Category: Past Productions

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Jerusalem starring Mark Rylance – review

The greatest play of the 20th century with our greatest actor

★★★★★

 

Actor Mark Rylance sits against a pile of logs in a scene from Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth
Mark Rylance in Jerusalem. Photo: Simon Annand

I’ve now seen the play that I probably anticipated more than any other in my life. And it exceeded my expectations. Jerusalem is the greatest 21st century play I’ve seen, and Mark Rylance‘s performance is as good as any.

Jez Butterworth’s play is set during St George’s Day, a day when John Byron and his dilapidated mobile home face eviction from his illegal campsite in a Wiltshire wood, the annual local fate stirs memories, his enemies gather, and friendships are tested. In the course of the three-hour play, we’re presented with a picture of an underclass whom society can’t accommodate and wants to pretend doesn’t exist.

It’s a kind of state of the nation play and that nation is seen as controlled and anodyne with its freedom squashed. A mythical past is evoked and the present found wanting. It helps that Mark Rylance’s character is a complex mixture
of light and dark, mischief and malevolence, but Mark Rylance so thoroughly inhabits the role, physically as well as verbally, that you forget he’s acting.

Before the curtain even goes up, we are given hints as to what to expect and what we can expect is going to be complex. The curtain is a huge St George cross faded and of course full of contradictory associations. It may be the England flag but it’s so often associated with a kind of xenophobic little Englander that we’re bound to wonder what’s in store, especially if we consider (and we are reminded later) that St George never even set foot in England.

Although it’s set during St George’s Day, it’s not looking back to Shakespeare, whose birthday is traditionally celebrated on that day, or indeed to the poet Byron who shares his name with the main protagonist. And it’s certainly not about the past colonialists and industrialists who made this nation rich.

A young woman dressed as a fairy, possibly a flower fairy, walks onto the stage in front of the flag and sings Jerusalem. The immortal opening lines hang in the air: ‘And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England’s mountains green.’ They didn’t, of course, but it’s a prelude to a play that has a lot to say about English myths. As she’s finishing, there’s a jolting shock of very loud dance music playing. The curtain goes up on a night time scene in a wood where there’s a rundown mobile home and lots of people having a rave.

The set designed by ULTZ is made up of real English oak trees and it looks like a real mobile home or trailer, as Americans would call it. Despite the mess, you feel you’re in the land of Robin Hood and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, something that should be conserved. Everything is going to happen on this set in the course of this one day in this tight perfectly
constructed play.

Incidentally, it’s the same set design as the original production. ULTZ is just one of the entire creative team that’s been
reassembled, the rest being director Ian Rickson, the lighting designer Mimi Jordan Sherin and the sound designer Ian Dickinson.

So, the scene’s been set for the exploration of a jaded present and a mythical past, gatherings that will reveal the characters, and the girl
that will be the downfall of Rooster Byron.

Then it’s dawn and the site is deserted. The messy state of this clearing in the woods is now clear. Two Council officers played by Niky Wardley and Shane David-Joseph arrive and, at precisely nine o’clock, serve an eviction notice on Rooster because he’s annoying his new neighbours on the recently built estate on the edge of this Wiltshire wood. We also learn later that the Council may be planning to build on this woodland, which may be why it’s taken them 27 years to come up with an eviction order. Their mechanical jobsworth approach is amusing but also inhuman. When they leave, we get our first proper sight of Rooster John Byron.

Straightaway we’re made to sit up in our seats, as he clears his head by doing
handstand in a trough of water and then propels himself out of the trough and onto his feet. It’s the physical act of a gymnast, impressive for an actor in his 60s or indeed any age, and we may realise that, although he’s something of a slob, he’s a fit slob.

He then proceeds to spray the audience with liquid and throw eggshells at them. Well, that’s one way to get attention.  Mark Rylance gives a tremendously physical performance as the free-spirited traveller. He walks with the puffed chest of a cockerel. Is that how he got his nickname? But he does have a limp and we find out later that he was injured when pursuing a career(if that’s the right word) as a daredevil motorcycle rider. This previous near fatal job is indicative of one aspect of his character- that he’s brave to the point of foolhardiness.

That’s why we admire him despite ourselves because he’s not only brave but he’s true to himself. He could certainly move but he defiantly refuses. He’ll not conform to society’s norms and expectations. We wouldn’t want him as our neighbour with his drug dealing, loud parties, and entertaining teenagers, but while his backyard is on that theatre stage, we’re on his side.

The other characters we meet only underline his character. The people who gather around him our society’s misfits and rejects. Now, Rooster may be both of these things but he actively chooses his life. He’s a rebel in an age of conformity. Part of his group are people he’s known all his life and it’s a magical element of this show that all the actors of those roles in the original production
are back. It’s as if Mark Rylance has said ‘I’m getting the band back together for one more gig.’

Mackenzie Crook is Ginger, the person closest to Rooster. He’s an unemployed plasterer and would-be DJ. Literal-minded, he lacks imagination but he does have a sense of humour, and he seems to live for his time with Rooster. He’s also shown to be a coward on more than one occasion. Such a contrast to Rooster who has flights of fantasy, sees a much bigger picture,
and doesn’t actually seem to be too bothered about who he’s with.

Mackenzie Crook is a joy to watch as he displays on his face the limits of his brain . He’s a lost soul and he looks it. When he first arrives, he’s full of excitement about the annual Flintock Fair. The fair runs as a motif throughout the play. He loves it because it’s part of tradition, but, like so much else, it’s a faded replica of what it once was. Ginger tells us: ‘When I was a boy, there was this big farmer and you paid 10 pence to take a run up and hoof him in the bollocks. What have they got now?’ he asks. ‘Throw a sponge at the lady vicar’ is the response. We also learn that Johnny’s daredevil rider act used to be the highlight of the show until he had his accident and Health and Safety stepped in to end his career. The fair can often be heard in the background.

Ginger’s annoyed at missing the previous night’s party but Rooster tries to tell
him there was no party and launches into the first
of many tall stories that display his imagination and gift of the gab. He was, he says, visited by the Spice Girls for a night of debauchery and, just to say here, that Mark Rylance is as good a verbal as physical actor. The voice he employs is that of someone stoned: slightly deliberate, slightly hesitant, and slightly very slightly slurred.

Alan David is again The Professor, another misfit and struck it seems by dementia. He has knowledge but can’t apply it. Gerard Horan is Wesley, the
pub landlord who publicly bans Rooster for his outrageous activities but is actually an old acquaintance. He does what he has to do but lets his wife Sue run the pub. He’s been forced by the brewery to dress up as a Morris Man for the annual fair but as the day goes on he becomes wasted and his white outfit stained and dirty. He reminisces with Rooster about their days as young men,
boys actually, getting their first experience of sex. His life now is clearly much less free. Rooster on the other hand never seems to long for the past because it’s inside him, and he feels free. He observes the others with a wry smile and occasional exasperation.

Young people are also attracted to Johnny’s campsite.  Lee, played by Jack Riddiford with a ready smile, is fed up with his life in Flintock and intends to
leave for Australia the next day, but typically he has no plan beyond that. Davey, played by Ed Kear with an amusing offhand delivery, has a literally dead-end job- he slaughters cows at an abattoir all day. He’s no ambition to leave Wiltshire. In fact he’s positively hostile to the idea: ‘I leave Wiltshire, my ears pop,’ he says. He and the others are part of an underclass
unnoticed and unheard by the political elites.

Two girls appear. Pea and Tanya, played by Kemi Awoderu and Charlotte O’Leary, are barely sixteen. They mention their fifteen-year-old friend Phaedra Cox, the reigning May Queen, who’s gone missing. At the end of act one, we hear in the distance the PA announcing the opening of the fair.

Act two begins, again we see the fairy whom we now think is probably Phaedra, singing The Werewolf, a song about someone who ‘can’t help’ attacking young maidens.

It’s now afternoon. ‘Outcasts, leeches and undesirables,’ says Johnny about his
companions. They discuss how the beginning of May is a traditional time for misrule. Johnny is in his element. He fantasises about leading a Flintock rebellion that will go down in history, and he tells yet another story.
While the others have vague recollections of a better more interesting England in both recent and ancient times, Johnny the traveller seems to be the only one who recognises the power of the myth, and he goes about creating
some of his own.

In a play about myths, Mark Rylance is a legend

They’re all amusing but this is possibly the funniest. It’s about the time he me a hundred foot giant who’d walked from Land’s End. The giant tells him he built Stonehenge, although Johnny says that could be bullshit. They mainly talk about the weather. Then there’s a hilarious moment when Johnny puts his disposable lighter onto the ground to represent himself and takes on the role of the giant leaning down and stroking him. The giant gives Johnny a drum which was his earring and says he can use it to summon the giants.

Ginger takes him up on this asking why BBC Points West didn’t report a giant
striding across their patch. This leads to a lament about the way Points West has expanded its region so much that  it’s no longer local. Davey thinks
they might have missed the story because there’s so much to report. He tells how he was upset by a story about an old lady being kicked to death, ‘before I realise it’s some old biddy from Wales, how could i possibly care less?’ he concludes. And this is what happens throughout Jez Butterworth‘s brilliant
play. He gives little examples and hints about the way things are not how they used to be, and asks whether we want to exchange freedom of speech and action for an obedient, safe society: the anonymous estate versus the individual, supermarket products versus the wild garlic in the wood (surely a metaphor for Rooster), a homogenous nation versus a tribal one, conformity
versus the free spirit, safety versus risk, rootlessness against Rooster’s rare bloodline.

The complexity of the content and of Rooster himself is what makes this play so great. It shows again and again that England’s past is a myth but
do the myths sustain the English or hold us back?

Ginger skeptically asks: ‘where is the drum?’ ‘You’re sitting on it,’ says Johnny, and, sure enough, under a cloth is an ornate drum. So the drum, which will feature at the end is cleverly and humorously introduced.

We’re halfway through the play now and it’s time to meet Johnny’s ex-partner Dawn and his son. The boy is clearly uncertain about this strange man who was supposed to be taking him to the fair but now can’t because of the pressing matter of the eviction. Dawn played by Indra Ove still cares about Johnny but has chosen a more conventional life.

The act ends with the arrival of Troy looking for his stepdaughter Phaedra. He suspects Rooster knows where she is. Troy is another acquaintance from way back and is played by the final member of the original cast, Barry Sloane. With a boxer’s stance, he’s incredibly sinister. His threat to Johnny is chilling. Johnny remains affable but he’s clearly worried in a way that we haven’t seen till now. Nevertheless he boldly- and recklessly- hints that Troy may be physically attracted to his stepdaughter, and it can’t be coincidence that in Greek mythology Phaedra falls in love with her stepson.

After Troy leaves, The Professor tells the tale of St George but, we ask ourselves, does the dragon represent the authorities and perhaps nasty
people like Troy, with Johnny as St George? Or Johnny the dragon, Johnny whom the authorities and Troy want to finish. Myths can work in many ways.

Then Phaedra emerges from the mobile home.

Act three begins, and we’re at the end of the day. Jez Butterworth has lit all the fuses. We know it’s coming to a climactic explosion. Phaedra persuades Johnny to dance with her but at that moment her stepfather Troy and his two brothers arrive. We hear them beat Johnny up inside the caravan and even brand him. They leave. In the distance the fair is winding up. Johnny emerges. He’s covered in the blood that he’s previously referred to metaphorically. He’s badly injured. Like a wounded animal he writhes on the ground. It’s a terrible and upsetting moment when you see all that prejudice against him made manifest.

Eventually, being the determined man he is, he gets up. The physical part of Mark Rylance‘s performance continues to impres to the end, but then so does the verbal part. He has one more meeting with his son, who’s got lost in the wood. His parental advice is: ‘don’t listen to no-one and nothing but what your
own heart bids. Lie, cheat, steal, fight to the death, don’t give up.’ He may be a bad influence, he may be deluded, but he does believe in himself and the link between past, present and future, and that the fight for his freedom is worth it.
He cares, so we care.

Finally Johnny is alone. The script notes that a Spitfire flies overhead
(our ‘finest hour’ when our outnumbered air force took on the might of the Germans and beat them?). He splashes petrol all over his home. He’s going
to set light to it. He evokes the Byron blood. He calls out the names of his forefathers. He curses his enemies. He beats the drum. He summons the legendary giants of a mythical past. Perhaps he himself will become a mythical
giant in the folk memories of future generations of ordinary people with disappointing lives. And, of course, Mark Rylance‘s performance is gigantic,
and already the stuff of theatrical legend.

This revival of Jerusalem was performed at the Apollo Theatre London in 2022

Paul paid for his ticket

Click here to watch this review on YouTube

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Alex Jennings in The Southbury Child – review

Powerful play by Stephen Beresford about tradition versus populism

★★★★

Production photo from The Southbury Child by Stephen Beresford at Chichester Festival Theatre and The Bridge Theatre London showing Alex Jennings June 2022
Alex Jennings in The Southbury Child. Photo: Manuel Harlan

What timing! The Prime Minister’s ethics advisor resigns and here’s a new play about sticking to your principles. A child has died, a child with the surname Southbury. The mother wants the church to be festooned with Disney balloons; the vicar says this is inappropriate for a church service. It becomes an unlikely cause célèbre and a test of wills that involves the whole community. What follows is an interesting, funny, emotional play about a battle between tradition and modernity.

The stage is a place for conversation. Creators of TV and cinema feel the need to keep us interested by constantly adding action or changing shots or putting on loud music. In a theatre play, the main currency is talk. So Stephen Beresford‘s The Southbury Child has lots of conversation exploring conflicts within today’s society, and, of course, conflict is the basis of drama. Physical acts whether violent or loving have all the more power for being rare.

The play looks at the importance of the past versus the need for change, principles versus populism, minority religion versus a secular society, a patrician elite versus the masses. Such rich content. The obvious comparisons are with Ibsen’s Enemy of the People and Chekhov‘s.. well, anything by Chekhov. I was also reminded of those drawing room plays of the mid 20th century that explored matters of morality, like T S Eliot’s The Cocktail Party or JB Priestley’s An Inspector Calls. In some ways, the dialogue could come from one of those plays. There’s an old fashioned feel to the way that the characters don’t mumble or pause or talk over one another, but it still sizzles. And there is a 21st century feel about the casual swearing and the popular references to Waitrose and Kerplunk.

The specific argument is over what a funeral is for. The vicar David Highland takes the high ground and says he won’t give the mother what she wants but what she needs. I’ve been to plenty of secular funeral services- I’m sure you have- where we’ve celebrated with lighthearted fun a life that has now ended, but, for those of faith, death is not an end but a beginning, and the funeral service offers hope of resurrection as well as a tried and tested way of dealing with grief. His decision throws up far more moral questions.

The vicar himself is far from moral. He’s had an affair, he drinks too much, he’s been in a drunken car crash. So is he a hypocrite? ‘You’re not exactly the poster boy for unshakable principles,’ says his curate. But do we expect too much of our leaders? After all, they’re only human, and isn’t it supposed to be what they represent that we respect, be it a spiritual post or a political position of power? Should we take their lead, even if we disagree with it, or should leaders follow the people?

There’s a lot of emotional conflict going on then, but the dialogue is full of humour. One character says, ‘These days you’re expected to be happy, like you’re expected to be hydrated’ or something like that. David imay be flawed but he seems kind, and well-meaning (which does make his stand against the balloon seem odd).

Alex Jennings gives a towering performance as the vicar. He employs a slightly higher voice than his usual rich voice which means he almost slips into an almost Alan Bennett impression, which is just right for some deliciously waspish sarcasm, like imagining heaven would have a branch of Waitrose. (He did play Alan Bennett in The Lady In The Van.) It’s not exaggerated so there is still warmth and authority in his impeccable middle-class speech.

Production photo from The Southbury Child y DStephen Beresford at Chichester Festival Theatre and The Bridge Theatre in London showing JackGreenlees and Jo Herbert June 2022 Greenless
Jack Greenlees and Jo Herbert in The SDouthbury child. Photo: Manuel Harlan

His is the only character given real depth. The others seem to be there to expose or test him. Nevertheless, the sketched outlines of these characters are clever enough to suggest that they have depth. His daughters are both following in his footsteps, in a way. Susannah is a teacher, and his verger, but not fitting well in the world. Her awkward but efficient character is played by Jo Herbert.

The other, Naomi, is an adopted black girl (providing an opportunity to criticise patronising white people). She’s become an actor and, by the way, much is made in the play of the way church services are like shows and priests like actors. David says that the annual blessing of the river is ‘the biggest house I play to’. Racheal Ofori gives a strong performance as the rebellious and somewhat wild young woman.

David’s wife Mary buttons up her feelings and finds it hard to cope with today’s touchy-feely world until it all comes spilling out in one tremendous moment. I did enjoy the way Phoebe Nicholls was able to hunch her body into a shy stiffness.

Craig, the new curate and the candidate for succeeding David, is played by Jack Greenlees. He may be holier than thou or indeed holier than David, but he is a gay man who is required by the church to deny his partner in order to pursue his vocation. Yet another cause and conflict thrown into the mix. As well as the interesting conversations- well, you might call them duels- with David, the other characters also have moments when they bounce off each other. There’s a lot going on.

One character David doesn’t spend much time with is the girl’s mother Tina, played by Sarah Twomey. She is the spark that started the fire but, to give more time to her grief would probably have unbalanced this largely sympathetic look at the way the vicar’s life spirals out of control.

The key opposition from the dead child’s family comes not from Tina but from the child’s young uncle Lee, played with a snarl by Josh Finan. I found myself shuddering every time he was on stage. Lee’s a nasty piece of work without any obvious redeeming feature, yet David as a Christian will not reject him. Lee returns again and again to challenge and needle the vicar.

The play takes place entirely in one room, maybe a drawing room. I don’t know much about the Church of England, however I do know that vicars are not well paid but they are often given a big house to live in. So there’s an appropriately shabby middle-class feel about Mark Thompson‘s set. There’s always a potential problem at Chichester, or any theatre using a thrust stage with an audience on three sides, iun that you can’t have much in the way of scenery. So, apart from a window and a few other pieces at the back, Mark Thompson‘s inspired main features are an image of the church at the back that towers over proceedings and a long wooden table that comes out towards the audience. Around it are 14 odd chairs, symbolic of the broad church perhaps.

Not that people sit down very often. This is a production showing the firm hand of director Nicholas Hytner in which people stand a lot, because that’s more aggressive than sitting, and stride around creating distance or nearness, as the conversation ebbs and flows.

You may find it hard to believe such a conflict could arise from something so trivial seeming, even though the play is apparently inspired by a real incident, but the beginning is nowhere near as contrived as the ending. Be that as it may, the grief at the loss of a child finally comes to the centre stage. And the final scene confirms that this is a play about loss of many kinds, both personal for many of the characters and for society, in terms of our traditions and heritage.

The Southbury Child performed at Chichester Festival Theatre until 25 June 2022 (tickets cft.org.uk) then at the Bridge Theatre from 1 July – 27 August London SE1 (bridgetheatre.co.uk)

Click here to watch the video review on YouTube

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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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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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The Taxidermist’s Daughter – Chichester – review

Kate Mosse’s first play provides a dramatic opening to new Chichester season

★★★

A production photo from The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse taken on 8th April 2022 at Chichetser Festival Theatre
The Taxidermist’s Daughter at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo: Ellie Kurttz

The opening of this year’s Chichester Festival Theatre season could not be more dramatic. I’ve rarely felt such goosebumps as when the lights went up on The Taxidermist’s Daughter began: an initial jump at the loud discordant sound and disturbing lighting, churchgoers frightened by hanging dead crows, a chilling recitation of Who Killed Cock Robin.

This play has Chichester running in its veins. It is written by Chichester resident and Festival Theatre stalwart Kate Mosse, and set in nearby Fishbourne. I don’t know how much of the credit goes to Kate Mosse and how much to director Roisin McBrinn, but this is a play designed for the Festival Theatre space and the production works perfectly there.

Unfortunately, the gothic horror story doesn’t quite live up to the production. The evocation of a bygone time and place, and the sense of the past contained in the present are excellent. However, Kate Mosse has made the decision to turn her original mystery story into a revenge play while retaining a question mark over the whys and wherefores of what’s going on. The belated explanation means that I for one found it hard to understand or sympathise with the revenge that a mystery woman is carrying out.

The play lacks the tension of the best thrillers: the killing spree doesn’t even begin until the end of act one. And the mystery doesn’t grip enough to justify the delay, despite raising many questions:  who are the women who have escaped from the local asylum, who has hung dead crows in the church, what happened all those years ago, why are people being killed, are these connected? Spoiler alert- yes they are!

Connie Gifford can’t remember the details of a traumatic event in her childhood.  She is trying to continue her drunken father’s tottering taxidermy business and is troubled by both the past and present. Daisy Prosper conveys well her sweet disposition and vulnerability.

We eventually learn that a group of leading men from the community committed crimes and, because of their position in society and because the crimes were against women, they have got away with it. ‘The men charged to protect us are the ones we must fear the most.’

The message is perennial. Inevitably we will think that not enough has changed a hundred years on, when powerful men like Jimmy Savile and Jeffrey Epstein get away with crimes against women and girls for years. But, for audiences of revenge fiction, taking the law into one’s own hands is a cathartic response to the failures of the system.

The stars of the show are the creative team

The Taxidermist’s Daughter is not as spooky as The Woman In Black nor as bloody and grand guignol as the recent production of The Lieutenant Of Inishmore which starred Aidan Turner. Nevertheless, it does a decent job in both those genres.

In this, the play is helped enormously by the creative team, who are the real stars of the show. Sinead Diskin’s frightening music and sound and the stark, flashing lighting designed by Prema Mehta. Paul Wills’ set design keeps the stage bare. Sinister black-and-white projections proliferate- on the back wall, the floor and on hanging screens. These often take the form of extraordinary videos by Andrzej Goulding, which show us fragments of faces, dark foliage, water- oh yes, the water. I’ve seen a lot of water on this stage over the years but this projection of splashing water onto the floor was more convincing than any real water I’ve seen.

And water is significant because Fishbourne is marshland and it’s 1912, the year of the great flood, and the action takes place as the deluge begins. So the mystery woman may be seen as washing out evil from the community.

The production uses every square inch of the stage. There are entrances from all directions, and pieces of set- often stuffed birds in display cabinets- rise from a multitude of holes in the floor. It does what theatre does best: it inspires the imagination. In fact, the scariest moment is probably when we finally see the crime, and that’s because we don’t actually see it, but are given all the information we need to imagine it.

Production photo of Pearl Chandra in The Taxisermist's Daughter by Kate Miosse at Chichester festival Theatre in 2022
Pearl Chandra in The Taxidermist’s Daughter. Photo: Ellie Kurttz

Many of the characters are sketched rather than detailed portraits. Pearl Chandra as the mystery murderer is passionate and energetic without going over the top.  Forbes Masson does well as Connie’s father Crowley Gifford, a man plagued with guilt about what happened in his past, who is now barely holding himself together.

We also meet a nice man: Harry, a gentle young artist, played by Taheen Modak. Although the play focuses on the position of women in early 20th ventury society, men too had to know their place, so it’s good to see at least one young man whois nice and gentle and breaks free from the chains of a professional career to become an artist. It’s not overtly stated in the play but it’s hard not to remember that this young man is only a couple of years away from being sent to the slaughter of the first world war, a victim of powerful old men, in a war that will change the village more than the flood.

But maybe that’s putting too much weight on what is in the end an enjoyable gothic horror story in a glorious production.

The Taxidermist’s Daughter can be seen at Chichester Festival Theatre until 30 April 2022. Click here for tickets and information.

The reviewer was given a press ticket by the producers.

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

 

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Christina Bianco in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice – review

Shobna Gulati, Ian Kelsey and Christina Bianco delight in Jim Cartwright’s classic comedy

★★★★

Production photo of Christina Bianco, Ian Kelsey and Shoibna Gulati in the 2022 touring production of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice
Christina Bianco, Ian Kelsey and Shoibna Gulati in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. Photo: Pamela Raith Photography

Touring productions are the Cinderella of British theatre. Given the choice, actors will often prefer to work in one place, preferably London. So, when I saw that two former soap actors and a YouTube sensation were heading the cast of the new touring production of The Rise And Fall of Little Voice, I feared the worst. How wrong I was.

Jim Cartwright’s play about an introverted young woman mourning her father and badly treated by her mother, who finds escape in the music of classic female singers, has been revived many times. The challenge for all the actors in this show is that there has also been a film version that is imprinted on most of our brains. Brenda Blethyn as the horrendous mother Mari Hoff, Michael Caine as the smooth talking showbiz manager Ray Say, and of course Jane Horrocks as LV, or Little Voice. So the cast have to work very hard to make you forget those definitive performances. None more so than the person playing LV. In some ways, the challenge is not to mess it up.

With the part of Mari, Jim Cartwright created one of theatre’s great monsters: a selfish woman with no redeeming features whose only concern is her own love life, and who abuses not only her daughter but the English language. Shobna Gulati grabs the part with both hands and extracts every ounce of comedy out of it. She relishes the outrageous puns (“I did it my Ray’) and dishes out malapropisms with a perfect deadpan delivery. When criticising LV for her lack of politeness, ‘She can’t even be swivel’ or, referring to her age, ‘at my time of strife’. Visually, her bosoms are barely contained by her garish outfits, and she totters precariously in tight skirts and high heels. In fact, the dresses and makeup are so over the top that many drag acts would find it hard to compete. Her physical comedy is a joy, especially when she’s playing being drunk. She literally throws herself into the role and gives it, as her character would say, one hundred pesetas. I loved the moment when she pulled Ray onto the sofa, her legs flailing in the air.

Ian Kelsey gives us just the right mix of sleaziness and desperation. I last saw him thirty years ago as Danny Zuko in Grease. He’s still offering roguish allure but, here, as Ray attempts to exploit LV, he adds an underlying nastiness. Mr Kelsey conveys perfectly the ageing charm and sense of failure that make his character comically pathetic.

Christina Bianco creates a good impression

Production photo of Christina Bianco in the 2022 touring production of Jim Cartwright's The Rise and Fall of Little Voice
Christina Bianco in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. Photo: Pamela Raith Photography

I’d never heard of Christina Bianco until now, which is clearly my bad since she has 123,000 followers on YouTube and her impressions of singers have been viewed over 25 million times. So, how well can she sing?  We get glimpses as the first act progresses, then there are two nightclub performances, which LV is pushed into making. Not only does she sing beautifully but her impressions of Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Shirley Bassey and many more are spot on. After all these years, very few in the audience will be taken by surprise when, after all the silence and whispers, LV reveals her diva singing voice, but the tingle down the back of the neck that Ms Bianco creates is still powerful enough to merit a round of appreciative applause.

If you want a taste of how good Christina Bianco is at impressions of singers, watch her on YouTube singing Let It Go (there’s a choice but I’d recommend the video from a year ago). As for her Lancashire accent, admittedly she’s an impressionist, but it’s spot on. You would never know she’s from New York.

She is uncannily like Jane Horrocks but it would be unfair to dismiss her performance as an impression because there is little leeway for playing the role differently. Jim Cartwright wrote the part of LV for Jane Horrocks and she played it both in its National Theatre premiere and on film, so that is how the part is meant to be played. The important point is, Christina Bianco is entirely convincing as someone traumatised by grief and parental abuse, who continues to be bullied until she finds her own voice.

Akshay Gulati is believable as the shy would-be boyfriend of LV and William Ilkley makes a cringe-worthy Mr Boo, the club owner and MC.

Fiona Mulvaney is excellent as Mari’s friend Sadie. I can’t help feeling the part of a stooge who says very little other than ‘Okay’ is reminiscent of the kind of one-dimensional character you’d find in an old fashioned sitcom. That’s just one of the ways this play is now showing its age. Also, this mainly pacey play seemed to me to be drawn out at the end.

The set designed by Sara Perks takes the form of a two up-two down house with the front and part of the roof torn off, as if giving us an unauthorised glimpse into what would normally go on behind closed doors. It’s crowded with furniture and other cheap objects, adding to a strong sense of the tastelessness of Mari’s tawdriness, and the claustrophobia of working class life.

Bronagh Lagan is the director responsible for a production that gives laughter, pathos and joy in equal measures.

[Edited 2 April 2022: extended description of Shobna Gulati’s performance.]

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

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice 2022 tour dates:
28 March – 2 April The Capitol, Horsham
4 – 9 April Exeter Northcott
11 – 16 April Malvern Theatres
18 – 23 April Theatre Clwyd
25 – 30 April Theatre Royal Brighton
3 May – 7 May Derby Theatre
9 – 14 May Salisbury Playhouse
16 – 21 May Liverpool Playhouse
23 – 28 May Wakefield Theatre Royal
30 May – 4 June Crewe Lyceum Theatre
6 – 11 June The Lowry, Salford
13 – 18 June Blackpool Grand
21 – 25 June Mercury Theatre, Colchester
27 June – 2 July Richmond Theatre
4 – 9 July York Theatre Royal
11 – 16 July Everyman Theatre Cheltenham

 

 

 

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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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