Category: Regional Productions

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The Two Popes – touring – review

★★★

Production photo from The Two Popes at Rose Theatre near London showing Nicholas Woodeson holding Anton Lesser in September 2022
Nicholas Woodeson & Anton Lesser in The Two Popes. Photo: Manuel Harlan

If like me, you have little knowledge of the Roman Catholic Church and even less interest in it, you might think an evening with not one but two popes would be akin to a visit to the Spanish Inquisition. In fact, this combative conversation between Pope Benedict XVI, who abdicated in 2013, and Pope Francis, who replaced him, is both intriguing and amusing.

It helps that one is deeply conservative and the other highly liberal, so there is plenty of room for conflict. It helps even more that these two contrasting kings of Catholicism are played by two sovereigns of the stage, Anton Lesser and Nicholas Woodeson.

Benedict XVI’s abdication was almost unprecedented. (I say ‘almost’, because a pope did abdicate 700 years previously.) Anthony McCarten’s play about this conservative German and his successor, the liberal Argentinian Cardinal Bergoglio, was first produced by Northampton’s Royal & Derngate Theatre in 2019, before Covid intervened. Their Artistic Director James Dacre directs this revived co-production, which I saw at the Rose Theatre in Kingston before its tour to a number of regional theatres.

Mr McCarten, who previously wrote The Theory Of Everything, Darkest Hour and Bohemian Rhapsody as well as the film version of this play, recently penned The Collaboration. It’s another play about two people with contrasting characters and views, the artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It was very enjoyable and is now on its way to Broadway following a run at the Young Vic.

You can see why the idea of a meeting between these two very different popes intrigued Anthony McCarten. The facts of the transfer of power are true but the details of what conversations may have taken place come from his fertile imagination.

The two popes don’t get together straightaway. Initially, we meet each of them separately, beginning with Pope Benedict played by Anton Lesser. We find him in his apartment with a German nun, played by Lynsey Beachamp. They share a conservative nostalgia for their country of birth that manifests itself in the food they eat and the German whodunit series that they watch enthusiastically on TV. He moves stiffly, conveying both old age and, metaphorically, a rigidity of views. Mr Lesser has a clipped but silky way of speaking, that conveys both authority and warmth. The warmth is important because he is publicly perceived as ‘God’s rottweiler’. The reality is, we learn, that he is more shy than cold, more a scholar than a front man. He didn’t want the job of Pope and he still doesn’t.

Without this insight into Benedict’s human side, this would be a very one-sided play between a cold fish and the warm human being that is Cardinal Bergoglio. We meet the latter on a visit to a slum church in his home country of Argentina. Played by Nicholas Woodeson, he has an impish smile and bounces round the stage like a Duracell bunny. He too chats with a nun, played by Leaphia Darko, but this time about his liberal views, which appeal to the poor of the developing world. Ironically, he too wants to retire from his job.

Although they are as different as The Telegraph and The Guardian, Pope Benedict is aware that the Cardinal is his likely successor, and that he can prevent this from happening simply by accepting the Cardinal’s resignation. He decides to meet him and check him out.

The first meeting is very much a clash of views, which frankly I found a little tedious, but I suspect someone more interested in the Catholic Church might find it fascinating.

Anton Lesser & Nicholas Woddeson in The Two Popes. Photo: Manuel Harlan

The second act really takes off, as the two find out that despite their differences, what they have in common may be what is important. We know the outcome so it’s not exactly edge-of-your-seat stuff but the exchanges are funny at times, interesting at others, and sometimes quite moving, as when the two confess their weaknesses and shortcomings. It is a joy to see the interaction between these two great actors.

The set, designed Jonathan Fensom, comprises an artificial proscenium arch onto which a marble surface and the scene locations are projected- in Latin! This reinforces that what is happening is contained within the solidity of a church that has been around for two thousand years. So maybe these two popes, while appearing to be taking the church from one extreme to another, merely represent a natural adjustment that has and will take place again and again over time.

The Two Popes is at the Rose Theatre until 23 September 2022 and will then tour to Cambridge Arts Theatre (27 September-1 October), Cheltenham Everyman (4-8 October), Northampton Royal & Derngate (11-15 October), Oxford Playhouse (18-22 October) and Theatre Royal Bath (25-29 October).

Paul was given a complimentary review ticket by the producers.

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

 

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Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads – Chichester – review

Roy Williams’ portrayal of racist England supporters retains its power

★★★★★

Production photo from Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads at Chichetser 2022 showing members of the cast
Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads. Photo: Helen Murray

Seeing Roy Williams’ Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads is not a comfortable experience but this is an important play in a flawless production from Chichester Festival Theatre. I suspect some people may think this is a play about football. It isn’t. It takes us to the heart of the dark side of English football supporters- the so-called hooligans, the ones who chant racist remarks, the ones who nowadays abuse black players on social media- and those who let it happen.

Racism exists in all corners of society but this play looks at a microcosm, the working class (or mainly working class) tribalism that afflicts the national game. It has its funny moments but for the most part, Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads is horrifying.  I came out shocked to the core by this forensic exposure of racist, nationalist England.

We meet the all too believable characters in the King George pub in London where they have assembled to watch England play Germany in the year 2000. To an extent, they are representative of various kinds of working class people, but Roy Williams imbues them with a complexity that takes them far beyond stereotypes. He writes natural-sounding dialogue that is fitting for each character but that also sparkles and punches. (If you’ve heard his BBC Radio 4 series The Interrogation, you’ll be familiar with his ability to create convincing conversation.) He is truly one of our finest living playwrights.

The play was first performed in 2002. I’d like to think we’ve moved on to a more equal and tolerant society since then, and perhaps we have a little, but there is still an unacceptable amount of racism around, as the Black Lives Matter campaign has shown, and as revealed, for example, by the report into racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

Connected with racism, as the ‘England supporters’ in the play show, we are plagued by a kind of nationalism that goes beyond pride in one’s country to hatred of foreigners and immigrants. As Billy Bragg said recently: ‘Not everyone who voted Brexit is racist, but every racist voted Brexit.’

Fun set houses a serious play

This is a revival of the Chichester production which was first performed in 2019 in the so-called Spiegeltent. Nearly all of that cast has reassembled, and the immersive set, conceived by the original director Nicole Charles, is also reproduced but on a larger scale.

The first thing you see is the set, designed by Joanna Scotcher. It replicates in painstaking detail a traditional London pub, which overflows into and beyond the auditorium. Some of the audience sit around the perimeter of the set like drinkers in the pub. It’s actually a working bar and I had a drink there during the interval, perched on a barstool. Screens that show the match double as CCTV showing us private conversations.

But the fun stops as soon as the play begins. We meet and get to know these characters, some of whom are members of the pub’s football team, all there to watch England playing Germany in a game of football. Some are out-and-out racist; some are covert racists; some hide and are maybe even unaware of their racism, however it comes out at times when emotion takes over.

Production photo from Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads at Chichester's Minerva Theatre 2022 showing Michael Hidgson and Richard Riddell
Michael Hodgson & Richard Riddell in Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads. Photo: Helen Murray

At one extreme is Lawrie, an angry skinhead played by Richard Riddell as so close to boiling point that his face is lobster red. We can see that all of these people have reasons to resent their lowly position in society and that aggressively supporting their football team may give them some reflected status. But Lawrie is more than that. He is a psychopath looking for anyone to kick. At his side, whispering in his ear, is Alan, played with a cold voice and dispassionate demeanour by Michael Hodgson. He’s an articulate man who proudly justifies his sense of racial superiority. Like the leaders of fascist parties through the ages, he manipulates ignorant people like Lawrie to do his dirty work.

There are two black people in the group: Mark and his younger brother Barry. Mark has been in the army and fought for his country only to find that his country doesn’t seem to regard him as truly British. We discover that his own behaviour as a soldier has been brutal. Mark Springer plays him as superficially calm but with a low-key resentment that rumbles across the pub floor.

Makir Ahmed is Barry, the team’s star player. He knows that his teammates are racist, to a greater or lesser extent, but chooses to ignore that in an attempt to fit in. He even chants about winning World War Two (an event over 40 years before, even in 2000) and describes in mysoginistic detail what he’d like to do sexually to Victoria Beckham. These moments are cringeworthy but show how the disenfranchised fantasise about having power.

Also trying to fit in is Jess, played by Kirsty J Curtis, who goes over the top in what I interpreted as an attempt to be one of the lads, by using the most continuously and aggressively obscene language of any of them.

Steven Dykes is Jimmy, the father of the pub landlady. He represents an older generation which doesn’t like change. The play begins as he’s preparing the pub and singing a Kinks song. A deliberate choice, I suspect, as the Kinks started by playing a version of American rhythm and blues before they went on to epitomise a certain kind of English nostalgia. Ironically Jimmy can’t understand why his grandson Glen (Jem Matthews) is attracted to American rappers, and he bullies the sensitive teenager for being too soft.

Gina is the woman whose name is above the door. In a nuanced performance, Sian Reese-Williams shows her as someone used to getting her way through charm but having no control over her son or her customers. She threatens but never takes action over racist or aggressive behaviour. In this respect, she can be seen as a symbol of the rest of us, the majority in society who are against racism but don’t confront it.

Lawrie’s brother Lee is another example. He is an off-duty police officer, ostensibly against prejudice, but constantly turning a blind eye to Lawrie’s violence and racism. ‘I didn’t hear that’, he quips. His conflicted personality is conveyed brilliantly through haunted eyes, sagging shoulders and sudden violence by Alexander Cobb.

We do see that confronting bad behaviour works when teenager and would-be gangster Bad T (Duramaney Kamara) is not allowed to get away with bullying.

Harold Addo, Simon Armfield, Rob Compton and Jennifer Daley make the remainder of this talented, pitch perfect cast.

Well orchestrated crescendo of violence

As the match progresses, and goes badly for England, the tension grows, and an explosion by Lawrie becomes ever more likely. His racist comments are more and more explicit but, when the violence comes, it’s from an unexpected direction. I won’t say more about that for fear of spoiling the end but I will say that, in a shocking play, the crescendo of action was so well orchestrated that I was shaking at the end.

Massive credit must be given to the original director Nicole Charles, the director of the revival Joanna Bowman, movement director Chris Whittaker and fight director Kate Waters.

I felt I needed a shower after being in the company of this group of ‘England supporters’. If there is a message in this play, it is that racism will flourish unless we all take a stand against it whenever we encounter it on a personal level. And that you can’t fight something unless you understand it. Not only will this play give you greater understanding, it will stay with you.

Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads performed  at Chichester until 13 August 2022. Click here for CFT website

Paul was given a review ticket by the producers.

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

 

 

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Whistle Down The Wind – Watermill – review

Do dance and a dead mother improve Lloyd Webber’s ‘problem’ musical?

★★★

Production photo from Whistle Down The Wind at The Watermill Theatre Newbury 2022 showing Robert Tripolino and Lydia White
Robert Tripolino & Lydia White in Whistle Down The Wind. Photo: Pamela Raith

This energetic production of Whistle Down The Wind at The Watermill Theatre offers a radical re-interpretation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s problem musical. I say ‘problem’ because it’s never quite been the hit many of us thought it would be. The musical was launched in the USA back in 1998. I think it has one of Lloyd Webber’s better scores, the country rock style being preferable to his attempts at being a modern day Puccini.

You might think a clash of beliefs would be just right as a story for our times. In this case, the conflict is between children who believe an escaped prisoner (called The Man in the cast list) is Jesus and adults who think he is the devil incarnate. Yet, despite this, and Jim Steinman’s gothic lyrics, Whistle Down The Wind never made it to Broadway.

I suspect the fundamental flaw is that the leader of the children, Swallow, is not a child, as she was in the earlier book and film. Instead, she is portrayed as an adolescent and, really, too old to be so credulous. Maybe the decision was made so that an adult lead could be cast, maybe the authors thought it would be more interesting to include some sexual content. Whatever the reason, the wind never got into the musical’s sails.

Now Tom Jackson Greaves has been given a chance to resurrect this musical about a man mistaken for Jesus, and he has some radical ideas about how to make it work. So does his new interpretation solve the problem? I’m afraid not.

The show begins well. The set, a terrific design by Simon Kenny, is the interior of a building constructed of wide wooden planks, which merges with the auditorium and doubles as the church and the barn. The Watermill Theatre is an intimate space, so, from the start, it is as if we are part of the congregation and of the children’s conspiracy. And we feel the claustrophobia of this closed, deeply religious community, back in 1950s Louisiana. It’s a community that is wary of strangers and over protective of its children.

A spirited interpretation

So far so good, but, as I said, this is a major new interpretation. Tom Jackson Greaves has a long list of credits as a choreographer and, as director, he introduces a considerable amount of dance and stylised movement. This works well to enhance the emotional story and ratchets up the fraught atmosphere, as, for example, when the two sides circle to form impressive physical barriers against each other. And the clever use of dance as a metaphor enables The Man to move among them, right into the centre of scenes in which he would normally be hidden. This is done most notably in the powerful song Wrestle With The Devil in which the townspeople imagine The Man as The Devil.

The biggest change concerns Swallow’s dead mother. In previous productions, she has been an unseen presence, a catalyst in alienating Swallow from her father and therefore giving her greater motivation for wanting a parent figure in her life. In this production, her mother is an actual presence, watching over her shoulder and dancing with her. It brings grief to the forefront and therefore changes the balance of the musical, and indeed the balance of her mind. Grief seems to guide her every thought and deed. It may be an attempt to explain her irrational behaviour but there is, in my view, nothing in the script to justify this interpretation. In the end, it confuses rather than clarifies.

The Mother- beautifully danced by Stephanie Elstob– mostly gets in the way. In the A Kiss Is A Terrible Thing To Waste scene where Amos wants to kiss Swallow and The Man watches and comments, the Mother gets involved too and the tense musical trio becomes a muddled dance quartet. The stage is small enough as it is without squeezing a supernumerary.

Grief or Belief?

Much more than grief, Whistle Down The Wind is a musical about belief, particularly extreme beliefs. Its most well known song, the bland No Matter What, is an anthem for anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers. ‘What you believe is true’ is the essence of a divided society in which the two sides will not listen to a different point of view or accept evidence or be prepared to compromise. The children believe The Man is Jesus, the adults believe he is the Devil.

The musical is also about belief in people. We see that it can help redeem an individual, as in the moving scene between The Man and Swallow in which he sings Nature Of The Beast and realises that his life could have been different if someone had believed in him.

Robert Tripolino is outstanding as The Man. He has the right haunted look but also a powerful voice that moves up into a gorgeous falsetto. Lydia White as Swallow is also excellent. Her singing and acting display all the conflicting emotions of this adolescent girl and she plays the part of a grieving daughter with a convincing edge of anger.

Among the other actors, I liked Chrissie Bhima who gives a strong performance as Candy, cheated in love, and the only character with the willpower to leave.

As usual with The Watermill’s musicals, the hard working actors also play instruments. I noted particularly Emma Jane Morton, a one woman wind section including plaintive playing of a flute and saxophone. And she musters a wonderfully stern look as one of the townspeople. Alfie Richards plays his electric guitars beautifully, and sings well. Lewis Cornay as Amos, the rebel without a cause, could have stepped out of a boy band.

So, it’s a vigorous production but the problem of this musical is still to be solved.

Whistle Down The Wind can be seen at The Watermill Theatre until 10 September 2022. Tickets from watermill.org.uk

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

Paul received a review ticket from the producers

Changes made 29 July 2022: First sentence: ‘energetic’ added. Last sentence: ‘good effort’ changed to ‘vigorous production’.

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Crazy For You coming to West End – review

Chichester’s magnificent Crazy For You gets a London transfer but how does it compare to Anything Goes?

★★★★★

Production photo from Crazy For You at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2022 showing a chorus number
Crazy for You. Photo: Johan Persson

Crazy For You at Chichester Festival Theatre is a faultless production. Just like Anything Goes, another song-and-dance Broadway musical that also originated in the 1930s, it is a joyous, jaw-dropping spectacle with some of the best songs ever written and the best dancing you will ever see.

Charlie Stemp who has already impressed in Half A Sixpence, Mary Poppins and more is here stretched – literally – into twists and leaps and other astounding physical feats. He is not only athletic, his dancing conveys emotion and is beautiful to watch.

It’s interesting to compare and contrast Crazy For You with its rival, both in the 1930s and now, Anything Goes.

Crazy For You was created in 1992 but based on a 1930 musical called Girl Crazy by George and Ira Gershwin. Cole Porter’s Anything Goes followed in its 1934. This was the first golden age of the Broadway musical. The modern musical, in which a serious plot and deep characters drive the show, was still a decade away. It was the time not only of the Gershwins and Cole Porter but of Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and Rodgers and Hart. The Jazz Age was at its peak. Light-hearted song and dance with a romantic plot were the order of the day.

Both musicals were revived in the late 20th century as Broadway made something of a comeback after the invasion of weighty British musicals. The sheer escapism of both musicals, and their predecessor 42nd Street, was just what audiences were yearning for. While the 1987 return of Anything Goes left it largely intact, with a few song changes and a rewriting of the plot, the 1992 revival of Girl Crazy, now called Crazy For You, involved a root and branch reappraisal. The plot was substantially altered, many of the original songs were excised and loads of additional Gershwin songs introduced. The result was, and is, a triumph for the book writer Ken Ludwig, director the late Mike Okrent and choreographer Susan Stroman.

The Plots are fun

So, what about those plots? Well, they’re both simple fun. Anything Goes features a romance aboard an ocean-going liner, Crazy For You is a romance taking place in a run-down theatre in Nevada. Both involve bumps on the road to love and, of course, disguises. Here, I think, Crazy For You has the edge, for a plot that is a little more coherent and more muscular, by which I mean Anything Goes is almost too frothy.

The Music is divine

So, dare we compare the music? I think this is going to be a matter of taste. I love Cole Porter’s work. It’s such a perfect marriage of music and lyric. The melodies seem effortlessly elegant. The words always clever and witty. But sometimes this elegance and wit makes them seem removed from real life. His greatest love songs are up there with the best in the Great Amercian Songbook- Night And Day and Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye (‘There’s no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to minor’)- but they’re not included in Anything Goes which nevertheless has some of the cleverest songs ever written (‘Good authors too who once knew better words / Now only use four-letter words / Writing prose / Anything goes’).

In my opinion, George Gershwin was the finest popular composer of his day and Ira Gershwin is a contender for the finest lyricist (although I might award that title to Lorenz Hart). Ira has a way of finding the unexpected rhyme. Take Someone To Watch Over Me: ‘I’d like to add his initial to my monogram
Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?’ or the internal rhyme in Embraceable You: ‘I love all the many charms about you
Above all, I want these arms about you’. Fabulous.

It’s very hard but I have to choose the Gershwins for that extra feel of real emotion. And in Crazy For You, you get almost the best of the Gershwins, with Shall We Dance?, I Got Rhythm and possibly my all time favourite love song They Can’t Take That Away from Me all thrown in. The new orchestrations by Doug Besterman display a masterful lightness of touch, by the way.

The productions are extraordinary

Productyion photo from Carzy for Uou at chichester Festival Theatre in 2022 showing Carly Anderson, Charlie Stemp and the company
Carly Anderson, Charlie Stemp & the company of Crazy For You. Photo: Johan Persson

So what about these two revivals of the revivals? Anything Goes undoubtedly scores on its set, with a huge ship occupying the back of the stage. Chichester’s thrust stage makes large sets impossible, so, although the great Broadway designer Beowulf Boritt’s sparkling curtain representing a Broadway theatre sent a tingle down my spine when the lights went up, and his trucks showing the exteriors of a Nevada hotel and theatre are effective, the Chichester production of Crazy For You never feels as lavish as you might hope for a major musical. Anything Goes also features a cast about twice the size of the pretty big Chichester ensemble.

The Performers are outstanding

The current production of Anything Goes at the Barbican in London, originally starred Sutton Foster and Robert Lindsay, and now features the equally enjoyable Kerry Ellis and Denys Lawson. The co-lead is a comic gangster and not, as might have been the case in previous productions, Miss Ellis’s romantic interest. Crazy For You features Charlie Stemp and Carly Anderson as the two lovers, Boby and Polly.

Both musicals are well led and offer a talented cast in depth. In Crazy for You’s 26 strong cast, it’s difficult to pick out individuals but I must mention Tom Edden as Bela Zangler, the exasperated producer, and who extracted maximum laughs. The mirror scene in which he and Charlie Stemp match each other’s actions is hilarious. Meryl Ansah is Bobby’s desperate, dominant would-be fiancée who gets to sing the delightful Naughty Baby. Gay Soper is Bobby’s imperious mother, and Matthew Craig is Lank, Bobby’s threatening but ultimately comical rival in love.

The performers in both productions sing well. Kerry Ellis is possibly the finest singer of the bunch, but I did love Carly Anderson’s moving versions of Embraceable You and Someone To Watch Over me.

Production photo from Crazy For you at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2022 showing Charlie Stemp
Charlie Stemp in crazy For You. Photo: Johan Persson

As for the dancing, of course they are all great. The chorus line tap dancing in Anything Goes, led by Miss Ellis, is eye-popping. But, when it comes to individual dancing, Charlie Stemp is in a different class to the others. Superlatives fail when it comes to his ability to spin and jump over and over again. He combines this athleticism with beauty and emotional truth. Crazy for You is worth the ticket price just to see him. He’s also nice looking and sings and acts well.

The Directors are geniuses

Both musicals have a combined choreographer and director. The great Kathleen Marshall brings her skills to Anything Goes and the result is very slick and impressive, especially in the chorus work. Susan Stroman, who choreographed the original 1992 Crazy For You, now directs as well. I left feeling I’d like her choreograph every musical I see from now on. There is so much invention in the solo, duet and chorus numbers.

I have one reservation about Crazy For You. Act one ends in an overwhelming routine for I Got Rhythm. It builds and it builds, and just when you think it can’t build any more, it does. A standing ovation halfway through a show is a rare thing. But it also happens in Anything Goes, when the title song is given a similarly exhausting work out. You think, how can they follow this? Well, Anything Goes does with Blow Gabriel Blow, and a big ending. Crazy for You continues to excite with brilliant song and dance but never again hits the height of I Got Rhythm. The end is more of a walk down than a finale. Then again, that soaring final line of ‘Who Could Ask For Anything More’ did bring the audience to its feet once again.

I’d love to see both these shows again but if I was offered tickets for them both right now, which would I choose? At the end of last year, I said Anything Goes with Sutton Foster had given me my best night in a theatre since they reopened. But, right now, I would choose the exuberant Crazy For You at Chichester Festival Theatre starring Charlie Stemp.

Crazy For You ran at Chichester Festival Theatre until 4 September 2022. It will transfer to the Gillian Lynne Theatre in London’s West End from 24 June 2023 to 20 January 2024

Paul was given a press ticket by the producers.

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

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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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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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Spike by Ian Hislop & Nick Newman – review

An entertaining look at a comic genius but without his anarchic spirit

★★★

Production photo from Spike by Ian Hislop and nick Newman at The Watermill Theatre in Newbury UK
Spike at The Watermill Theatre. Photo: Pamela Raith

Spike by Nick Newman and Ian Hislop at The Watermill Theatre is a labour of love. Spike Milligan had a long association with Private Eye and the authors, both from the magazine, clearly feel great affection for him. However, they faced three challenges in conveying his comic genius, and weren’t entirely successful in overcoming them, despite devising an entertaining play

Firstly, I’m not sure that many people under 60 will know about Spike Milligan or remember The Goon Show. He was a brilliant comic writer and performer, best known as the writer of The Goon Show. Trouble is, the last Goon Show to be transmitted on what was then called the BBC Home Service was back in 1960, followed by a couple TV specials over the next decade or so.

It was Milligan’s surrealist and absurd humour that made The Goon Show a phenomenal hit. He was an acknowledged influence on future comedies and comics including Monty Python and Eddie Izzard.

After The Goons, Milligan continued to be a fountain of anarchic humour. He wrote poetry, plays, and books, and appeared in a number of TV programmes through the 70s and 80s. He died twenty years ago.

The Goon Show is still what he’s best known for and that’s what this play concentrates on. We see the early resistance from the BBC to the Spike’s revolutionary and rebellious style, through to the show becoming hugely popular. We also learn about Spike’s difficult personal life, his traumatic experience as a soldier in the second world war and his mental illness, and how the pressure of writing the Goon Show took its toll.

Secondly, the actors playing Milligan and his fellow Goons Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe cannot hope to recreate their genius: their voices, their timing, their understanding of each other, the way they perform as if they have just seen the script and are enjoying it as much as the audience.

Sensibly the cast don’t try to do impressions of the originals. Instead, they act out their own interpretation of these characters. Which makes it an interesting story about three friends but nothing like as funny as you might expect from a show about The Goons. The jokes are there, of course, particularly plays on words- a sign on Milligan’s door says ‘Do not disturb, I’m disturbed enough already’- but they cannot hope to deliver them with the power of the actual Goons. The voices can never be quite as ridiculous nor the irony as sharp.

Production photo of John Dagleish in Spike at The Wtermill Theatre in Newbury
John Dagleish in Spike. Photo: Pamela Raith

I’m not in any way denigrating the actors. John Dagleish as Milligan is an excellent comic actor with a great plasticine face and he plays his part with verve, giving a strong impression of a man on the edge. George Kemp as Sellers and Jeremy Lloyd as Secombe provide excellent support. Robert Mountford represents the stiff voice of authority very well. Margaret Cabourn-Smith, James Mack and Ellie Morris complete a talented cast.

The tortured comic genius is a familiar trope. Stories of artists rebelling against and being rejected by the establishment until they are finally embraced are familiar too. But, in the case of Milligan, it’s a tale still worth telling.

To beef up the laughs, the writers cleverly weave in an almost discrete story about the sound effects. Sound effects were an important part of The Goon Show. Spike Milligan set the challenge of producing surreal sound effects. Margaret Cabourn-Smith, in Joyce Grenfell mode, humorously explains how they were achieved. Perhaps because the audience has no ‘original’ to compare this with, she gets the most enthusiastic response of the evening.

Director Paul Hart, who is The Watermill’s Artistic Director, keeps up a good pace, so you won’t be bored.  Katie Lias helps with a set designed to change quickly from a recording studio to various offices, a battleground, a pub and Spike’s home. She uses the back of the stage well. Often there are Milligan-ish cartoons telling us the location of the scene, and projections high up suggest the state of Milligan’s mind.

Which brings me to the third challenge.  In a play mainly about Milligan’s mental state, how do you convey his exploding mind? Yes, John Dagleish sparks with happiness and crumples with despair, and yes, the story tells us how, in his mind, his battle with army officers becomes a battle with the BBC authorities. It’s an interesting observation of him but the play doesn’t get inside his head. It’s conventional in a way that Milligan would never have been.  In producing a tribute to Spike Milligan, maybe Nick Newman and Ian Hislop should have injected their play with more of their hero’s anarchic spirit.

Spike is at The Watermill Theatre in Newbury until 5 March 2022

Paul received a complimentary review ticket from the producers.

Click here to watch this review of Spike on YouTube

 

 

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Brief Encounter – The Watermill – review

An enjoyably theatrical show based on Noel Coward’s iconic romance


★★★★

Production photo of Callum McIntyre & Laura Lake Abedisi in Brief Encounter at The Watermill Theatre in Newbury
Callum McIntyre & Laura Lake Abedisi in Brief Encounter at The Watermill. Credit: Pamela Raith Photography

If you’re expecting to see a straightforward stage adaptation of the film Brief Encounter, you may be disappointed. If you’re expecting to see Emma Rice’s legendary multimedia production of Brief Encounter, you may be disappointed.

If you go without ever having seen the film, or at least without any expectations, you should enjoy an evening of humour, passion, poignancy and great theatricality.

Let’s take the lack of similarity to the film first. Part of the issue here is that in writing this play, Emma Rice has combined elements of Noel Coward’s screenplay with his original short play Still Life on which the film was based. A great idea but this means it isn’t pure Brief Encounter.

As to Emma Rice‘s adaptation, the original Kneehigh production from ten or so years ago,included a big screen with a movie showing that imitated the David Lean version but featured the stage actors, who then interacted with it. In this production, the screen has gone.

The story of the chance meeting of two married people in a railway station buffet and their subsequent, hesitant, guilt-ridden affair is still centre stage in this production of Brief Encounter but, there is much more about the relationship between Myrtle the café manager and Albert the station guard than you see in the film.

This is especially true in the first act where their flirtatious and at times vulgar chatting up is given almost equal weight with the more reserved and cautious romance between Alec and Laura. There is a strong and, I suggest, elitist suggestion that middle class equals repressed and serious, while working class equals liberated and comic. Indeed Kate Milner-Evans and Charles Angiama are funny as Myrtle and Stanley, and the former is a particularly strong singer.

As well as those two couples, there is a third romance going on between a more innocent younger couple Beryl the waitress and Stanley who sells food from a tray on the platform. There are nicely judged performances by Hanna Khogali and Oliver Aston. Although the ‘compare and contrast’ is very interesting, this made the first act very bitty. It was quite a challenge to get to know Alec and Laura.

Although the screen has disappeared, much of Emma Rice’s inventive adaptation remains in this production directed by Robert Kirby. Songs and dance are used to dazzling effect, with all seven actors singing and several playing instruments as well. The songs are by Noël Coward, sometimes his music and lyrics, sometimes his lyrics with music by  Eamonn O’Dwyer. They are well chosen to reflect the mood of each moment. For example, Beryl sings an appropriate Mad About The Boy and, at the end, to match the poignancy of the parting, Alec (Callum McIntyre) sings A Room With A View with lines like ‘A room with a view / And you / And no one to worry us / No one to hurry us / Through this dream we found’. And beautifully sung.

There is also mime and dance. It is pure theatre, which I mean it couldn’t be done in any other medium and it is what we love about being at a live performance.

The Watermill stage is small so Harry Pizzey’s set design leaves it open and cleverly uses a few pieces of scenery to convey the locations. The café counter doubles as a piano; armchairs and tables roll smoothly on and off as the scene changes from the café to a flat to Laura’s home. Which is where we meet her husband Fred, also played by Charles Angiama. You can see why she might want someone less solid, a lot more exciting.

There may be no big screen but the production does use a nice and very amusing device to remind us of its cinematic connection, namely sound effects. As Myrtle mimes pouring tea, one of the cast in the corner pours water into a jug in front of a microphone.

The second act is much more focused on Laura and Alec, and the better for it. This is a classic love story and well told in this version. Their blossoming romance, their growing love that becomes increasingly reckless, the agonising over the rights and wrongs of their affair, the ecstasy and the heartbreak.

As Laura says at one point, their love has made her ‘a stranger in her own home’. The most interesting, because the most conflicted, character is Laura. Played by Laura Lake Abedisi, it is the more difficult role because she has to express herself from behind a mask of repressed feelings and the kind of strangulated accent that you will be familiar with from films of the 1930s and 40s, or  the Queen in The Crown. Ms Abedisi does a splendid job and, by the end, I was totally in tune with her anguish.

Callum McIntyre is excellent as Alec Harvey, combining charm, confidence, humour and profound feeling.

This may not be what you would expect if you love the film, but if you accept that it has been taken apart and reconstructed as a piece of theatre, I think you will have a great evening.

Brief Encounter continues at The Watermill in Newbury until 13 November 2021

One Minute Theatre Reviews was supplied with a press ticket by the producers

Watch this review on the One Minute Theatre Reviews channel on YouTube

 

 

 

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The Beauty Queen Of Leenane – review

Martin McDonagh’s early work hints at greatness to come.

★★★

Production photo of The BEauty Queen Of Leenane at The Minerva Thetare Chichester showng Orla Fitzgerald and Ingrid Craigie
Orla Fitzgerald and Ingrid Craigie in The Beauty Queen Of Leenane (Photo: Helen Maybanks)

We’ve come to know Martin McDonagh very well over the last 25 years. Revivals of his plays The Cripple Of Inishmaan with Daniel Radcliffe and The Lieutenant of Inishmore with Aidan Turner were West End triumphs and confirmed his status as a leading playwright.

He continues to dazzle with hits like Hangmen and A Very Very Very Dark Matter. Then there are his films In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and more.

His work is notable for unpredictable storytelling, humorous dialogue and sudden violent shocks. And that’s all here in his first play The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, revived in a co-production by Chichester Festival Theatre and the Lyric Hammersmith.

The play centres on the relationship between 70 year old Mag, played by Ingrid Craigie,  and her 40 year old daughter and carer Maureen (Orla Fitzgerald). The pair are isolated in a run-down Irish village in the mid-1990s. They only have each other, and this dependency has led to a toxic, indeed abusive relationship in which each torments the other in petty, or occasionally significant, ways.

Mag empties her chamber pot into the kitchen sink each morning to the annoyance of her daughter, Maureen only buys biscuits her mother dislikes. It reminded me of the co-dependent parent-child relationship that formed the heart of the classic TV sitcom Steptoe And Son.

Mag schemes to undermine Maureen in order to keep her at home. She destroys important notes and letters. The mentally unstable daughter, having apparently sacrificed her life to perform her filial duty, crosses from care to cruelty. The relationship is dark, sinister even, but the interplay between them is also amusing.

Both actors convince in the ease of their conversation, which sounds like they have been having the same exchanges for the last 20 years, much like a Becket or Pinter play. I particularly enjoyed the animation and barely contained look of triumph that Ingrid Craigie gave when her character had secret knowledge about the truth of a situation, and mischievously led Maureen on in her lie about it. Orla Fitzgerald was tremendous whenever she tried to lord it over her mother, stepping out with hips swaying.

An absorbing look at a toxic relationship

The co-dependency is threatened when Pato appears on the scene. Although a local, he is also an outsider, having emigrated to London. England is always seen as a malign influence in this play. The country that has destroyed Ireland and continues to ruin this village. It’s a relationship perhaps not dissimilar to that of Mag and Maureen.

Pato forms a liaison with Maureen, whom he calls his beauty queen, and threatens to take her away to the promised land of America. Not if Mag has anything to do with it.  A violent and unhappy end seems inevitable.

Production photo ffrom The Beauty Queen Of Leenane at The Minerva Chichester showing Orla Fitzgerald and Adam Best
Adam Best and Orla Fitzgerald in The Beauty Queen Of Leenane (Photo: Helen Maybanks)

Adam Best is moving as Pato, a sad lonely man set apart from the English by his Irish village origins and by the prejudice and dangers of London’s building sites. At the beginning of act two, he writes a letter to Maureen about his life and wishes that is truly heartbreaking.

The fourth member of the cast is Kwaku Fortune who portrays Pato’s brother Ray. His main role is that of a miserable messenger but in his short scenes he convincingly illustrates the dead end nature of life in Leenane, which for him lies mainly in an obsession with Australian soaps and a surly attitude.

The set by Good Teeth Theatre was so dingy you could almost smell the urine. The rainy monotone backwall projection was appropriately bleak. The set was spread out with Mag’s armchair and a stove on one side and Maureen’s chair and kitchen area on the other. This suggested a boxing ring in which each protagonist had their corner. The sound by Anna Clock that accompanies the scenes breaks was equally desolate.

Martin McDonagh certainly has a way with words, and if The Beauty Queen Of Leenane isn’t as laugh-out-loud funny nor as original in its subject matter as his later work, it is still absorbing. Rachel O’Riordan’s production does it proud.

The Beauty Queen Of Leenane is performing in Chichester’s Minerva Theatre until 2 October and then at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre from 6 October to 9 November 2021

Click here to watch the video of this review on YouTube 

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