Category: London Productions

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The Unfriend by Steven Moffat, dir. Mark Gatiss, starring Reece Shearsmith – review

Triumphant comedy debut from Doctor Who & Sherlock writer


★★★★★

Production photo from The Unfriend at the Minerva Theatre in Chichestershowing Amanda Abbington Frances Barber and Reece Shearsmith May 2022
Amanda Abbington, Frances Barber & Reece Shearsmith in The Unfriend. Photo: Manuel Harlan

What connects Doctor Who, Sherlock, The League Of Gentleman and No 9? The answer is The Unfriend, a new laugh-a-minute comedy that’s just opened at Chichester Festival Theatre’s Minerva. I’ll give you all the connections in a moment.

For now, let’s just say that Steven Moffat, writer and show runner for Doctor Who, and creator of Sherlock, has finally got round to writing a stage play, at the age of 60. It’s encouraging for we older folk to think it’s never too late, but I doubt there are many playwrights of any age who could make such a triumphant debut. It’s a long time since I laughed so much at the theatre. The man has comedy bones. He knows how to make old jokes sound fresh and natural. He understands how to give the actors the opportunity to use their faces and their bodies.

And what actors. Frances Barber is a loud confident American who turns out to be a serial poisoner, Reece Shearsmith and Amanda Abbington are the couple she befriends and who then can’t get rid of her, because they’re too polite. Although much of the praise should go to Frances Barber’s bravura performance, I loved Reece Shearsmith’s comic timing and panic-stricken face.

First the connections. Steven Moffat is probably best known as a writer and eventually showrunner for Doctor Who during the first decade or so of its new incarnation. He then created the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock which was co-written by Mark Gatiss who directs The Unfriend and we know him from The League Of Gentlemen, which also starred Reece Shearsmith, who cowrites Inside No.9, and stars in The Unfriend, which also stars Amanda Abbington who was Watson’s wife in Sherlock and Frances Barber who played Madame Kovarian in Doctor Who when Steven Moffat was the show runner. So they know one another and they work well together.

When Elsa arrives at Peter and Debbie’s suburban English house, you get a glimpse of their front door which has the number 9 on it. A little in-joke maybe, but it’s a hint that we shouldn’t be surprised that it turns out she’s no simple pain in the neck. They soon discover she’s a serial murderer- and they’re  still too polite to chuck her out. You might think this a stretch but it’s absolutely believable, not least because they’re aware of their own embarrassment. This is a comedy of manners, literally.

It’s non stop laughter with Frances Barber, Reece Shearsmith & Amanda Abbington

mandaI suspect how much you like it may depend on how much you identify with the self-defeating politeness and embarrassment of our suburban English couple. If you are happy to complain about the service in a restaurant, talk to your doctor about intimate infections, and barter with salespeople, you may well find this plot unbelievable.

You might also refuse to suspend your disbelief because the characters seem too much like stereotypes. The overly polite Brits who won’t say what they’re thinking; the brash American who makes jokes about a woman who is obese. But the thing is, the whole world is divided between people who are non-confrontational person and those who are blunt-to the-point-of-rudeness. But, there’s more than that, because Steven Moffat subverts each stereotype. Peter is actually quite rude but he doesn’t express it verbally- for example, he ignores his neighbour even when he’s in the room talking to him. And our call-a-spade-a bloody-shovel American may be a killer but she has a positive effect on this disfunctional family. The previously grunting son and negative daughter- two more stereotypes who turn out to have depth, and beautifully played by Gabriel Howell and Maddie Holliday, become happy chatty loving kids. ‘She’s Murder Poppins,’ says Debbie.

Production photo from The Unfriend at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester showing Maddie Holliday, Frances Barber & Gabriel Howell in May 2022
Maddie Holliday, Frances Barber & Gabriel Howell in The Unfriend. Photo: Manuel Harlan

By the way, the neighbour is a classic bore, but he too serves a more subtle function by reminding us of the claustrophobia of suburban life with its low level, passive-aggressive (as Elsa says) rankling about boundary walls and parking spaces, and therefore why residents of estates might need to be overly polite just to prevent all hell breaking loose. The neighbour is played to droning but sly-eyed perfection by Michael Simkins.

We also meet a police officer who is not a stereotype, not in the sense of the hard cops you so often see in TV dramas. He is another character subject to shyness and embarrassment, and given a scene-stealing performance by Marcus Onilude.

Although it’s his theatrical writing debut, Steven Moffat hits the boards running. His understanding of the stage is impressive. The Unfriend has structure, varying pace, and flowing comedy.  You know how comedies sometimes crowbar the jokes or the situation or particular characters into the story? Not here. The jokes flow naturally (for example, Peter is so uptight, Elsa says he would sever a proctologist’s finger at the joint.) In fact, Mr Moffat doesn’t force anything. He gives room for Reece Shearsmith to contort his face with surprise or embarrassment, or Amanda Abbington to express purse-lipped annoyance.

The story doesn’t develop much in the second act, but the laughs keep coming, so I certainly didn’t worry about that. I assume a lot of credit should go to director Mark Gatiss for the comic timing and the exemplary way the stage is used by the actors.

The set by Robert Jones is a triumph. It can’t be easy to create a suburban middle-class home, when you have an audience on three sides. However, with wooden flooring, a staircase, an L-shaped sofa and see-through areas at the back for kitchen and lobby, combined with a projection of the exterior of the house, Mr Jones does just that.

In the second act, we continue on tenterhooks about whether Elsa will poison again. The funniest scene is triggered by the fact that Peter’s embarrassment inevitably extends to talking about toilet matters (I too am bending over backwards to be polite). So, there is an extended scene involving him trying to find a reason to examine the (what shall we say?) product of someone in the loo, in case they’ve been poisoned. Of course, our embarrassment as an audience is almost as acute as his.

If you do go to see The Unfriend, you might be anticipating the punchline long before it arrives, but you’re still likely to be applauding when it does.

The Unfriend performed at Chichester Festival Theatre’s Minerva until 9 July 2022 and transferred to the West End for the first three months of 2023

Paul received a complimentary press ticket from the producers.

Click here to watch this review on the One Minute Theatre Reviews YouTube channel

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Nicola Walker in The Corn Is Green – National Theatre – review

Nicola Walker and director Dominic Cooke refresh dated play

★★★★

production photo of Nicola Walker in The Corn Is Green at the National Theatre in London 2022
Nicola Walker in The Corn Is Green. Photo: Johan Persson

The Corn Is Green is a production that is worthy to stand alongside the best of the National Theatre. It almost seems a bonus that it features a star performance from Nicola Walker.

It’s a hundred years ago and an Englishwoman Miss Moffatt, played by Nicola Walker, arrives in a Welsh mining village. It’s her mission to educate the children. One of them, Morgan Evans, played with feeling and humour by Iwan Davies, is exceptionally clever and becomes her protégé. Much of the play hinges around the question, will he or won’t he go to Oxford University?

Apart from Morgan, the other characters are one-dimensional so anyone playing Miss Moffatt is required to carry the show. In the past, the part has attracted some big guns: Sybil Thorndyke, Ethel Barrymore, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Deborah Kerr. Hard acts to follow, and it seems for the first half that this is going to be a one note performance from Nicola Walker. I mean a beautiful pure note, but essentially she is determined and haughty toward everyone she meets and in everything she does. Then as she becomes more emotionally involved with making Morgan a success, a throatiness and slight hesitation pervades the previous stridency. It’s a subtle, powerful performance.

This semi-autobiographical play is dated in some respects and could have failed as a production but for some brilliant ideas by, I assume, director Dominic Cooke. First he introduces the author onto the stage, giving the stage directions and in that sense showing he is both is telling a story and that the story is very much about him.

Production photo from The Corn Is Green at the National Theatre London 2022
The Corn Is Green. Photo: Johan Persson

Morgan talks about the conflict he feels about leaving his community but this is not dwelt on in the play. Again Dominic Cooke’s production comes to the rescue. The use of a miners’ chorus throughout is a reminder of the draw of the community.

The production opens with a 1930s ball shown in silhouette behind a curtain. A man steps out from it to the front of the stage. We soon realise this is Emlyn Williams. He begins to type his semi autobiographical play and creates the characters and story before our eyes. We’re back in a Welsh mining village in the early twenties. A group of miners sing in Welsh. The great Bill Deamer choreographs the moments of dance.

We meet some of the characters: the village children, who only speak Welsh, and the English who stand above and apart from them, showing contempt for people they regard as savages. Themain characters are amusing but fairly one dimensional: Richard Lynch is the saved Christian Mr Jones, with red-faced passion bubbling under his proper exterior; the dim, nervous Miss Ronberry played by Alice Orr-Ewing and the even dimmer landowner that she loves, simply known as The Squire, played by Rufus Wright.  Then Miss Moffat appears.

Educating the children means teaching them arithmetic and to read and write, English, that is. The playwright appears to support this and treats the many   racist attitudes towards the Welsh as a bit of a joke.

Morgan is the a cocky and clever leader of the boys (all of whom are played by adults). He becomes Miss Moffatt’s star student and she is tyrannical in her determination to pursue her ambitions for him, without care of any enemies she might make.

At first the actors mime on a set, designed by ULTZ, that is a blank and black with minimal props, perhaps indicating the emptiness of the prospects of these people who start down the mines at age ten. I don’t want to spoil the surprise but ULTZ’s set design is gradually populated with more detail and, when you come back after the interval, the curtain goes up on a transformed stage, like an Aladdin’s cave after the austerity of the first act. Just as Miss Moffat has become emotionally engaged and the educated Morgan has become committed to leaving for a wider world, the set becomes a naturalistic with colourful wallpaper and detailed furnishings.

Sure, The Corn Is Green is sentimental, patronising, and not overly challenging but, in the hands of Nicola Walker and Dominic Cooke, it is also heartwarming, and a hymn to the power of education.

The Corn Is Green can be seen at the Lyttelton Theatre within the National Theatre until 11 June 2022.

Paul received a complimentary review ticket from the producers.

Click here to watch this review on the One Minute Theatre Reviews channel on YouTube

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Oklahoma! with Arthur Darvill at Young Vic – review

The old songs still soar in this new look at Oklahoma!

★★★

Production photo from Oklahoma! at the Yougn Vic theatre in London featuring Arthur Darvill 2022
Arthur Darvill in Oklahoma! at Young Vic. Photo: Marc Brenner
If the optimistic, can-do nature of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals grates on you a little, the new Broadway production of Oklahoma!, now the Young Vic, will be right up your Stetson.
Daniel Fish‘s production, co-directed at the London end by Jordan Fein, examines this 20th century classic from a 21st century perspective. It’s even been nicknamed ‘Wokelahoma’ by some wags. Curly is less heroic, Judd less of a villain, the previously admirable strength of the Oklahoma community more sinister.
Let’s start with Laura Jellinek and Grace Laubacher ‘s design. Most of the audience is on either side of the stage, traverse style. On the back wall is a painting of open plains with sketches of a couple of farm buildings. At the other end is a live band. The unraised stage is bordered by long trestle-style tables; the cast stays on stage most of the time. It feels and is meant to feel like a community hall, all the more so because the entire auditorium is evenly and brightly lit. The last time I experienced this kind of lighting was when I went to see my daughter in a school play. It’s as if we the audience are part of that community and that the community is commenting on their own story. Very Brechtian. But this does mean emotional involvement and dramatic tension are kept at a distance.
The famous opening song Oh, what a beautiful mornin’ is sung initially by Arthur Darvill accompanying himself on guitar before others join in. Straightaway you know that this is going to be a different kind of Curly because, although he’s an attractive guy, he’s nothing like the famous Curlys of the past, tall, well built men like Arthur Drake, Howard Keel and Hugh Jackman. Mr Darvill is small and wiry, and, unlike those rich baritones, he has a beautiful tenor voice,  with a nice falsetto.
There was a certain way in which romantic male leads were expected to behave in the mid 20th century when Oklahoma! was written. Even if sensitivity does actually figure in the finest male roles of the period, Hammerstein clearly admired the strong self-assured roll-up-your-sleeves type of hero: the common man who built America. Like Curly. He is even contrasted with weaker male figures like Ali Hakim and Will Parker, played for a great many laughs by Stavros Demetraki and James Davis. Now, we can and usually do choose to take Curly’s character as being of its time, but in this production, looking through 21st century eyes, his charm does lean over into smarm, his cockiness becomes arrogance, his laddishness seems awfully like harassment, and his possessive jealousy spouts toxic masculinity. So he’s not as obviously attractive as one would normally expect.
Then again, nor is Jud the hired help as nasty. Curly’s prospective spouse Laurey is frightened of Jud, which is why she doesn’t reject him and thus he’s encouraged in his pursuit of her. By making him less sinister and more misunderstood, this production undermines the basis of her fear. Patrick Vaill plays Jud with sad-eyed sensitivity showing that he’s awkward with women. There’s a hint of the ‘incel’ about him and, although he’s potentially violent, it does seem that he’s despised by everyone simply because he’s a loner. He’s considered a genuine outsider, not simply someone from outside like Ali Hakim, who’s been accepted into the community. People’s descriptions of this nicely coiffed clean boy as dirty seem to stem from simple prejudice.
When Curly talks with Jud and encourages him to think about suicide, which I guess was always weird, the talk becomes distinctly nasty because it takes place in pitch black. Normally exit signs or some sliver of light enable your eyes to pick up something, but here you literally couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Then in the second act, when Curly is determined to outbid Jud in an auction, the humiliation of the outsider seems less like punishing him for his unpleasantness and more like simple malice.
Production photo from Oklahoma! at Young Vic theatre in London showing actora Anoushka Kucas and Arthur Darvill 2022
Anoushka Lucas and Arthur Darvill in Oklahoma! Photo: Marc Brenner

The lighting isn’t always bright or nonexistent. Sometimes Scott Zielinski’s design bathes the room in orange or green or shines spotlights, as befits the moment.

Rather than the country music you might associate with a southern state like Oklahoma, the band plays bluegrass style: in other words, lots of stringed instruments. And, under Musical Director Tom Brady, what a marvellous sound they make. That most romantic of songs People will say we’re in love is as beautiful as it could be.

Three women dominate this production

Anoushka Lucas plays Laurey as confused, vulnerable and passionate in equal measures. She’s not only a fine actor, she’s another fantastic singer.
Lisa Sadovy plays Aunt Eller with a twinkle in her eye, but harder and more cynical than you might expect. And all the better for that. The women definitely hold their own in this production.
The plot is unchanged, at least until the end. Curly makes clear he likes Laurie but plays it down a bit. Laurie feels the same about Curly but won’t admit it. The suppressed sexual desire rises like steam. When you think about it, an awful lot of this musical concerns young people desiring one another.
The surrey with a fringe on top is not the familiar jaunty tune that matches the rhythm of a horse and carriage. Instead, it’s slow and sensuous. The line ‘Don’t you wish it could go on forever and you’d never stop’ is delivered with a lascivious smile. It’s clear it’s another kind of ride Curly’s thinking about. 
Production photo from Oklahoma! at Young Vic in London showing actor Marisha Wallace 2022
Marisha Wallace in Oklahoma!

The emphasis on sex continues when we meet Ado Annie and her big number. I cain’t say no. She’s not portrayed as an amusingly silly girl but as a woman confident in her sexuality. Marisha Wallace is not only hilarious., she also has a tremendous voice that blasts the song into the category of showstopper.

Oklahoma! is famous for being one of the first, if not the first, musical to be led by the book, or story. So the songs serve the book, which was written by Oscar Hammerstein II, by revealing character and driving the narrative forward. It may also be the first to fully integrate dance. In fact, Agnes de Mille‘s choreographed dream sequence is one of the iconic moments in the original and her name still appears in the credits, even though her choreography has disappeared.
Now Laurey’s dream is a contemporary dance, choreographed by John Heginbotham. It starts with an electric guitar screaming a stretched out version of Oh, what a beautiful mornin’ that generated the same startled surprise in me as when I first heard Jimi Hendrix playing another classic, The Star Spangled Banner. This is the moment when Laurey is supposed to see clearly that she should choose Curly but it’s less explicit than Agnes de Mille‘s ballet so it confuses more than clarifies.
This production isn’t the only one recently to try to update Rodgers and Hammerstein. Chichester Festival Theatre‘s South Pacific, which is due a London run, dampened down the sexism and bolstered the anti-racism. The Open Air Theatre‘s Carousel faced its domestic violence head on. And I think this is right if we’re to continue to enjoy the positive qualities of their musicals.
However, the ending of this reimagining of Oklahoma! left me disappointed. Not a word has been changed., remember, but the actions have. For me, the reassessment of Curly’s character is pushed too far. I don’t want to give you a spoiler, but I’ll just say that the sham trial now seems like a real miscarriage of justice brought about by a community that sticks together against outsiders. And it makes the ending considerably downbeat.
While I love the new arrangement of the songs, the comedy, the sexiness, and the examination of maleness, I did hope to leave with a smile on my face. It felt like Daniel Fish had tried too hard to shoehorn the actual Oklahoma! into his vision of it.
Oklahoma! is performing at the Young Vic in London until 25 June 2022.
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A Secret Guide to Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City

Impressive but confusing immersion into the Trojan War

★★★

Production photo from Punchdrunk's The Burnt City at One Cartridge Place woolwich London in 2022 showing dancer Alison Monique Adnet
Alison Monique Adnet in Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City. Photo: Julian Abrams

The Burnt City is hard to understand and difficult to find your way around. So, this is not only a review of the show but a guide to how to get the best out of it.

Punchdrunk are the leaders in ‘immersive theatre’, in which you are right in the middle of what’s going on. There are lots of stories being told in The Burnt City. They add up to a beginning, middle and end, but not necessarily in that order. Like anything you’re in the middle of, you don’t have the big picture until afterwards, if then.

I usually love this form of theatre so I was desperate to see The Burnt City, but once there, my desire turned to disappointment. I had expected this show about the myths of the Trojan War to be non-linear. As you walk around the 100 thousand square feet of floorspace, you don’t expect to understand what’s going on. As you might be told if you ask for directions, ‘Let fate be your guide’.

There are many stories being told simultaneouslly throughout two buildings,. They are repeated but don’t expect them to be chronological. I had a general idea of the many Ancient Greek myths connected with the Trojan War but I still struggled to identify or connect them. It doesn’t help that they’re mostly told through through dance, rather than spelled out using the spoken word.

I witnessed many events. What I didn’t expect was how uneventful the events would be, how lacking in dramatic tension. The biggest tension is the fear that while you’re watching one event, you’re missing something much more dramatic in another room.

I may not have been as engaged as I would liked to be, or found the events as dramatic as I think they should have been, but it’s still a great experience to be immersed in this world of war and revenge, and to be standing right next to its inhabitants as they meet their fate.

So what is The Burnt City about? It’s based primarily on two Ancient Greek plays, Euripides’ Hecuba and Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, that cover the war between Mycenae (or Greece) and Troy, the largely mythical Trojan War. Will it help if you know these plays? Probably not that much.

What does help is that, as you enter the building, there’s a brief audio history of the Trojan War and its aftermath, so you’ve a fair idea of the big moments you may see. You go through a faux museum which is even more helpful in explaining the events. So, my advice is to take a few moments to look at the exhibits.  The case containing the last exhibit has been broken open, as if to say the past is now coming to life. You’re then in for three hours with no interval, unless you choose to take a break.

Production photo from Punchdrunk's The Burnt City
Fania Grigoriou in Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City. Photo: Julian Abrams

Punchdrunk have acquired their own home for the first time in their twenty plus year history, and have converted their building at One Cartridge Place in Woolwich and the adjoining one into Mycenae and Troy. The sets by Felix Barrett, Livi Vaughan and Beatrice Minns are extraordinary. There is astonishing attention to detail. Mycenae is inspired by perhaps Fritz Lang’s 1920s film Metropolis. Troy suggests a period before the Second World War with a neon sleaze reminiscent of 1920s Berlin.

After the museum, you make a choice about where to go first. Lights beckon you but, to help you find your choice, look carefully and you see signs, one welcoming you to Troy which is down a long tunnel, the other a border crossing gatehouse to Mycenae. Each space has two floors. In both, you witness violent acts or feel the threat of violence but in Troy you find people having fun, while the city is under attack, and you can wander through small spaces and a warren of rooms. On the other side, there’s gloomy Mycenae, a military state where the warriors prepare for war, then return and face its consequences. Here there are two large open areas, downstairs is what appears to be a military camp, upstairs a palace. There are only a few rooms off.

This show, directed by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, is much more about the effect of war than the fight itself, and cycles of revenge dominate. So what are the big moments?

First, at the start of the war, Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to the Gods in exchange for good fortune. You need to look for a bride getting ready for what she thinks is a wedding. This is in one of the few rooms in Mycenae. You can then watch her taken to the ground floor and placed on one of two giant tank traps, which look like misshapen crucifixes, on which she is killed. Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra is not happy about this, but more of that later.

Over in Troy, the Greeks invade using the famous Trojan Horse (which apparently is there is some form but not obvious, so it’s something to look out for). Queen Hecuba’s daughter Polyxena is murdered by invaders and strung up. I found this to be one of the most upsetting scenes.

Hecuba has learned that King Polymester, an ally of the Greeks, has murdered her son, whom she sent to him for safekeeping. He doesn’t know she knows. When he arrives in Troy, she and fellow women do a friendly dance with him in a red room, possibly a nightclub, on the top floor, that eventually turns violent as they overwhelm and blind him.

Back in Mycenae, Agamemnon arrives home in triumph with Cassandra in tow. You can recognise him by his splendid gold head mask, just one of dozens of imaginative, almost superhero costumes by David Israel Reynoso, inspired by Ancient Greece. Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra greets him. He goes upstairs where there is a huge block, made of concrete (I think), like a fashion show runway, where he is at first feted, until he takes a shower and Clytemnestra, in revenge for his killing of their daughter, goes all Psycho. It’s one of the more horrific moments, but even so, I found that, because of the time it took to get to that point, with all the slow entwined dancing, it became boring rather than tense.

All the events are repeated so you have three opportunities to see them. If you know what you’re looking for, you can hope to see them all in three hours

Stay until the end because, given that killing is a dominant theme, there is a climax in which many of the performers take part in a kind of techno dance of death, half naked and possibly in hell, but more literally in Mycenae.

A useful approach may be to follow what you might call the wisdom of the crowd. If a group of spectators has accumulated, there’s usually something going on. Their spookily anonymous masks, which we are all required to wear, take away individuality, even more so when they form a crowd and are so focused on following a particular train of events, that they almost crush you or push you to one side.

Some people like to fix on one performer and follow them, because these various stories do have beginnings, middles and ends, unlike the overall show, and those beginnings usually start small, build to a climax which may well be a killing, with some kind of anguished coda. I found these events strangely uninvolving but I think I might have felt more involved if I had adopted this approach.

Much to my surprise, and perhaps because there is so much room, I found there were times and spaces when nothing was going on. I went round a whole floor of Troy at one point and saw nothing going on.

While you may feel you want to spend all your time watching things happening, there is much to be gained from exploring some of the nearly 100 (apparently) small rooms in Troy. These are often bedrooms, sometimes shops, seemingly abandoned in the course of the siege or attack. Go into them, or some of them, take a look at the books and pictures, look behind the clothes in the wardrobes. Not only will you get amazingly detailed insights into their lives, but you will also be rewarded with clues as to what’s going on around you.

Production photo from Punchdrunk's The Burnt City featuring dancers Yilin Kong and Steven James Apicello
Yilin Kong and Steven James Apicello in Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City. Photo: Julian Abrams

Perhaps, before you even buy a ticket, I should give you this tip, and it won’t be a surprise if you know Punchdrunk’s past work. This is a dance show, and I don’t mean Anything Goes dance, I mean contemporary dance. There is next to no speech to help you understand what’s going on, and the dancing is nearly always in slow motion, and stretched out. I’m not questioning for a moment the brilliance of choreographer Maxine Doyle or her dancers but, if you’re not familiar with the language of dance (which I’m not) you may struggle to comprehend what it is the dancers are trying to convey. The performers embrace erotically or sinisterly, push each other apart, swing one another around. You’ll find it portentous or pretentious, depending on your opinion of contemporary dance. Personally I like that kind of dance but in small doses, which this isn’t.

This show is not for the claustrophobic, or people with visual impairment. You may find being in the building overwhelming at times because it’s mostly dark, with haze as well on occasion. And there are some trip hazards, even if they are highlighted with tape.

Given such an underlit environment, it seem odd for me to compliment the lighting designers but F9, Ben Donoghue and Felix Barrett have done a great job of adding to the sense of fear and wonder, with their mixture of murkiness, sudden flashes, and bright spotlights.

The sound by Stephen Dobbie with its screeching thudding reverberating chords adds to the febrile atmosphere.

Practical Tips

Let’s start at the beginning. The organisers quite rightly would like you to use public transport to get to the show. But it is in Woolwich, which is a long way from the centre of London, so you, like me, may have to go by car if you’re not going to spend most of your day travelling. The best place to park, I found, is Calderwood Street multi storey Car Park, which is a ten minute walk away from the venue.

Arrive in good time at the venue, at least 15 minutes before your allocated slot, because there will be a queue to get in, even with staggered entry times. You are asked to put your mobile phone in a locked bag which you then carry around with you. Bags and coats and even bottles of water will need to be checked into the cloakroom. So I advise that you travel light to avoid the massive queue at the end the show. Can you manage without taking a phone? Big decision I know, but if you do leave it behind, don’t forget to print out your tickets and take a payment card (if you want to buy something at the bar). But here’s a tip, the bar stays open after the show ends, so you can go there to wait for the queues to die down.

You will be asked to wear a Covid-safe face covering. This is pretty sensible since you will be in close proximity to a lot of people as you walk around. On top of that, you will be required, in the Punchdrunk tradition, to don a carnival style mask which is actually quite comfortable. Also, this is a promenade show: you will doing a lot of walking, so wear sensible shoes.

There are toilets throughout the building. But finding the one Bar is another story. Here’s a clue. It’s in Troy. Here’s another: ask a steward. They won’t give you any information to do with the show but they will point you to toilets, exits and, crucially, the Bar (which incidentally is a good ploy if you can’t find Troy). You can remove your two masks (hurrah), buy a drink, find a table, and enjoy excellent live entertainment. The whole decadent feel gives Cabaret a run for its money.

It opens an hour after the start, so Troy may be the best place to begin. That way you can spend an hour or so looking round, then take a break in the bar, before moving on to the bleak foreboding of Mycenae. As I mentioned before, it stays open after the show, so you can use every minute of your three hours on the Trojan War if you wish, and still enjoy the cabaret.

The above tips are from my own experience of visiting the show and also from other people’s reports. They are not in any way official information. In fact, Punchdrunk go out of their way not to give you any directions or timetable, and the stewards won’t help. Therefore I apologise if there are any factual mistakes.

Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City continues at One Cartridge Place until December 2022. Tickets available from onecartridgeplace.com

Paul was given a press ticket by the producers.

Click here to watch this review and guide on our YouTube channel One Minute Theatre Reviews

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Scandaltown – Lyric Hammersmith – review

Satire on modern society is fun but toothless

★★★

Production photo from Scandaltwon at Lyric Hammersith in London 2022
Richard Goulding and Luke Hornsby in Scandaltown. Photo Marc Brenner

Scandaltown at the Lyric Hammersmith promises a ‘decadent world of sex, hypocrisy, parties and power’. The theatre website warns about ‘nudity, drug use and smoking’. If that leads you to expect something edgy, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Mike Bartlett’s new play is a clever but underwhelming pastiche restoration comedy. It purports to be shocking but barely raises an eyebrow. A scene with people in their underwear miming sexual acts is hardly going to cause a fit of the vapours amongst today’s audiences. The smell of herbal cigarettes was a bit overpowering though. 

Scandaltown is Mike Bartlett‘s third play to open in London in just over a month, which is a rare achievement. We’ve already had the revival of his first ever play Cock and The 47th which adopts the style of a Shakespearean tragedy to imagine Trump standing at the next Presidential election.

So Mike Bartlett is prominent but is he preeminent? Well, he can certainly write clever, amusing dialogue and his plays are never less than interesting, but, from what I’ve seen, there is a lack of depth in what he does. And I include probably his most famous work, King Charles III.
It’s not that Scandaltown is bad. In fact, it’s a lot of fun. Mr Bartlett takes the style of a restoration comedy to satirise today’s rich and famous. He is adept in his use of the conventions and language of that genre. The trouble is, how many of us are familiar with restoration comedy? A better reference point might be panto, which it certainly resembles- in a good way. The plot is as complicated and ludicrous as a restoration comedy, or indeed the Netflix thriller (I’ve just arched Anatomy Of A Scandal).
Restoration Comedy is the name given to plays that were produced when theatres reopened after Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan government closed them for nearly 20 years. The ‘restoration’ refers to the return of the monarchy. In fact, Charles II loved theatre, and encouraged the mockery of an older generation’s puritanism as well as the shocking portrayal of an immoral high society. You don’t see as many plays from this period as you do from the Elizabethan but The Beaux’ Stratagem pops up every so often, as does The Country Wife, which for centuries was regarded as the filthiest play ever written.
Today’s theatres have reopened after a period of closure, so you can see why it might have seemed like a good idea to do a pastiche of a restoration comedy, and in doing so, look at today’s immorality, hypocrisy, intergenerational conflicts. However, it soon becomes clear that there aren’t enough sins of the flesh to put on those bones of a 17th century comedy. Firstly, our theatres have only been closed a couple of years, and, secondly, there’s been no major generational clash over matters of morality since the 1970s. The ‘decadence’ of casual sex and drug use has been around for a long time, so we’re hardly shocked by it.
The play admits this and adopts a more nuanced position as it goes on, but the softer the punches, the more power it loses despite the sharpness and pace of Rachel O’Riordan’s direction.
The big issues of the day, and ones that do to an extent divide generations, like Black Lives Matter, #MeToo or attitudes to trans women are pretty much ignored. Here the target is social media which is a low hanging fruit on a well-trodden path.
The set, designed by Good Teeth, tells us straight away that this is going to be more like panto fun than penetrating satire. There are painted flat clouds filling the top half of the high proscenium opening and various curtains provide the background. Quite often a couple of pieces of furniture set the scene. Now, this may have been the style of late 17th century theatre, but it also says we’re in cartoon land. As do the outlandish but hilarious costumes by Kinnetia Isidore.
Restoration Comedy was also known as the Comedy of Manners. Some of the dialogue might remind you of the Importance of Being Earnest or an adaptation of a Jane Austen novel even though both of those examples are more recent than Restoration Comedy. And of course, hearing the restrained language of the past combined with modern day swearing and references to targeting and the like is amusing.
The characters are given names that tell us about their roles within the story such as Phoebe Virtue, Freddy Peripheral and Lady Susan Climber. This seems to tell us not to expect any depth to them. So it is actually a pleasure to find that while there may be caricatures, they’re well drawn and what they say is funny.
Production photo from Scandaltwon at Lyric Hsmmersith in London 2022
Rachael Stirling and Henry Everett in Scandaltown. Photo Marc Brenner

The actors are able to make a meal of their roles. They’re all good, but I’ll pick out a few.  Rachael Stirling as Lady Susan climber, a vicious, self centred, (well, they’re nearly all self centred) reality show celebrity with a smile thaty could charm a traffic warden and a cutting tongue that could open a can. Richard Goulding as Matt Eaton, a David Cameron look-alike politician, whose slimy salesman style epitomises all we hate about today’s self serving liars. He gets a laugh every time he opens his mealy mouth.

I’ll also mention the two young people barely out of stage school: Cecilia Appiah as Phoebe Virtue, a moral young woman from the north who goes to rescue her brother Jack, played by Matthew Broome, from the immorality of London. Once in London after a short time disguised as a man and what Restoration Comedy or panto would be complete without some crossdressing. She gets sucked into the London life.
The main plot concerns Lady Susan Climber trying to make a comeback, after some faux pas has caused her to be cancelled, by employing a social media consultant. The latter turns out secretly to want to destroy her, for reasons which become apparent, but seem, when we find out, somewhat feeble. Even the would-be explosive revelation of how she proposes to carry out the destruction turns out to be a damp squib.
There are many other plots concerning mistaken identity and surprising parentage. But the play comes to a conclusion that is liberal rather than libertarian in a way that a restoration comedy definitely wouldn’t be. The promsed Rottweiler turns out to be toothless.
So, yes, it’s inconsequential, but as I may have already mentioned, it is fun with many laugh-out-loud moments.
Scandaltown performed at the Lyric in Hammersmith until 14 May 2022. 
Paul was given a press ticket by the producers.
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Ralph Fiennes in Straight Line Crazy – Bridge Theatre – review

Fiennes shines in David Hare’s play about a strong man

★★★

Ralph Fiennes in Straight Line Crazy at The Bridge Theatre London March 2022
Ralph Fiennes in Straight Line Crazy. Photo: Manuel Harlan

George Bernard Shaw said in his play Man And Superman: ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’

In Robert Moses, we have the quintessential ‘unreasonable man’. David Hare’s Straight Line Crazy begins in the 1920s when we meet Moses, an authoritarian figure with a vision of how New York State should develop. And, as he said himself, ‘when you operate in an overbuilt metropolis, you have to hack your way with a meat axe.’ Hack he did, running his straight roads through whatever got in the way.

The play is divided into two parts. In the first, we see the appeal of the strong man. He won’t compromise. He gets things done. He is non-partisan, he uses the law. We admire the way he won’t kowtow to politicians or rich elites. Almost by the sheer driving force of his personality, he gets his roads built: long straight roads to carry working class people (what we in the UK call the middle class), newly liberated by cars, to the countryside. He builds parks and pools and beaches for them to enjoy in their newfound leisure time. In many ways, he’s a hero.

In the second act, at the end of his career, we are presented with the case against his single-minded, big project approach to planning.

Ralph Fiennes is a perfect choice as the bombastic, heartless Moses. It is a privilege to watch him perform, as he strides across the floor and often planting himself downstage, isolated from the rest of the cast, eyes staring, speaking in that slightly English way that many American patricians had last century, in his case, stemming from his time at Oxford University. However, he is a one-dimensional character. We never really understand what makes him tick, he never expresses any doubts, any warmth or indeed any feelings.

In some ways, Straight Line Crazy is a history of the twentieth century. The love affair with strong men: the Picasso type of artist or the Mussolini style of politician (who supposedly ‘made the trains run on time’), followed by a reaction in favour of co-operation and collaboration. More recently, there’s been a return of interest in so-called strong leaders who get things done, so the play is timely.

If you’re unfamiliar with New York State, you may find it hard to follow what’s going on. In the first act, Robert Moses, a public official who dominated urban planning from the 1920s to the sixties, is pursuing his first great project: to open up the peninsula of Long Island that juts out to the east of New York City and houses Brooklyn and Queens at its beginning and the Hamptons at the other end- home to some of the richest people in America. He wanted to create not only roads but a public beach.

In the second act, he meets his nemesis when, at the end of his career, he seeks to extend Fifth Avenue through one of the city’s most beloved areas: Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.

This first act spends a lot of time establishing Moses’ commanding personality, with some good dialogue but not a lot happening. Some of the best moments come when Moses interacts with Al Smith, the New York State governor from a poor community and a wily politician who smoothed the way for Moses’ early projects. The ever reliable Danny Webb gives Smith a warmth that enables you to see why he was so popular and persuasive.

Like others who know their own mind and are blinkered to other possibilities, Bob Moses can be a monster. From the start, we get hints that there is a dark side to his character. The people around him work for him, not with him. An employee alters a road design on the instruction of Governor Smith. Moses will have none of it. They are not there to have ideas, simply to carry out his vision.

Act Two is the case against Moses. Much more of his unsavoury side is revealed. He doesn’t change, but by the 1950s the world has. People power is growing. Jane Jacobs declares that cities are about people and communities,  talks about the tyranny of the motor car, and has a vision of revived (or gentrified, we might say) urban areas. The writing is on the wall for Moses but he still refuses to consult or compromise.

Bob Crowley’s thrusting set

It looks like David Hare is setting up a battle between Moses and Jacobs, but a clash between two strong leaders would have been counter to the theme of act two. So, although we meet Jacobs, acted with authority and humour by Helen Schlesinger, the play becomes a conflict between Moses and the people (significantly they’re represented by women), a battle between two ages. Speaking for the community is Shirley Hayes, forcefully played by Alana Maria.

So the rise and fall of Moses is interesting but the fundamental problem with the play is that Moses doesn’t change, except to get older. It is fascinating to see Ralph Fiennes change physically from the upright, vigorous young man to the slightly stooped and more ponderous old man. There is none of the guilt and fear that adds depth to the single-mindedness of Solness, the character Mr Fiennes played in Ibsen’s The Master Builder at the Old Vic in 2016 in an adaptation by David Hare.

Production photo of Samuel Barnett in StraighProdcution photo of Smauel Barnett in David Hare's Straight Line Crazy at the Bridge Theatre in London March 2022
Samuel Barnett in Straight Line Crazy. Photo: Manuel Harlan

There are similarities between the two plays but I’m afraid any comparison would be to the detriment of Straight Line Crazy. Unlike Solness, Moses’ downfall doesn’t come from fear or love or other ‘weakness’, but from a much more mundane cause: changing times and his refusal to change. However, by then, he had achieved so much of his vision, his place in history was assured, so it’s hard to have much sympathy.

The play leaves us pondering about strong leadership and people power, asking ourselves which in the end was more beneficial and which more damaging to the city.

Bob Crowley’s set underlines the debate by using a flat runway that goes from the back of the stage and thrusts out into the audience, like one of Moses’ straight roads. Whenever we meet the protesting community, a wall is flown in that symbolically cuts right through the middle of it, at the same time creating a less thrilling but more intimate space.

Siobhan Cullen and Samuel Barnett play Moses’ two assistants, the former extrovert and good humoured, the other more shy and self deprecating, but both, in their defence of him, giving us an insight into why charismatic leaders attract a following. The younger and less compliant generation is represented in the second act by a new employee, played with passion by Alisha Bailey.

Nicholas Hytner directs proceedings, as he seems to do most productions at The Bridge (we can look forward to him directing The Southbury Child in the summer, and John Gabriel Borkman in the autumn). It’s not only his choice of plays that make him missed at the National Theatre where he was once Artistic Director. His direction is unobtrusive and fuss-free: he puts the script and the actors centre stage. Not for him, distracting gimmicks or clutter; and he has the confidence of a modern strong man who doesn’t need the production to be about him.

Straight Line Crazy performs at The Bridge Theatre until 18 June 2022

Click here to watch this review on our YouTube channel One Minute Theatre Reviews

Click here to read our review of Ralph Fiennes in David Hare’s Beat The Devil

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Jonathan Bailey & Taron Egerton in Cock – review

Celebrity casting maybe, good acting definitely


★★★

Production photo from Mike Bartlett's comedy Cock at the Ambassadors Theatre in London showing Taron Egerton and Jonathan Bailey. March 2022
Taron Egerton & Jonathan Bailey in Cock. Photo: Brinkhoff Moegenburg

Let me make clear from the start the ‘cock’ of the title does not refer to a penis, although there are quite a few references to penises in the play. So, no jokes about limp performances (there weren’t any), standing up at the end (they did) or Mike Bartlett’s Cock not being very long (it’s only 105 minutes).

The title alludes to a cock fight, because it’s about a love triangle in which two people are rivals for a third person’s love and he struggles to choose between them. It’s a play about an ostensibly gay couple one of whom finds himself attracted to a woman, and, although interesting questions are asked about how we define people’s sexuality, it’s primarily a comedy.

And since you ask, although sex is referred to regularly throughout the play, and it is quite erotic at times, the actors keep their clothes on and use stylised movements to indicate physical activity. I’m pretty sure no intimacy advisor was needed.

There are two star names in this play. So, let me start with their performances, and say that both earn their place on the stage, not because they’re celebrities but because they’re damn good actors.

Taron Egerton is best known for his performances in the films Rocketman and Kingsman, but he is RADA trained and has appeared at the National Theatre. Here he is the unnamed M (for Man, get it?). He gives a nuanced performance as what appears to be the dominant lover in a long term relationship. He plays to perfection this swaggering character who hides, in a very masculine way, his need for love. Mr Egerton has a wonderful ability to switch from a jaw jutting bully to soft and red-eyed with tears, and he delivers lines of waspish humour with a lashing tongue.

Jonathan Bailey is one of the many ridiculously attractive people from Bridgerton and destined to become the central character in the second series. He too has a good track record in theatre, including an Olivier Award. He plays M’s partner, the only character given a name, not that ‘John’ is much of an ID. His character is painfully indecisive. Mr Bailey provides many enjoyable moments of comedy, as he grimaces with his face and contorts his body in a child-like way, whilst avoiding making his mind up. If anything, there is just a little too much goofiness. We know he is suffering because there are moments outside of the action when he is alone and bathed in harsh light screaming silently, but in his interaction with the other characters, he doesn’t show quite enough of this angst.

Both are physically right for the parts, Mr Bailey thin and gangly, Mr Egerton stocky and muscular. Not quite Laurel and Hardy, but it would hard to imagine either playing the other role.

An impressive production

What you notice when you enter the auditorium is Merle Hensel’s impressive set. It’s chrome or some similar polished metal curved around the sides and back of the stage. There’s no escaping it. There are no distracting props and the one way in and out is a concealed revolving door. All that happens is reflected back on itself, conveying the way these characters are trapped in their relationships and unable to see beyond them. There are some hanging fluorescent strips which come down from time to time and these along with other lighting changes from dark to brilliantly bright, orchestrated by Paule Constable, match and enhance the mood changes.

First, we meet M and John. They’re relaxed in each other’s company. There’s a lot of affection. There’s also a lot of sniping and bickering, but anyone who’s been in a long term relationship will recognise how natural this is, because it is easy to get into negative ways of behaving.

However, there is a problem with this relationship. The cliché of a seven year itch perhaps. John has had sex with someone else. Shockingly for both of them, given that M is gay and until now John has thought of himself as gay, the other person is a woman. M’s dominating character and the way he resorts to unpleasantness hint at why John might have been tempted to stray. It has to be said that, while the insults may hurt John, they are funny for us to hear, for example when he launches into a string of offensive terms for someone who is attracted to women.

The cast of Cock. Photo: Brinkhoff Moegenburg

In the second act, we see how this other relationship began and developed. Jade Anouka (you may recognise her from His Dark Materials) is excellent as the woman with whom John has an affair and falls in love. Her character is called W (for woman). There isn’t so much potential for comedy in this part, but Ms Anouka exudes the love and need for love of her character. John shows nervousness but clear attraction, and there’s a gentleness and respect between them that wasn’t apparent in John’s relationship with M. But of course he is still attracted to M, and Mr Bailey is at his comic best when he is confused about what he wants, beyond wanting to please everybody. It is his indecisiveness that enables his lovers to mould him into what they need.

Stylised movement is moving

This is a good point to mention the way they first make love. As I said earlier, there is next to no physical intimacy beyond a kiss or a hug. They keep their clothes on. You’ll also remember I said the set is bare of any props. Throughout the play, body movement expresses thoughts and feelings without resorting to obvious mime. So much of the physical action is left to your imagination.  For example, a whole meal is served in the third act without any sign of a table a bowl or cutlery.

Going back to this first encounter between John and W, they indicate through the dialogue what they are doing, while staying physically separate on stage. She wants to see his naked body. He moves his hands to indicate the shedding of clothes without literally miming taking off each item.  Similarly, they describe him exploring her vagina but what we see, from memory, is him touching his leg and her using her body to express the excitement she is feeling inside. This exploration of each other’s bodies is highly erotic, proving perhaps that the best sex is in the brain. I congratulate director Marianne Elliott is for utilising this remarkably effective element, and the movement director Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster for making it work so well.

This and the set and the lighting could only happen in a theatre and all contribute to a complete experience that enhances what’s said. Talking of which, Mike Bartlett has an excellent ear for dialogue- just the exchanges you would expect both from a long term relationship and a first meeting.

If I have a criticism of the production, it’s that it looks too good. It’s so stylish with its cold encompassing metal and its stylised movement that it takes away some of the raw feeling from these relationships.

The third act is the cock fight. M invites W to join him and John for dinner. It feels contrived but gives us the showdown we want. M brings along his father for good measure. He’s called F (of course) and is played by Phil Daniels, in a performance that shows a parent’s blinkered affection – he wants his son to be happy- and gives us insight into the limitations of both liberal tolerance and a view that defines people by their sexuality and gender.

M and W each think John has chosen them and is going to take the opportunity to reject the other. As the evening progresses, there’s verbal sparring, and increasingly desperate emotion as it becomes clear how much each of them needs John. He meanwhile continues to be pulled one way and another both by his feelings and by what box he should tick, with the possibility that it’s all ‘cock’, as in cock and bull.

Cock is funny a lot of the time, it lectures some of the time, and it’s not as deep as I suspect it thinks it is, but as a look at the way hearts break the rules set by our brains, it’s full of insight, especially in the hands of its starry cast.

Cock is running at the Ambassadors Theatre in London until 4 June 2022

Paul received a press ticket from the producer

Watch the review of Cock on YouTube

 

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Paul Bettany & Jeremy Pope in The Collaboration – Young Vic – review

Paul Bettany & Jeremy Pope light up this fascinating play

★★★★

Production photo of Jeremy Pope and Paul Bettany in The Collaboration at Young Vic theatre in London 2022
Jeremy Pope and Paul Bettany in The Collaboration. Photo: Marc Brenner

The Collaboration at The Young Vic is a special occasion. The two stars are Paul Bettany – Vision no less from the Marvel Universe, and the very unpleasant Duke of Argyll in A Very British Scandal – and Hollywood rising star Jeremy Pope.

The play is written by Anthony MacCarten, best known for his screenplays The Theory Of Everything, The Two Popes and Bohemian Rhapsody.

It’s about two of the great American artists of the late 20th century- Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat– who worked together on a number of paintings. As you enter the Young Vic, you see scattered examples of their work scattered throughout the building.

When you walk into the auditorium, before the play even begins, there are flashing lights and the loud beat of a DJ – Xana – live mixing music and videos from 1980s New York project onto the set. There’s more. The director is Kwame Kwei-Armah, your actual artistic director of the Young Vic. And for good measure, the set is designed by  Anna Fleischle, who triumphed just last week with The Forest at Hampstead Theatre, one of a long line of amazing productions, and now conjures up the two artists’ studios, both versions of the same white-painted brick walls, skylights and paint splattered floor, but each quite different in the details that represent the artists’ very different personalities. It is, as I said, an occasion.

In real life, when Warhol and Basquiat collaborated, the critics’ response was lukewarm, so was this collaboration of theatrical talent a similar damp squib? Quite the opposite. It’s an explosion of heat and light.

Production photo of Paul Bettany in The Collaboration at the Young Vic theatre in London 2022
Paul Bettany in The Collaboration. Photo: Marc Brenner

You can see why a play about this famous collaboration seemed like a good idea. You couldn’t get more different people. Warhol the established king of Pop Art, and Basquiat the young pretender whose neo-expressionist work went from street art to multi-million dollar sales at auction. Warhol old and in decline, Basquiat young and on the rise. Warhol the reserved germophobe who hid his heart, Basquiat, messy, prolific, spontaneous and wearing his heart on his sleeve.

They are The Odd Couple, as portrayed in the film of that name, or they could be a comedy duo like Morecambe and Wise, one that depends on a straight man and an anarchist. The conflict is the grit that creates this pearl of a story.

And what a great story. There are comparisons to be made with John Logan’s superb play Red which also features conversations about art, in that case between Mark Rothko and his young, critical assistant. Here, though, the two protagonists are shown as equals. Initially, they hate each other’s work. “So ugly’ says Warhol. ‘Old hat’ says Basquiat. So not exactly Elton John and Dua Lipa.

Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope totally inhabit their roles

Then they meet and in the first act they explore one another’s ideas of art. Warhol sees himself as taking out the feeling by repetitive reproduction so that surface becomes all that matters, deliberately turning art into a commodity. ‘Trash. Trash. But we have to celebrate something’ says Warhol, (he might possibly have said that in the second act, I’m not sure). Basquiat passionately believes that art means something and can be an instrument for change. ‘Art disturbs the comfortable and comforts the disturbed’ he says. In this play of natural conversation, even the aphorisms sound spontaneous. There are times in the first act when you may wonder, interesting and enjoyable as the conversation is, whether it’s getting anywhere.

The second act dispels all doubt. It takes place when they have been working together for a couple of years, and starts with a splendid moment when Warhol unhappy with the standard of cleaning in Basquiat’s studio starts vacuuming. The two have got to know one another well and, while they remain very different artists, they have come to feel a kind of love for each other. And it’s heartwarming in this current era of echo chambers and cancel culture, to see two people with very different views, not shutting each other out, but listening, and talking, and eventually respecting one another.

The intimacy the artists now have means that we find out a lot more about their inner selves: Warhol opens up emotionally in ways you would never have imagined, and we learn about Basquiat’s demons too. In some ways, the collaboration has reinvigorated Warhol. There’s a wonderful moment in the first act when he first picks up a brush for the first time in 25 years and seems to marvel at its feel in his hand. He has become a kind of father figure to Basquiat who seems to be on a downward spiral of paranoia and drug addiction.

This all works so well, partly because of the strength of the dialogue, partly because of the way director Kwame Kwei-Armah drives the play towards a dramatic climax. Most of all it’s because of the acting. Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope totally inhabit the roles of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Mr Bettany looks the part with his gangly body, his nervous tics and his pale skin and white wig. When he talks with Warhol’s superficial ‘gosh, gee’ way of speaking, his controlled body language conveys that this is a way of hiding his true self, just as he hides behind a camera.

Mr Pope with hair like a crown of thorns is all bouncy and Tigger-like then suddenly switches to anger, both moods concealing a pain that can be seen in the way he physically slumps or has a watery look in his eyes.

These two outstanding performances turn this theatrical collaboration into a momentous occasion.

The Collaboration can be seen at the Young Vic until 2 April 2022.

Click here to watch this review on the One Minute Theatre Reviews YouTube channel

 

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Florian Zeller’s The Forest – review

Toby Stephens and Paul McGann share the honours as a man on the edge

★★★

Production photo of Toby Stephens and Gina McKee in Florian Zeller's The Forest at Hampstead Theatre in London 2022
Toby Stephens and Gina McKee in The Forest. Photo: The Other Richard

French playwright Florian Zeller’s work has become familiar to British audiences thanks to plays like The Truth, The Lie, The Height Of The Storm and the trilogy of The Mother, The Father and The Son. His new play The Forest is the first to receive its world premiere in the UK,  and comes on the back of the award-winning film of The Father with Anthony Hopkins.

So you probably know Florian Zeller’s approach to playwriting. It started as an innovative way of getting inside people’s minds. In The Father, it was a brain confused by dementia, in The Mother, a mid life crisis, in The Son a depressed teenager. He achieves this by having the characters act out their lies, self deception, false memories, fears and desires, often repeating scenes with variations of dialogue or even characters, and none of it is necessarily in a linear narrative. So it’s both exhilarating and exhausting. Throughout his plays, we are asking ourselves What is the truth? What actually happened? For which there may or may not be an answer.

As time has gone on, what was surprising and original has become a signature style. It may even be in danger of becoming a cliché- but not yet! Once again, Zeller brings alive a potentially mundane story.

In The Forest, the subject is a married hospital consultant who has been having an affair with a younger woman. As she demands that he legitimises their relationship, he is overtaken by fear about what that would do to his marriage and career (the two of which are tied together, at least in his head), not to mention guilt at betraying his wife.

From the start, we are in familiar Zeller territory. We are plunged into a confusing jigsaw of scenes in which we see the adulterer’s changing memories, fantasies and fears. The title refers to a story about a prince out hunting, who in pursuit of a stag that ultimately disappears, becomes lost in a forest.

Each of the three acts (there’s no interval by the way) begins with the same or at least a similar scene. The first scene sees Pierre, referred to in the cast of characters as Man 1, and played byToby Stephens, arriving home. His wife is clearly agitated. Their daughter’s long term boyfriend has been having an affair. Pierre talks to the girl about his indiscretion. ‘Don’t worry. Everything’ll work itself out’ he says. Pierre uses a conversation with the daughter to talk about his thoughts about a man having affair. Perhaps his memory is playing tricks because on the second occasion, the daughter isn’t there and he talks directly to his wife. This time he’s talking about their child’s reaction, indicating that he is concerned about his wife’s reaction to his own affair. The third time, the daughter barely gets a mention but the room has filled with flowers.

The no-strings affair is now tied up with his marriage and career

Then there’s scene two. A middle-aged man, referred to as Man 2 and played by Paul McGann, is in bed with a young woman. We’re not in doubt for very long that this is also Pierre. I’m guessing that, in his mind, Pierre has separated his affair from the rest of his life. In other words, he becomes a different person, a kind of alter ego. Before long, we are seeing the same or a similar scene but with Toby Stephens, just as Man 2 is Pierre in the third iteration of the opening scene. This indicates I think that the once no-strings affair is now tied up with this marriage and career.

Toby Stephens is brilliant as Man 1. His ready smile becomes a nervous grin. He leans back which at first seems relaxed but eventually looks like he’s reeling from blows. Paul McGann holds his own as Man2, showing a brittle harshness that soon collapses into panic.

Pierre’s character is complex and rounded. The other characters less so, perhaps because they’re part of his memory and imagination.

The treatment of the Girlfriend in the first bedroom scene is a case in point. When she gets out of bed and you see her partly naked before she puts on a shirt. Perfectly normal in real life of course but these days, you rarely see gratuitous nudity on stage, so we must assume there is a good reason for this. Actually, in the script, she is fully naked for the whole scene. I take it that this underlines that Pierre saw her as no more than someone he has sex with. She’s only given a name later as he starts to take her threat more seriously. Excellent as Angel Coulby’s acting is, there is little personality for her to get her teeth into.

Gina McKee makes the most of her limited role

Despite the limitations of the script, the glorious Gina McKee shows fine acting skill in managing to suggest there’s a lot going on the Wife’s head. Through a combination of strangled speech and sideways glances, she conveys a lack of passion that might have been a reason why Pierre strayed, insecurity, and the possibility that she suspects something.

Anna Fleischle‘s set is in three parts: a living room, a bedroom above the living room, and an office to the side. Each setting is invisible until the lights come up on it. The first two are built with tremendous attention to detail, and this naturalistic setting helps suggest that all that is going on in Pierre’s brain is happening while he continues to live out an everyday life.

The office is the exception. It’s pretty bare and seems to be where Pierre’s conversations with his conscience take place, or possibly interrogations by the police. He is being held in the room by a white faced man in black, chillingly played by Finbar Lynch. He looks like a character from an early horror film and wheedles Pierre with questions as he alternates between a good cop and bad cop style from a police procedural. The biggest question being ‘What happened?’

So what did happen? How did the affair end? What was the fate of the Girlfriend? Well, we can never be quite certain. There are some dramatic and shocking moments which turn this play into almost a thriller as well as a who-dun-it. Director Jonathan Kent is to be congratulated for the pace, and imbuing all that goes on with an almost Hitchcockian suspense, helped by Isobel Waller-Bridge‘s edgy sound design.

By the end, we have been given some explanations (or are they?). The problem for this and other Zeller plays is that the truth, if and when it’s discovered, may not be as interesting or exciting as the process that led to the revelation.

The Forest continues at Hampstead Theatre until 12 March 2022

Paul was given a complimentary review ticket by the producer

Click here to watch this review on the One Minute Theatre Reviews YouTube channel

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Elizabeth McGovern in AVA The Secret Conversations – Riverside Studios

McGovern is terrific, shame about the script


★★★

Productyion photo of Anatol Yusef & Elizabeth McGovern in AVA The Secret Conversations
Anatol Yusef & Elizabeth McGovern in AVA The Secret Conversations (Photo: Marc Brenner)

It might have been best if the conversations in AVA The Secret Conversations (Riverside Studios) had stayed secret. Having said that, there is one major strength in this production: Elizabeth McGovern. She may never have been a sex goddess like her character Ava Gardner but she sure can act. Best known today as Lady Cora in Downton Abbey, she has been a regular on screen and stage for her whole adult life, and it shows. She conveys brilliantly a woman in later life struck down by illness, looking back in puzzlement, at what she had and what she still retains.

Elizabeth McGovern is also the writer. On the strength of this play, she might be better to stick to acting. It’s based on a book by Peter Evans in which he wrote about his experience as a ghostwriter working with Ava Gardner on a planned autobiography. That’s both its strength, in that we get insights into her character from the way she interacts with him, and its weakness, in that the interview format prevents a deeper look at what actually happened in her life.

I’m going to assume that a film star (even one of the sexiest in cinema history according to Empire magazine), who hit the heights in the 50s and 60s, isn’t going to be of that much interest to today’s audiences. Maybe lovers of old movies will have a soft spot for The Killers, The Barefoot Contessa or The Night Of The Iguana, but any new play about her has to excite because of the character created here and now on the stage.

The play, directed by Gaby Delial, does establish that Ava is (or was) an interesting woman. She came from a poor country background and stumbled into Hollywood almost by accident. She clearly had something that the camera loved. This quality goes beyond being physically attractive to conveying an image that suggests ‘sex’ to large numbers of people. Whatever it is, she had it, and the studios exploited it. It seems her many lovers were attracted to her image more than her. Her marriages to Mickey Rooney when she was still a virgin, bandleader Artie Shaw and most famously Frank Sinatra were crammed with sex, which she says she greatly enjoyed, but they were short-lived, suggesting that sex could only sustain her relationships for so long. Interestingly divorce or the end of a sexual relationship didn’t stop her from having long-lasting friendships with some of her lovers, Sinatra included.

I didn’t feel much wiser by the end as to what made Ava Gardner a sex symbol, whether her failed relationships were due to bad choices, whether her enjoyment of sex clouded her judgement of character, or why so many people became attached to her as a friend and she to them.

Peter’s publisher, whom we hear on the phone, is particularly, and repeatedly, keen to know the size of Frank Sinatra’s penis. Apparently Ava had alluded to it in a previous interview. We never find out, and that seems true in this play of so many of the questions we might ask about Ava.

Ava Gardner is the only rounded character

The problem I think is in the writing. Anatol Yusef is an excellent actor but I never felt he was at home in the role of Peter Evans, the would-be novelist who doesn’t really want to write a pot boiler biography. And when he enacts scenes as Ava’s various husbands, none came to life. The script didn’t seem to me to create a rounded picture of Peter Evans or the husbands, in the way that it did of Ava. Mickey Rooney is reduced to ‘child like’, Artie Shaw to ‘controlling’, Frank Sinatra to ‘a hot headed drunk’. It seems like Ms McGovern wanted to write a play about Ava Gardner but Peter Evans got in the way. However, since this whole edifice is built on Peter’s interpretation of his conversations with Ava, it might have useful to gain more insights into him. I couldn’t detect any chemistry and therefore I had no reason to believe they would develop a close relationship, which is important to understanding why and how she fell in love with other men in her life.

There is a dramatic climax but the structure of the play doesn’t really lead up to it. The curtain goes up on their first meeting and comes down with their last. In between, their relationship does develop and we do get to know Ava a bit, but mainly we are given a parade of tantalising glimpses into the life and career of a fascinating woman who as she puts it (and I paraphrase here) ‘made movies, made out, and made a mess of her life. But never made jam.’

What we most certainly do get is a poignant picture of a person in her twilight years, full of memories but unable to understand what they add up to. And that is thanks to an impressive performance by Elizabeth McGovern. She starts as something of a wreck, before gradually gaining confidence, until by the end she regains the glamour and power of old.

AVA The Secret Conversations. Photo: Marc Brenner

There is one other star of the show and that’s the set. It’s credited to 59 Productions who specialise in integrating projection into live performances, but it’s not so much the way clips of Ava Gardner’s films are layered into the show, it’s the actual use of the proscenium arch by their designer Hannah Rozenberg that caught my eye. It starts with a small aperture on the right revealing Peter Evans answering the phone to Ava in the middle of the night. To the left, a larger oblong opens to show Ava’s flat (and it is a flat in London, not a Los Angeles apartment). That pros arch opening varies in shape to match various cinema screen formats that she worked in. Eventually, as the star and her ghostwriter become closer, the two sections join into one large set. Almost worth seeing for the set alone.

AVA The Secret Conversations is running at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith London until 16 April 2022.

Click here to watch the review of SAVA The Secret Conversations on YouTube

 

 

 

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