thomas
Photo credit: Pamela Raith
Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes with one interval
Until: 1 February 2026