Steve Coogan in Dr Strangelove – Noel Coward Theatre – review

Why Steve Coogan is better than Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove

★★★★

John Hopkins and Steve Coogan in Dr Strangelove. Photo: Manuel Harlan

I don’t know what’s more spectacular, the production of Dr Strangelove or Steve Coogan‘s triumphant performance as four different characters. He’s hardly ever off stage and he generates most of the laughs. The script has some flaws, but these are far outweighed by the enjoyment gleaned from this magnificent show.

You might be wondering whether a film made in the 1960s about how a nuclear war might be triggered stacks up as a comedy for today. It does creak occasionally but it is funnier and more relevant than you might expect. I’ll return to that but more to the point is that Dr Strangelove is a vehicle for the powerful comic acting of Steve Coogan, following in the footsteps of the film’s star Peter Sellers by playing multiple roles. As well as constantly changing costumes, he is hardly off the stage. He deserves an award for stamina, as well as any others he will deservedly accrue.

The action starts at a US air base in Britain. The hut interior with its massive Venetian blinds, just waiting to be disrupted, is the first of a series of great sets by Hildegard Bechtler (who also designed the set for the current production of Oedipus). We meet the first and possibly the best of four brilliant characters created by Steve Coogan. He’s a RAF Captain Mandrake, shocked that the US commander has launched an unauthorised nuclear attack on Russia. It’s a masterpiece of British reserve, politeness and beating around the bush in the face of the utter madness of General Ripper played hilariously by a cigar-chomping, carpet-chewing and suitably square-jawed John Hopkins.

Steve Coogan and Giles Terera in Dr Strangelove. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Next, we are in a spectacular War Room with a huge electronic map or ‘Big Board’ as they call it working over the scene, showing targets as ‘circles, squares and squiggly bits’. Here, a panicking mix of politicians and military men have gathered in response to the news. Mr Coogan is the level-headed US President Muffley surrounded by war-mongering generals, led by an excellent Giles Terera as General Turgidson, maintaining a stiff military stance but always on the verge of jumping up and down with childish excitement.

Also in the room is Russian Ambassador Bakov (the amusing names keep on coming), played by Tony Jaywardena, who disintegrates from swaggering confidence to paralysing fear as he realises his fate is in the hands of his unpredictable and possibly mad leader.

There’s some excellent sleight of hand when Mr Coogan changes to Dr Strangelove, a former German scientist now masterminding the US nuclear response. He holds down his arm to prevent it making Nazi salutes, always with a reassuring ’I hated that’, while clearly looking forward to a new Reich. Mr Coogan plays down the German fanatic stereotype which makes his explanation of the logic of having automatic responses to the use of nuclear weapons without human intervention, and his casual description of the consequences of a nuclear holocaust as chilling as they are funny.

The third set cleverly recreates a bomber plane. The fuselage and landscape below are recreated impeccably, although I’m not sure how visible it would be from the back of the stalls. Sitting in the cockpit with two other members of the crew is the pilot Major TJ Kong, played by Steve Coogan.

It takes some chutzpah to put yourself up for comparison with the great Peter Sellers but Mr Coogan emerges with at least a draw, and he deserves an extra credit for playing all these parts in the course of two hours. Like Mr Sellers, he avoids going for the obvious laughs which could be gained from exaggerating the accents and mannerisms, and other clowning. Instead, they take the characters seriously and allow the humour to come out of the situation, making it all the more believable.

Steve Coogan outdoes Peter Sellers in one respect. That’s by taking on a fourth role, which the star of the film was unable to do owing to an injury. Again it’s a priceless performance as Major T J Kong, as the pilot reverts to cowboy mode. Despite objections and obstacles, he is determined to carry out the mission, but can he be stopped?

A code that will cancel the bombers is essential but Coogan back as RAF Captain Mandrake and in possession of said code has trouble trying to phone the President because of lack of change. This leads to one of the funniest scenes, as he tries to persuade a US soldier to shoot open a vending machine. To the American, vandalising Coca Cola property is a more serious offence than causing World War 3.

This stage show has been adapted by Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley from a 1964 film that satirised the military strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction- the idea that if all the major powers were armed with nuclear weapons they wouldn’t attack for fear of being destroyed themselves. At the time, hot on the heels of the Cuban Missile Crisis, people were actually preparing for the possibility of a nuclear war. Sixty years later, it hasn’t happened. Not that that makes Dr Strangelove a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Yes, CND (the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) is barely mentioned these days and we have become more concerned about the destruction of the planet through pollution and the climate crisis, but the reality is that nuclear weapons have proliferated, making greater than ever the danger of a country, a dictator, or even a terrorist group using them. With an aggressive Putin in power in Russia and an unpredictable President due to take over the US nuclear codes, not to mention nuclear weapons at the disposal of Israel, Pakistan, North Korea and, before long, Iran, this is a timely reminder that it only takes one or two psychopaths with their fingers on the trigger to desolate the world- and how absurd this is.

Giles Terera is excellent as a war-mongering general

Dr Strangelove imagines two such madmen (and the players are all men) setting off a potential nuclear war. In doing so, it exposes fundamental flaws in the macho culture and logic of war that has led them into this corner. So the US generals talk of ‘pre-taliation’, based on the assumption that an accidental attack by them will trigger retaliation and they will need to get in first. It’s satire but it bites deeply into the fanaticism that comes out of the dehumanisation of the opposition.

It’s not a musical but it begins and ends with a chorus line of military personnel dancing to popular songs, the opening number being the most aggressive version of Try A Little Tenderness I’ve ever heard, and ending with Vera Lynn (Penny Ashmore) singing with equal irony the sentimental World War Two song We’ll Meet Again.

The one-liners come thick and fast (‘You can’t fight in here! This is the War Room’) and, thanks to director Sean Foley, the pace rarely lets up. The only problem is that the plot is entirely centred around the question of whether a nuclear war can be prevented. With no subplots or diversions, the humour, never subtle and already dated in parts, becomes progressively predictable: you can only take so many jokes about redneck Americans and the madness of war.

Fortunately, Steve Coogan is magnificent, creating four very different characters and showing perfectly how the best laughs come from taking the comedy seriously. He looked exhausted by the time the curtain came down.

Dr Strangelove can be seen at the Noel Coward Theatre in London’s West End until 25 January 2025, and then at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre from 5 to 22 February 2025. Ticket information here.

Paul was given a review ticket by the producer.

Watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

October 28, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup – The Fear of 13 with Adrien Brody

Donmar Warehouse

Adrien Brody in Fear of 13. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Based on the true story of an innocent man who spent 22 years on death row, The Fear of 13 stars Oscar-winning Hollywood star Adrien Brody. The actor was highly praised by reviewers, and there were laudits too for Miriam Buether’s set which turned the Donmar auditorium into the round and immersed some of the audience in the action. Some critics found the play itself by Lindsey Ferrentino a little flat.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

Clive Davis in The Times (5★) said, ‘Brody delivers an intense, soul-baring performance in his London stage debut.’ Fiona Mountford in the i (5★) concurred, ‘This is an actor at the top of his game and it is a privilege to watch him up close in this space as we reflect upon the ultimate fairness, or otherwise, of justice.’

Matt Wolf in London Theatre (5★) found, ‘Brody is the real deal – a simmering, soulful theatre animal’. He ended, ‘I surely wasn’t the only one who watched the curtain call misty-eyed at the restoration of justice and in awe of Brody’s impassioned commitment to this story of snatching victory from the jaws of psychic defeat.’

Claire Allfree in the Telegraph (5★) noted, ‘(Brody) combines a bewildered, swaggering, teenage vulnerability with a growing gnawing despair … His consummate performance has the audience on side every step of the way.’

Helen Hawkins at The Arts Desk (5★) said of Brody, ‘His face, with its characterful eyebrows, was built for pathos, his rangey physique to embody suffering; but here his features can also radiate a sunny kind of joy as Yarris discovers love, and that freedom means the freedom to love’.

Alex Wood at What’s On Stage (5★) was impressed that ‘under the creative eye of director Justin Martin and designer Miriam Buether, the auditorium is transformed into the round – generating an oppressive, claustrophobic sense of confined space that is disarmingly flexible when required.’

The Observer‘s Susannah Clapp (4★) also praised the production: ‘Miriam Buether’s design – a bare space for jail and a cosy house trapped behind a glass screen – punches home the distance between inmates and the outside world: like two hands on a prison visit unable to touch.’

Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times (4★) praised Brody, ‘He’s charismatic, funny and a born storyteller, but Brody also finds a more ambivalent, reckless streak that suggests the damage within. It’s a spellbinding performance’.

Andrzej Lukowski in Time Out (4★) commented, ‘It is, above all, a cracking piece of storytelling, that exists because Yarris is a fascinating man who has lived a remarkable life, and because Brody has the tortured oddball charisma to bring that to the stage.’

Arifa Akbar in The Guardian (3★) thought Adrien Brody ‘is a beguiling presence here but is not given enough space to flex his actorly muscles. Action takes the place of atmosphere.’ Nick Curtis in the Standard (3★) called him ‘Tousled, impossibly lean and charmingly wolfish, Brody surfs each twist and turn of a script that is mostly preoccupied with the stories we tell ourselves as individuals or as a society.’

Alice Saville in The Independent (3★) described how ‘the profound bleakness underlying this story is constantly kept at bay with jokes, soul singing, and the bustling of guards and prisoners coming and going on its busy stage. It’s engrossing and poignant, even if it’s afraid to let the dark in.’ Sam Marlowe in The Stage (3★) was muted: ‘Brody is mesmerising’ she said but ‘it’s a straightforward retelling without much subtext or theatrical texture.’

Critics’ Average Rating 4.2★

The Fear of 13 can be seen at The Donmar Warehouse Theatre until 30 November 2024. Buy tickets directly here

If you’ve seen The Fear of 13 at the Donmar, please add your review and rating below

October 21, 2024October 21, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup: The Duchess (of Malfi) with Jodie Whittaker

Trafalgar Theatre

The Duchess (of Malfi) is, at the time of writing, the Worst Value West End Show in our listing. Only Shrek The Musical has received worst reviews so far this year. The return of Jodie Whittaker to the stage, after a sojourn in Doctor Who and other screen projects, was largely welcomed. Unfortunately Zinnie Harris‘s adaptation of Webster’s Jacobean horror story was condemned by all but the Telegraph, with The Times awarding just one star.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

Let’s start with the good news. Kirsten Grant for the Telegraph (4★) liked it: ‘Whittaker proves more than up to the challenge with an enthrallingly layered take on the formidable Duchess.’ She went further, ‘Whittaker and this superb ensemble are surely reason enough to pay the Trafalgar a visit.’ If that weren’t incentive enough, she also said, ‘Harris pulls off a pacy, intense production.’

While conceding ‘it’s undeniably thrilling to see Whittaker on stage again,’ Nick Curtis of the Standard (3★) was unenthusiastic about the production: ‘Harris’s adaptation only comes into its own in the second half. Throughout the first, I wondered what the point was.’

Theo Bosanquet at WhatsOnStage (3★) made similar points. Not a fan of the adaptation, he concentrated on the cast: ‘The performances, however, are impressive …Whittaker in particular reminds us why she’s been such a miss these past dozen years…She has tremendous poise as well as a sense of searing intelligence, repelling her brothers’ early attacks with sheer charisma. Although this may not be the best use of her talents, it’s great to have her back on stage.’

The Observer‘s Susannah Clapp (2★) was blunt in her criticism: ‘Zinnie Harris’s updated version of John Webster’s 1613 tragedy…is a muddle’ and ‘Against Tom Piper’s design of white metal walkways and staircase – a cross between prison and a chic art gallery brightly lit by Ben Ormerod – the generally feeble acting is cruelly exposed: when the men aren’t yelling they are faltering.’

Fiona Mountford in the i (2★) was just as savage: ‘Whittaker gives a powerful and passionate performance, but she faces an insurmountable challenge as Harris’s reworking makes less and less sense as it proceeds.’

Arifa Akbar of The Guardian (2★) called it ‘too much of a melange of tone and ideas’. She continued, ‘The performances are powerful but the setup feels so overbearingly orchestrated that you do not feel the characters’ passion or anger.’

‘This production is fatally lacking in tragic richness and weight,’ said Alice Saville in The Independent (2★). She noted, ‘Harris directs as well as adapts, using an overspilling ragbag of strategies borrowed from European directors’ theatre. Stark lighting. Ear-splitting judders of sound. A few times, characters step up to the microphone to sing out their inner lives…but the device feels both hackneyed and underused.’

Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (2★) was slightly more forgiving: ‘Though the production feels muddled, Harris makes sharp points about the corrosive effects of toxic masculinity.’

The worst reaction of all came from The Times’ Clive Davis who awarded a rare 1★. He described watching Jodie Whittaker ‘stumble through a dismal reworking of John Webster’s Jacobean tragedy. The writer-director Zinnie Harris throws a boxful of half-shaped ideas at the audience and leaves the actors looking horribly exposed. Long stretches feel like a rehearsal from a student production.’

Critics’ Average Rating 2.3★

Value Rating 23 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

The Duchess (of Malfi) is at the Trafalgar Theatre, London, until 20 December 2024. Buy tickets directly from the theatre

If you’ve seen The Duchess at the Trafalgar Theatre, please add your review and rating below

October 20, 2024October 20, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup – Oedipus with Mark Strong and Lesley Manville

Wyndham’s Theatre

Lesley Manville and Mark Strong in Oedipus

Robert Icke’s adaptation of Sophocles’ classic into a story of passionate love doomed by a search for truth. Most critics found it thrilling and tense, three giving 5 stars, but, as so often happens, a couple of them discovered no tension at all. Mark Strong as an Obama-like politician and Lesley Manville as his strong devoted wife were highly praised.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (5★) was most impressed: ‘its transformation into a political thriller-cum-family tragedy is riveting from beginning to end…Manville and Strong who make this production electric; rarely has a show had two such formidable leads who become stronger with every scene.’ It was she concluded, ‘An old play is masterfully analysed and made newly devastating.’

Sarah Hemming in The Financial Times (5★) began, ‘Led by superb performances from Strong and Manville, Icke brilliantly remakes Sophocles’ profoundly disturbing tragedy for our times.’ She noted, ‘It reaches far into the nagging question of how much any of us really want to know’. She also pointed out, ‘The deep irony of Icke’s staging is that there is so much love in the room.’

Susannah Clapp in The Observer (5★) was another to give top marks: ‘There will surely not be a more powerful production in the UK this year…It is electric.’ She continued, ‘A tremendous cast seem to have the complexes and complexities of the plot running through them like blood.’

WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton (4★) declared, ‘The result, helped by magnificent performances from Strong and Lesley Manville as his wife Jocasta, is as gripping as a thriller, yet weighted with the terrible sense… of what might have been.’ ‘By the close,’ she said, ‘their suffering has become almost unbearable to watch, a modern reminder of the power of Greek tragedy to lay bare all the grief of the human soul.’

Alice Saville in The Independent (4★) was excited: ‘Writer and director Robert Icke’s brilliant reimagining of Oedipus achieves the monumental feat of taking a Greek drama where (almost) everyone thinks they know what’s going to happen, and turning it into an exercise in tension, one that etches its message with the painful efficiency of a tattoo gun.’ Of the two stars, she commented, ‘Strong is full of a fearless, sometimes fearsome integrity as Oedipus, with Manville bringing a brittle sensuality to the role of his wife Jocasta.’

Olivia Rook at LondonTheatre (4★) noted, ‘Just like the original, Icke’s reworked tragedy, framed here as a tense political thriller, reveals the crushing weight of truth and knowledge.’ About the leads she said, ‘their chemistry as lovers-turned-relatives has absorbing, agonising friction.’

For Nick Curtis in The Standard (4★), it was ‘astonishing’. He went on, ‘Strong’s smart, passionate, utterly believable relationship with the luminous Manville as his older wife Jocasta roots the unravelling suspense’. Cheekily he combined a spoiler with a lewd compliment: ‘this show is mother**in’ good.’

Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski (4★) said Icke’s version ‘benefits from a lethal but compassionate decluttering, a singularity of purpose that distils a famously lurid story into something empathetic, lucid and quite, quite devastating.’ He confessed, ‘Even if you’re aware of every twist and turn of the story, this Oedipus glints with a deadly sharpness. I may not have actually gasped, but I was looking at the end through my fingers.’

Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (4★) reported, ‘The piece has a cumulative power that builds gradually until the atmosphere is riveting, suffocating and unbearably tense.’ ‘The ‘mighty momentum of the tragedy is thrilling in its grim inexorability,’ agreed Fiona Mountford in the i (4★)

Clare Allfree for the Telegraph (3★) was less convinced, calling it a ‘slick, somewhat anodyne reimagining’. She disagrees with most of her fellow reviewers about it being a thriller: ‘Icke is usually excellent at sustaining tension through the electric space he generates between his actors; here, that space feels slack’. It’s a case of too little too late when ‘Strong and Manville are desperately moving in the extraordinary final scenes’. The Times’ Clive Davis (3★) was also disappointed: ‘Eager to impress, Icke is always tossing stage effects at us.’

Critics’ Average Rating 4.1★

Value rating 45 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Oedipus can be seen at The Wyndham’s Theatre until 4 January 2025. Buy tickets directly here

Read Paul Seven’s review of Oedipus here

If you’ve seen Oedipus at the Wyndham’s Theatre, please add your review and rating below

October 15, 2024October 17, 2024

Theatre review: The Cabinet Minister at The Menier

This could be the Comedy of the Year

Comedy of the Year?

★★★★

The Cabinet Minister at The Menier Theatre. Photo: Tristram Kenton

Who would have thought that a forgotten play by a seldom-performed Victorian playwright would be one of the funniest theatre shows of the year?

Arthur Pinero was one of the most popular playwrights of his day- he was even given a knighthood. He made his name with farces and then with more serious plays on social matters like The Second Mrs Tanquery– one of the few that people may have heard of. While he may not offer quite the sharp wit or tight plots of his contemporary Oscar Wilde, Pinero too mocked the Victorian upper class.

I think it’s fair to say his plays haven’t aged as well as Wilde’s, but with a little attention from adaptor Nancy Carroll, The Cabinet Minister scrubs up very well. She’s simplified the story, cut the anachronisms, and added lashings of innuendoes.

What is the plot? Unbeknownst to him, a government minister’s wife and son have run up enormous debts. The latter is a gambler, the former has bought far too many expensive dresses on credit. If the debts aren’t paid, the minister already under pressure to resign, will be disgraced and forced to retire to that fate worse than death (to his wife, anyway) the countryside.

The dressmaker and her moneylender brother intend to use the debts as leverage to gain entry into high society, and, in the brother’s case, to use insider knowledge to make a stock market killing. The wife’s solution is to marry off her children to rich spouses. They have different ideas- they would like to marry for love.

A rollicking farce

Nicholas Rowe & Nancy Carroll in The Cabinet Minister. Photo: Tristram Kenton

So, it has all the ingredients of a comedy of manners and a rollicking farce. Nancy Carroll, director Paul Foster, designer Janet Bird and a well chosen cast have cooked them up into the comedy of the year. Nicholas Rowe plays the government minister Sir Julian Twombley. Tall and patrician, and so cynical about politics he gets his butler to write his speeches, he provides the still centre for the shenanigans.

Nancy Carroll not only adapted the play, she stars as his wife Lady Katherine Twombley. She knows how lucky she is to be part of high society, and doesn’t want that luck to run out. In Ms Carroll’s hands, she carries herself haughtily, throws out barbed one-liners, and panics wholeheartedly, as when she tries to strangle her nemesis Bernard Lacklustre. He’s the main creditor and, played by Laurence Ubong Williams, is a Del Boy character failing at every turn to blend into upper class society.

His sister Fanny Lacklustre is a tradesperson in the morning and a lady in the afternoon, such are the complexities of the class system. Lady Katherine may feel contempt for her, and shows it, but she cannot resist the pressure to bring her into her world. Phoebe Fildes gives a great turn as the thick-skinned schemer, ignoring sleights, ever smiling and pressing on with her plans.

Then there are the children. I particularly liked Rosalind Ford as a naive, confused Imogen Twombley. She is in love with Valentine, a hairy, smelly explorer who won’t settle for domesticity, and played by George Blagden with panache. Unfortunately, her parents have promised her to a rich Scottish laird, Sir Colin McPhail. And here we come to the highest comedy of the evening. Sir Colin is taciturn and shy. Played by Matthew Woodyatt, he’s a lumbering giant ties himself in knots trying to proclaim his feelings, while his mother Lady MacPhail speaks for him and at times the whole of Scotland. Played by Dillie Keane, best known as part of Fascinating Aida, she is an over-the-top Scot forever banging on about the glens and hills of her beloved country.

Attempting to matchmake is Dora, the Dowager Countess of Drumdurris. She constantly appears and disappears through the two doors in classic farce fashion. Sara Crowe was indisposed when I saw the show. While her last minute replacement read the lines well from a script, we lost some of the speed that I am sure was intended by movement director Joanna Goodwin.

Members of the cast play musical instruments. This device is used regularly by The Watermill Theatre and by Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of). It is highly effective in establishing mood and sometimes character and can also help keep us the audience at bay in a play where we are deliberately distanced from being emotionally involved with the characters.

I mentioned Nancy Carroll has packed her adaptation with innuendoes. If you’d like an example, I’ll give you one. At one musical moment, Fanny offers to fiddle with flute playing Sir Julian.

The sets and costumes by Janet Bird are terrific. The Menier stage area is quite small but versatile. On this occasion, the audience is on two sides, creating an intimate drawing room feel. The costumes are sumptuous, looking fin de siecle and subtly reflecting the characters. The Twombleys’ home is decorated minmally but with a chintzy late Victorian style including a chaise longue and of course a piano.

The portrait of high society and its fragility, as well as the seriousness of debt, would have been much more recognisable to a Victorian audience, but we are still a class-ridden society and the characters’ many pretensions hit home. And without it ever needing to be stated explicitly, the references to corrupt politics and donations in exchange for influence show times haven’t changed as much as we might hope. I’m sure the rumours that Lord Ali gave Sir Keir tickets for the opening night are entirely without foundation.

The Cabinet Minister can be seen at The Menier Chocolate Factory Theatre until 16 November 2024.

Paul paid for his ticket.

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

Read what other critics said about The Cabinet Minister

October 15, 2024October 20, 2024

Review: Oedipus with Mark Strong and Lesley Manville at Wyndham’s Theatre

A thrilling love story shattered by human fallibility

★★★★★

Lesley Manville and Mark Strong in Oedipus. Photo: Manuel Harlan

I love going to the theatre but I can’t deny that, while they offer the excitement of live performance, many evenings are transitory experiences- good at the time but not that memorable. Then, a production comes along that reminds you why you fell in love with theatre, and why at its best it’s a transcendent experience. A thrilling production like Robert Icke’s Oedipus, adapted from Sophocles‘ Ancient Greek tragedy and starring Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. For two hours, you are not only in the presence of two great actors, you are taken out of the here and now, into a timeless story of human experience.

First, we should pay tribute to Sophocles born over 2500 years ago and possibly the greatest playwright of all time. He wrote around 120 plays. Of the seven that survive, Oedipus, or Oedipus The King, is considered to be his finest. Sophocles provides the core of this production by showing the way Oedipus reacts to being the victim of a situation he only inadvertently caused.

Now, it will come as no surprise to you that the situation is, unbeknownst to him, he has killed his father and married his mother. And, if we didn’t know, we soon do because early on in the play, he meets someone who can foresee the future- Tiresias played by Samuel Brewer as someone frightened by his knowledge and reluctant to impart it. Oedipus, the truth seeker, insists so Tiesias tells him he will discover that he is the killer of his father and the lover of his mother. He laughs it off. After all, his father is still alive and his elderly mother is certainly not his wife.

In Robert Icke‘s interpretation, Oedipus is a modern day politican who, Obama-like, promises to be truthful and transparent- and means it. We meet him on election night, and await his almost certain victory in real time, as a clock counts down the seconds to the result. This is unbearably tense because the time is just a little less than the length of the play, which is without an interval, and which we are pretty sure will end badly

At the very start, Oedipus makes two rash decisions (rash in his advisor’s opinion). As there are doubts about his immigrant origins, he will release his birth certificate. Secondly, because there are rumours about how the last proper ruler King Laius, who was also his wife’s former husband, died 30 years earlier, he will conduct a public investigation. But sometimes the truth can be devastating and his well-intentioned decisions set off the inevitable conclusion.

Robert Icke’s Oedipus at the Wyndham’s Theatre

Everything takes place in one indoor location, the election campaign headquarters. As well as a workplace, it is also the place where Oedipus’ family live. Hildegard Bechtler‘s clean, shiny, white set suggests both a modern office and the temporariness of life, which is an on-going theme of the play. As time ticks away, so the furnishings are gradually removed.

Oedipus’ mother Merope has something important to tell him. We suspect what this will be, but he keeps putting her off. She is played by June Watson as a world-weary but steely old woman. Meanwhile, we get hints of political intrigue when we meet Oedipus’ close advisor Creon, his brother-in-law, played with a certain shiftiness and exasperation by Michael Gould. Oedipus doesn’t trust him, partly because Tiresias has predicted Creon will become leader, and partly because, unlike him, Creon sees the potential dangers of transparency.

Heart bursting drama

Most importantly, we meet Oedipus’ wife, Jocasta, a little older than him, and whom he clearly loves. The passion is still strong even after thirty years: he gives her oral sex on stage and, when interrupted, they go off for a quickie. It’s a love that dominates the play. ‘Love,’ he proclaims, ‘is the only thing that matters in the end’. Like their characters, Mark Strong and Lesley Manville are a match made in heaven: they’re tactile, warm, honest, and at ease with each other. You can feel the erotic charge. Your heart bursts with the knowledge of what is to come, knowledge that will shatter their love story.

Then, there’s the loving family. They may bicker but they are relaxed together. Some of the audience may know that in other plays by Sophocles, the consequences of tonight will play out in further tragedy, including Antigone, which features his daughter, and is currently playing in a hardly recognisable modern version called The Other Place at the National Theatre. It seems we can’t get enough of Sophocles. There’s even another version of Oedipus coming to the Old Vic next year, featuring Rami Malek and Indira Varma.

They will have to do incredibly well to match Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. When they are on stage, you feel you are in the presence of greatness. Mark Strong carries himself with the confidence, strength and arrogance of a leader, upright with jutting jaw, but he is also able to show a full range of emotions from fear to temper to tenderness. Lesley Manville is a sparkling foil to him. She laughs, she’s seductive, she’s protective, she tries to persuade him to leave well alone. When she talks of becoming pregnant at 13 and having the baby taken away, it’s a pin-drop moment of the deepest emotion, and made all the worse because we know who that baby is.

The tension is palpable as Oedipus’ determination to discover and reveal the truth leads him first to connect an accident he was involved in as a young man with the death of his wife’s despicable husband King Laius, and then to the much worse truth about his own origins.

Yes, the coincidences are a bit much, both in Sophocles‘ original and in Robert Icke‘s adaptation, but the ticking clock allows us no time to question the plot. We may not be cursed by the Ancient Greek Gods, but this play tells us we are all trapped by circumstances beyond our control from birth to death. We realise that Oedipus’ tragedy is not that he unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, it’s that his only too human quest for answers, without thought to the consequences of that knowledge, leads him to find out a shocking truth about himself. In a heartbreaking scene, we’re even reminded how different it could have been if he had made other choices.

It all comes back to being human, which I think is at the heart of theatre because of its human scale. There is a scene between Creon and Antigone in which they discuss a riddle, that is in fact the Riddle of The Sphinx, the one which made Oedipus a hero when he solved it. The answer to the riddle is, significantly, a human being.

As Oedipus’ mother says, ‘It was a struggle to get here. A struggle to be here. What can it be but a struggle to leave.’ Sophocles recognised the nature of the human condition, and Robert Icke, as adaptor and director, has laid it out again for us, magnificently.

Oedipus is at the Wyndham’s Theatre until 4 January 2025. Buy tickets direct from the theatre.

Paul bought his own ticket.

Click here to watch this review on our YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

Click here to read a roundup of critics’ reviews of Oedipus

October 13, 2024October 13, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup: The Lehman Trilogy

Gillian Lynne Theatre

The story of Jewish immigrants to America and their rise and fall in the world of finance is back in the West End. The latest reviews confirm the status of The Lehman Trilogy as a modern classic. This is its third West End outing, following its premiere at the National Theatre. Understandably most mainstream reviewers gave it a miss this time around, so I’ve included some of the less established media.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

’It’s one of the best evenings I’ve ever had in a theatre,’ said The Times’ Dominic Maxwell (5★). ‘Good luck seeing better acting this year.’ Aliya Al-Hassan at Broadway World (5★) talked about ‘the sheer scale of theatricality’ and said it was ‘A must-see for any theatre fan.’

Louis Mazzini at LondonTheatre1 (5★) called it ‘theatre at its very best, a rich and complex story told by actors at the top of their game and supported by sublime choreography, ingenious staging and essential music and other effects…simply umissable’.

Daz Gale at All That Dazzles (5★) was also fulsome in his praise: ‘Three hours and 20 minutes feels like a mere moment thanks to the consistently flawless production value, inspired direction and truly sensational talents that are the trio of actors gracing the stage. Make no mistake, this play is theatre at its very best.’

Franco Milazzo for Theatre & Tonic (5★) said, ‘Even when this play is watched again and again, the experience only deepens, not dulls…this masterwork is a monumental achievement. Even though it is largely a work with its head stuck in the past, it stands out as one of the greatest new dramas of this millennium.’

Anya Ryan at LondonTheatre (4★) confirmed, ‘this theatrical epic is as much of a boundary-smashing tour-de-force as ever.’ She went on, ‘the unique skill of The Lehman Trilogy is that it shows the repetitive rhythms and cyclical nature of life. Impeccably delivered, this astonishing family saga is perfectly pitched for the stage’.

Gary Naylor on The Arts Desk (4★) praised ‘the sheer chutzpah of its staging and acting’ but commented ‘Where is the hero? Where is the villiain? Where is the joy? One is left feeling the same about the play as one does about the Lehmans – more to be admired with reservations than to be loved unequivocally’.

Ke Meng at Theatre Weekly (4★) held back a little bit: ‘while the production is phenomenal with its unparalleled theatricality, the narrative feels more like a tribute to London bankers who want to see themselves on the West End stage, or a eulogy to Lehman’s finance empire and the once-vanquishing capitalism, rather than a critique or a reflection on such bustling prosperity.’

Critics’ average rating 4.6★

Value rating 51 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

The Lehman Trilogy can be seen at the Gillian Lynne Theatre until 5 January 2025. Buy tickets direct here

If you’ve seen The Lehman Trilogy, please add your review and rating below

October 10, 2024October 20, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup: The Other Place

Lyttelton Theatre at the National Theatre

Tobias Menzies and Emma D’Arcy in The Other Place. Photo: Sarah M Lee

‘After Antigone’ says the publicity material. In fact, you need know nothing about Sophocles’ classic play to enjoy (or not) Alexander Zeldin‘s new play about a grieving family at war with each other. It garnered three 5 star reviews from heavyweight critics but this was balanced somewhat by four less convinced 3 star reviews. The cast which included Tobias Menzies and Emma D’Arcy were praised.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

Sarah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (5★) said, ‘it’s extraordinary how much tension Zeldin and his excellent cast generate.’She commented, ‘The words have a real sense of jeopardy; they seem to spring from deep within, and as events take their course, they feel both inevitable and surprising. As taboos are broken and truths are revealed, they generate gasps of sympathy and shock.’ About the cast, she said, ‘Menzies is towering as Chris…conveying a man on the edge, desperately fighting for control and his sanity. He’s an actor of incredible stillness too; he doesn’t react, he simply seems to feel. But he is matched in intensity by D’Arcy who makes Annie’s desire for justice, for poles to cling to in a frightening world, profoundly moving and empathetic. Their mutual pain becomes our pain, a resounding cry down the centuries, a vindication of theatre’s unique ability to make us feel.’

Gary Naylor for Broadway World (5★) described it as ‘a ferocious whirlpool of a play that sucks you further and further down into a vortex that drowns you in man’s venality.’ He said, ‘Seldom do all the elements that power theatre’s unique capacity to crash over the fourth wall like a tsunami, come together as effectively as they do in this electrifying, unforgettable 80 minutes of squirming mental discomfort.’ He went on to praise ‘ the clean modernsm’ of Rosanna Vize’s set, ‘beautifully lit by James Farncombe’, and Yannis Philippakis’s music (that) also nags like a stomach cramp’. And he praised all the actors, including ‘Tobias Menzies (who) barely seems to act at all, a remarkable and rare gift for an actor. Often shrouded in an overcoat, he can stand still for minutes at a time while we see his frustration curdle to anger, his guilt bleed into self-pity, his arrogance fuel his entitlement.’

Demetrios Matheou on The Arts Desk (5★) said, ‘One of the wonders of the production is that it elicits edge-of-seat drama from a scenario – centred on a family squabble over an urn – that could easily have descended into absurdity. Instead, Zeldin has conjured a novel tragedy that, despite its roots, feels horribly of the here and now.’

Clare Allfree for the Telegraph (4★) delared, ‘this is sucker-punch theatre, beautifully detailed and at times excruciatingly funny.’ The Standard‘s Nick Curtis (4★) called it ‘elegantly acted, powerfully atmospheric but remorselessly fatalistic updating’ with ‘A crack cast’.

Arifa Akbar in The Guardian (4★) described it as ‘a delicately observed portrait of a family imploding with grief and contesting memories…Although lean at 80 minutes, its drama is huge.’ The Stage‘s Dave Fargnoli (4★) noted, ‘Taut, stretching pauses abound when words dry up, and there are sudden moments of heart-in-mouth tension, often defused with satisfyingly savage punchlines.

Helen O’Mahony for LondonTheatre (3★) felt there was ‘not a clear point to this story, except, perhaps, to remind us that difficult people are often the product of difficult pasts. But it’s a play that develops slowly then drops a bombshell; a night at the theatre you won’t forget.’

Time Out‘s Andrzej Lukowski (3★) concluded, ‘It’s a muddled showing from Zeldin the writer. But the elegant, ominous production from Zeldin the director ultimately salvages things, as do extremely committed performances from D’Arcy and Menzies. Their belief in this play very nearly carried me.

Fiona Mountford of the i (3★) was less impressed than most of the others: ‘Too much remains unexplained, too many details omitted, for catharsis to be achieved.’ Although, she did say, ‘(Alison) Oliver once again confirms her status as one of the brightest actors of her generation with a performance of gloriously twitchy watchfulness and unspoken depths of sorrow.’

The Times‘ Clive Davis (3★) also had a disappointing evening: ‘This is one of those National productions where you find yourself admiring individual elements — the set, the acting, the lighting — without being seduced by the play itself.’

Critics’ Average Rating 3.9★

Value rating 57 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

The Other Place can be seen at the National Theatre until 9 November 2024 Buy tickets direct here

If you’ve seen The Other Place at the National Theatre, please add your review and rating below

October 9, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup: Look Back In Anger / Roots

Almeida Theatre

In their Angry And Young season, The Almeida has revisited two plays from the 1950s that helped revolutionise the English stage. Both concern working class people and are set in kitchens (hence the nickname ‘kitchen sink drama’?). Atri Banerjee directs John Osborne’s Look Back In Anger and Diyan Zora directs Arnold Wesker’s Roots. Each critic had a favourite, while often not liking the other: where some saw a striking portrait of anger and misogyny in Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger, others were merely disturbed; some admired Roots‘ defiant Beattie, others thought the play lacked passion. All admired the stars Billy Howle and Morfydd Clark. I’ve separated comments about the two plays but the star ratings sometimes covered both, and sometimes star ratings were omitted.

Look Back In Anger

The Guardian‘s Arifa Akbar (2★) was on the attack: ‘watching it now is a curiously cold anthropological experience’. ‘John Osborne’s pugilistic sweet-stall seller…looks like a charmless, self-pitying tyrant here who weaponises his working-class chip against his wife.’

Patrick Marmion in the Mail (2★) joined in, ‘There’s a strong seam of misogyny in all Osborne’s writing — and Howle does little more than lend this sullen, self-pitying exponent a babyish whimper. The play has little to teach us, and does less to amuse.’

The Times’ Clive Davis (3★) felt ‘watching the endlessly self-pitying Jimmy complain about his wife, Alison, is like watching a thoroughly one-sided boxing match’. Sam Marlowe in The Stage said, ‘The unrelenting verbiage of Jimmy Porter, as he assaults Ellora Torchia as his upper-class wife Alison with a battery of taunts and insults, is heavy going and quickly begins to seem like overkill.’

Fiona Mountford in the i (3★) called it, ‘this interminable bore of an often misogynistic rant’. Susannah Clapp in The Observer (3) took a similar stand: ‘Billy Howle dazzles as Porter: as raw and ranging as Poor Tom on King Lear’s heath. But for all their force, his speeches are puny: Osborne glorying in his misogynistic power.’

Andrjez Lukowksi of Time Out (3★) commented, ‘antihero Jimmy Porter’s abusive treatment of his upper middle class wife Alison is deeply problematic. It was doubtless meant to be so at the time as well, but it was written in an age with a different attitude towards domestic violence, and I think the passage of years has made Jimmy an increasingly repulsive, harder to emphasise with character. ‘ He didn’t like with the way the production moved away from the original’s naturalism: ‘At the end of the day a Pinteresque take on Osborne neither conveys the shattering impact of Look Back in Anger’s original incarnation nor, crucially, can it out-Pinter Pinter.’

Aleks Sierz at The Arts Desk (4★) took a more positive view: ‘What’s exciting theatrically is Osborne’s truthfulness in depicting masculinist attitudes which are as prevalent today as they were some 70 years ago. Yes Jimmy rants; yes, he’s unbearable (we have all surely met his type); yes, his opinions are disagreeable. But, boy, does he light up the stage.’

Tim Bano in The Standard (4★) called it ‘a crackling piece of drama’. For him, ‘Banerjee pulls the tension tighter and tighter, a nasty, thrilling tension, in which Porter expresses his vile, misogynistic, insulting views, shoving them at his wife and friend Cliff because there’s nowhere else for them to go.’

The Telegraph‘s Dzifa Benson (4★) said, ‘Howle portrays (Jimmy) as a coercive abuser, with a nervy, febrile energy that always feels dangerously on edge and ready to explode at any minute.’

Matt Wolf for LondonTheatre (4★) said, ‘you shiver at Jimmy’s weaponising of verbal finesse – language from his mouth cuts arguably more deeply than a knife – even as you sense a lost and haunted manchild adrift in a world that, as Jimmy knows full well, doesn’t give a damn.’

Sarah Hemming in The Financial Times (4★) declared, ‘It’s a blazing production of a tough, ugly, angry, desperate, sad play.’ Sarah Crompton at Whats on Stage (4★) observed, ‘(Howle’s) Jimmy really is lost and by emphasising that, Banerjee subtly counteracts Osborne’s unbearable desire to see this ruthless man-child as a hero.’

For Alexander Cohen at Broadway World (5★) was the most enthusiastic, ‘To experience John Osborne gut the audience like a fish, all their grotesque innards splayed out in front of you is as intoxicating as it is nasty…Banerjee makes it clear as day: his clenched indignation is even more pathetic in 2024.’

Roots

The Guardian (4★) said, ‘It is a static play but there are masterful subtleties around class and interplay of characters built into its pace, alongside humour.’ The Observer (4★) called it ‘an extraordinary piece of work: intimate and visionary’.

The Times (4★) noted, ‘Morfydd Clark is utterly convincing in this role. Beatie’s tragedy is that she patronises her folks yet has acquired all her new values from a bohemian boyfriend’. LondonTheatre (4★) called Clark ‘a stonking star turn’.

Dzifa Benson in the Telegraph (4★) said, ‘Morfydd Clark lends (Beattie) a breezy charm and resilience that seem to belie the raw vulnerability she displays when Beatie’s mother gives her a dressing down.’

The Financial Times (4★) enjoyed ‘Diyan Zora’s deftly paced and beautifully acted production of Roots … She keeps Wesker’s punctilious naturalism and yet frames the drama as a memory play.’

The i (3★) said, ‘Wesker lets out an impassioned cry for working-class liberation through greater curiosity and captures the timeless emotional theme of the facility with which children blame their parents for their own failings. Beatie has strong roots in this limited but loving place; a top-quality 100 minutes of drama shows that she also has a winningly defiant mind of her own.’

The Stage thought, ‘Clark makes Beatie’s eventual epiphany powerfully moving.’ As to the production, ‘overall, it’s a brisk staging that serves the play well, and if it does so without any particular innovation, it’s crammed with texture and feeling.’

Whats On Stage (3★) took a different view: ‘The problem is that Wesker’s writing lacks the ability to leap into the family’s minds; it’s a sociological study rather than a drama. Diyan Zora’s stylised, non-naturalistic staging pushes them further away.’ For the Mail (3★), ‘Wesker’s play…works best as social history.’

The Standard (3★) didn’t find much to get excited about: ‘The anger is deadened, drowned out in a society that’s far angrier, and far louder. Zora’s revival goes some way in cracking open the slightly dry carapace that surrounds the piece, and there are undoubtedly great moments, but too often it feels like an experiment in reviving a forgotten play, too much like homework.’

Critics’ average ratings:
Look Back In Anger 3.5★ Roots 3.6★

Look Back In Anger and Roots can be seen at The Almeida Theatre until 23 November 2024. Buy direct from the theatre

October 7, 2024October 8, 2024

Theatre Reviews Roundup: Juno and the Paycock

Gielgud Theatre

One To Avoid?

The 100th anniversary of Sean O’Casey’s tragicomedy turned into more of a wake than a celebration as critic after critic laid into the production. If the producers hoped a barnstorming performance from Mark Rylance would carry the day, they will have been disappointed. Even critics who liked his over-the-top acting weren’t sure whether it worked in the context of the production. Many weren’t convinced that the production itself had got the balance right between comedy and tragedy. With no less than four 2 star reviews from leading critics, Juno and the Paycock has one of the worst average ratings and value ratings of the year so far.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

Time Out’s Andrzej Luwoski (4★) was lone in giving four stars and almost alone in loving Mark Rylance’s performance: ‘Rylance has gone full vaudevillian… he rocks a toothbrush moustache, a penchant for dazzling extremes of physical business, and a tendency to directly address the audience or look bewildered out of the corners of his eyes as if he can’t work out why he’s trapped in a play. For the first half he’s so dazzlingly strange and doing so much more than anyone else – much of it inscrutable – that it’s hard to focus on the other actors. I found it brilliantly, bizarrely funny, the sort of auteur performance that no other actor alive would so much as think of giving.’ He was right to say, ‘I suspect reviews will be divided on whether it makes any sense in the wider context of the production.’ He added emphatically, ‘But you know, if somebody offered me a Picasso I wouldn’t fret that it didn’t go with the furniture.’

Marianka Swain of LondonTheatre (3★) took a similar view‘ of Mark Rylance’s performance. Aided by his Charlie Chaplin moustache, he relishes the vaudevillian aspects of O’Casey’s work’…’However, Rylance is operating in a completely different register to the rest of the cast, who, while also alert to the work’s humour, offer much more grounded naturalism. That means he frequently pulls focus unnecessarily in a scene with his clowning, and undermines some of the darker material.’

Alice Saville in The Independent (3★) was disappointed that the play’s ‘deep sense of injustice and pain doesn’t get space to breathe here,’ but felt its male star saved it: ‘Rylance’s charisma knits together a production that’s full of roustabout hilarity and poignancy mingled together, bright and bleak at once.’

The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar (3★) said, ‘Smith-Cameron really is the heart and soul of this production, for all of Rylance’s charisma … when the tone flips to tragedy, Smith-Cameron is tremendous.’ She commented, ‘Beneath the bonhomie are O’Casey’s poetry, and the family’s craving to be somewhere they are not known, but this production does not dwell too long on these.’

Nick Curtis in The Standard (3★) had this to say about the stars: ‘Succession star J. Smith-Cameron is splendid in it as tenement matriarch Juno’ but ‘Mark Rylance … sadly continues his recent slide into mannered self-parody’. He didn’t think the play had aged well: ‘Today its juxtaposition of broad humour with sectarian violence and poverty jars, as do the thick-as-stout accents.’ As for the production, ‘Director Matthew Warchus accentuates the strangeness by giving his production the veneer of a black-and-white slapstick film, the cast in white pancake makeup and kohl-rimmed eyes.’

Heather Neill at TheArtsDesk (3★) disapproved of the treatment: ‘This is an unusual revival, giving both the comedy and tragedy full scope, but in the final scene it topples off balance into melodrama and becomes a different play altogether.’

Ssrah Crompton at WhatsOnStage (2★) called it ‘a horrible melange. Everyone on stage seems to be performing in a different version of the play, there is no chemistry, little sense of purpose.’

Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (2★) went further: ‘this turgid production from director Matthew Warchus never quite succeeds in capturing the author’s deep anger or extraordinary compassion.’ He gained some pleasure from the cast: ’Mark Rylance provides a riveting focal point as alcoholic, tall-tale-telling ‘Captain’ Jack Boyle. In a wholly committed performance, he stutters and slurs his lines, searching for words through a haze of drink and shame.’

The Times’ Clive Davis (2★) was critical of Mark Rylance. ‘His version of the feckless Captain Jack is a leering, gurning loafer who bears more than a passing resemblance to Charlie Chaplin’s tramp…It’s weirdly laboured, and makes the play’s sudden transition from high jinks to grim melodrama all the harder to take.’

Clare Allfree in the Telegraph (2★) was not impressed by either of its stars: ‘Rylance doesn’t shrink from Boyle’s essential helplessness but his confected, overly self-regarding performance lacks the requisite humanity to make us care.’ Of J. Smith-Cameron, she said, ‘she imbues Juno with a flinty pragmatism. Yet her exasperation with her obnoxious husband rarely tips into the necessary desperation. Even in the final scene, having lost almost everything, she maintains a monotone stoicism. The play demands more.’ Her conclusion? ‘O’Casey’s desolate play should force us into a reckoning with its characters’ contradictions. In this ultimately underwhelming production, one that’s far too in thrall to its star casting, there is not enough room for such complexity.’

Critics’ Average Rating 2.7★

Value rating 29 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price)

Juno and the Paycock can be seen at the Gielgud Theatre until 23 November 2024 Buy tickets direct here

If you’ve seen Juno and the Paycock at the Gielgud Theatre, please add your review and rating below