Longer versions of reviews featured on the YouTube channel and podcast One Minute Theatre Reviews, mainly London shows and selected regional and touring productions
Imelda Staunton and the cast of Hello, Dolly! Photo: Manuel Harlan
It’s a legendary show from the Golden Age of Musicals. It’s one of the most successful shows of all time in terms of awards and performances. Yet (whisper it) Hello, Dolly! isn’t very good. Michael Stewart‘s book comprises a ludicrous plot and is saved only by the amusing machinations of its main character. Jerry Herman contributed hardly any memorable songs except the title number and Dolly’s other great song Before The Parade Passes By. Worse, the score also features the execrable It Only Takes A Moment.
Its greatness lies in two redeeming features: the opportunity to put on magnificent chorus numbers, like Put On Your Sunday Clothes (which I admit has a nice hook) and the title number; and providing a vehicle for a female musical star to shine. Fortunately, if a production can get those right, that’s all it needs. And this new production, directed by Dominic Cooke who was responsible for the National Theatre’s legendary Follies, does get it right.
For a start, it is a sumptuous production in the great tradition of the Golden Age. The large London Palladium stage is not only packed with people, it is filled with Rae Smith‘s set and costumes that conjure up the glamour of the end of the nineteenth century. Among its delights are a conveyor that stretches the width of the stage and creates even more movement, a full-size train that is jaw-dropping in its execution, and an enormous staircase to accommodate the arrival of Dolly for her big number.
The choreography was originally by Gower Champion, who wowed Broadway and gets a credit to this day. Bill Deamer is named as choreographer of this production, and his chorus numbers are magnificent in their scale, co-ordination and vitality. There are something like three dozen members of the company but, in case you’re wondering, there’s not much opportunity for individual brilliance on the dance floor.
Imelda Staunton in Hello, Dolly! Photo: Manuel Harlan
Then there’s the star. Carol Channing first played Dolly, the matchmaker and all-round entrepreneur, to massive acclaim. Since then, many top musical stars have added it to their cv, including Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Pearl Bailey, Bernadette Peters and of course Barbra Streisand in the film version. Can any have bettered Imelda Staunton? I don’t see how. She has a great voice that hits the back of the circle when it needs to, but also an ability to plumb a depth of pathos you didn’t even realise was there in a potboiler song like Before The Parade Passes By. Plus she injects the whole proceedings with a level of energy that could single-handedly power the government’s new Great British Energy company.
Fans of her film and television work would probably have no idea of her ability as a singer, but she has played the Baker’s Wife in Into The Woods, Miss Adelaide in Guys And Dolls, Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd, Sally in Follies, Gypsy Rose in Gypsy, and now Dolly Levi. All triumphantly. Only Mame remains before she has a full house of the great musical roles for mature women.
She is supported by a strong cast but the characters don’t give them much to get their teeth into. In fact, the term ‘character’ may qualify as misinformation. Andy Nyman is an excellent actor but as Dolly’s prospective husband, the rich but miserable Horace Vandergelder, he has little to do except be irascible while his suitor draws him into her web. The same goes for Jenna Russell as Irene Molloy, Dolly’s friend who has her own romantic ambitions: she does what she does very well but she hasn’t much to do. Irene’s romantic interest Cornelius Hackl is a traditional (for which read ‘cliché’) ‘juvenile lead’, with little to do except look pretty and behave cheekily. Harry Hepple handles the role well. Their friends Minnie Fay and Barnaby Tucker are supposed to be the comical parts but remain resolutely unfunny despite the Olympian efforts of Emily Lane and Tyrone Huntley.
With due respect to all of company and creative team, the evening belongs to Imelda Staunton.
Theatre de Complicite’s Mnemonic at the National Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson
Even now, as I reconstruct my memory of Complicité‘s Mnemonic in order to write this review, it has changed from my instant reaction after the show. Which is only right. This is a play about how memory works, the way it is constantly revised by new experiences, how it is vital for imagining the future.
But it’s more than a trip down Memory Lane: it’s a trip across Europe and a journey 5000 years into the past. It becomes a search for origins, and shows how our past, both personal and shared, informs where we are now and where we might go.
When I came out of the Olivier auditorium at the National Theatre, I was feeling I’d seen a familiar but nevertheless impressive use of mime to tell interesting but fairly simple stories. Now, I feel I saw something hugely important. Why the revision? Partly it’s because I’ve thought about it, but also it’s because the ongoing riots in Britain, which seem to be triggered by a desire to defend a vision of the past against change blamed on immigrants, have reminded me how Mnemonic is not an academic exercise but an examination through theatre of a contemporary issue that will affect all our futures.
I’m sure you know but, just in case, a mnemonic is any device or trick we use to jog our memory, from tying a knot in your handkerchief to using the first letters of words in a phrase to remind you of a sequence. For example: Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain for the colours of the rainbow. This production of Mnemonic itself could be a mnemonic for those who saw the original and are taken back 25 years to what will now be a memory revised by the intervening years and this reimagined version.
In the intervening years, Complicité‘s techniques have come to seem less experimental, some are even commonplace. Few West End musicals are as naturalistic as they once were: they expose how the show is constructed, they use mime. But the book usually takes precedence. Very few productions give equal weight, as Complicité do, to every aspect: sound, light, set, props and the actors’ bodies in what you might call ‘total theatre’ to tell their stories, with text simply the starting point.
We start with a bare stage and a chair. In the style of a rambling comic, a man gives an introduction to the physiology of memory: how each new memory draws on and changes our existing memories (thanks to the hippocampus since you ask). We are invited to put on an eye mask and remember our past, then imagine being a child with our parents and their parents and their parents’ parents, going back through 5000 years at which point everyone on the planet is one of our ancestors which relates neatly, too neatly perhaps, to a recounting of the real life discovery of a human body frozen in the Alps for 5000 years, the so called Ice Man.
Parallel to this is the story of Omar whose girlfriend Alice has left him abruptly to search across Europe for her long-lost father. Cue many fragmentary adventures on a journey which she remembers and recounts, possibly unreliably. In a bravura performance by Eileen Walsh gives a bravura performance as Alice, increasingly frantic and riven with grief, ploughs her way through the diaspora of Jews, Greeks, Arabs and more who have spread across the world to escape danger or find a better life. It seems we are all migrants or the descendants of migrants, and may yet migrate ourselves.
The many possibilities of her ancestry are laid on thickly but show the futility of latching onto one past when you have an almost infinite number, all of which inform your present and, most importantly, your future. The determination to cover so much ground in Alice’s story makes it hard to get involved but it is told with the verve that Complicité are famous for. In particular, there is a moment when her money is stolen, and the memory of someone bumping into her is repeated and repeated, with variations, until finally we see exactly how she was robbed.
A stand out performance from Khalid Abdalla
The tale of the 5000 year old Ice Man was also, on the surface at least, an origins story rather that one obviously about memory. In the gradual development of the archeologists’ understanding of who he was and how he died, we do see an analogy of how memory works. In a wonderfully satirical moment, the scientists are shown sitting in a row at a conference, each imposing their own beliefs onto their interpretation of the scanty evidence that has been uncovered- so the Ice Man is said to have been a shaman, a trader, a hunter and so on. More than that- and it’s rare that Complicité works only on one level- there is the implication that as our common ancestor, he is all the things we are.
At a time when politicians, populists and owners of social media use fear and division to their own ends, it is a good moment to speak up for our common humanity and the way all history flows into each of us and out again.
Mnemonic at the National Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson
But it would be pure didactics without Complicité‘s outstanding way of creating theatre to convey the stories. A bed, a table, a couple of chairs are all that was needed most of the time in Michael Levine‘s spare set. Dialogue is echoed, movements repeated, actors flow around the stage like migrants might flow around the world. A seemingly simple chair transforms into a puppet that takes the last steps of the Ice Man before he died.
At the climax of the evening, the various characters follow one another faster and faster round the stage, as if in a vortex, in which their individuality becomes blurred.
You can imagine this is no walk in the park for the actors. Nearly all are required to take on multiple roles, but also to mime and move with precise choreography. Tim McMullan is tremendous as a senior archeologist full of wonder, humour and enthusiasm. Richard Katz, Laurence Laufenberg, Kostas Philippoglou and Sarah Slimani are all superb.
But the stand out performance comes from Khalid Abdalla, whom you might recognise as Dodi Al Fayed in the TV series The Crown. He plays both Omar, falling apart as he misses Alice, and the Ice Man, picked apart by archeologists. In both roles, he spends much of his time naked, because that’s how the corpse was discovered, and because that’s how Alice likes to see Omar. In both cases, nakedness seems to become a symbol of humanity stripped of all defences and pretences. Without clothing, they are not part of a tribe or a profession or any group, they are Everyone, at either end of 5000 years. Just as the Ice Man is at the mercy of scientists, journalists and nationalists, so Omar’s future is subject to Alice’s wishes.
All of which may seem a long way from memory, or indeed a mnemonic, but what Complicite‘s artistic director Simon McBurney has pulled together, in collaboration with the company, is a piece of pure theatre- in the sense that it would not work as film or any other art form- that evokes how memory of the past is reformed in the present and gives us the possibility of moving forward together. What better way than through the shared experience of theatre to feel our common humanity? My memory says that, despite its weak stories, I witnessed something very special.
Mnemonic can be seen at the National Theatre until 10 August 2024.
Olivia Washington and Kit Harington in Slave Play. Photo: Helen Murray
‘Is London ready for this?’ asks the publicity material for Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris. We’re promised- sorry, trigger-warned- about racist language, sexual violence, and of course a naked Kit Harington. There’s even a high-tech solution to stop you taking a picture of Kit with his kit off: you’re given a piece of sticky paper to cover your mobile phone’s camera lens. So, is this the most shocking play in the West End?
Well, I wasn’t shocked but, if you are of a sensitive disposition, this may not be the play or indeed the review for you. More to the point, before you read on, I will be revealing a number of plot twists which may not be shocking, but, if you are going to see Slave Play, will spoil the intended surprises. What surprised me is how funny the play is.
The first thing you see is Clint Ramos‘ set. You immediately notice that the back of the stage is covered in mirrors. This means you can see some of your fellow audience members, plus a painting of a Southern States plantation owner’s house that is fixed to the front of the circle. Why the mirrors? Perhaps it’s so you can see who’s finding the discriminatory language funny, and who’s uncomfortable with it. Or maybe, so you can how many black people are in the audience, to which the answer is, definitely more than usual in a West End theatre. Or, given that we the audience are still predominantly white and the slavemaster’s house appears to be in our midst, it could be to remind us that this play is intended to be about us, white as well as black, even if we think it isn’t.
‘Work’ is the name of the first act. A couple appear, played by Kit Harington and Olivia Washington (she’s Denzel Washington’s daughter by the way). Some of the Broadway cast have come over, along with original director Robert O’Hara, but both these actors are new to the play.
Judging by what they are wearing and their drawling speech, we seem to be in a pre-Civil War, or antebellum, Southern state. She’s a black slave, but she’s gyrating to a Rihanna song called Work, as she does her chores. This strikes one as a little odd- a bit Bridgerton maybe. He’s a white overseer but not a slave master, as he is at pains to make clear.
There’s a sexual relationship in which he dominates and she submits. He throws a melon on the floor, which he describes as a watermelon, and tells her to get down and eat it. She corrects him, pointing out it’s a cantaloupe. (The poster for the play cleverly turns a cantaloupe melon into a sexual image.) This seems slightly off kilter, as she appears to be more like his equal, maybe even taking the lead. Nevertheless, as instructed, she eats it off the floor. The scene ends with him eating her.
In the second scene, a mature Southern Belle seduces a mixed race (or ‘mulatto’, as she describes him) servant, who could pass for white. She produces a family heirloom- a large black dildo, which she proceeds to use on him. Like all the sex in this production, it is simulated but quite graphic for the stage, and also laugh-out-loud funny (or maybe not, depending on your sensitivities). For me, the stilted Southern accents and porn movie dialogue made me think it could be called Carry On In The Cotton Fields or perhaps Carry On Up The Khyber might be more appropriate.
Scene three and couple number three: two men, one black, one white. The white man is shifting bales of cotton. He is an indentured servant who eventually licks the boots of his black boss. It is by now fairly obvious that there is some kind of role play going on in which the couples are acting out domination and submission fantasies. We are reminded in the programme of the quote by J N Benjamin: ‘everything is about sex, except sex which is about power’. But it could still, just, be early 19th century America. Act One culminates with all three couples having sex. Then Kit Harington’s character calls out ‘Starbucks’, which turns out to be a safe word, and everyone stops. Two women with clipboards enter and we move from farce to satire.
Act Two is called ‘Process’. It turns out that all three couples are on the fourth day of a therapy group- it’s fantasy day, hence the title Slave Play. The black partners are suffering from anhedonia, the first of many conditions I had never heard of. Some of these are made up but anhedonia does exist and, put simply, is lack of arousal.
They gather for discussion and analysis led by the two researchers, played by Chalia La Tour and Irene Sofia Lucio, both from the Broadway cast. They turn out to have encountered the same problem in their own relationship, which they believe can be overcome using what they call ‘Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy’. This begins an initially hilarious satire as they spout more and more psycho babble, while being at times over sensitive to feelings and at others ignoring them, sometimes shutting down people for saying the ‘wrong thing’ and at others embracing whatever is said and attempting to integrate it into their theory.
Farce and satire are followed by a disturbing climax
To my way of thinking, these couples are simply incompatible, or bored with their relationship. Not so, say the therapists, they maintain that the black participants are feeling the legacy of their ancestors having once been slaves and subject to white imperialism. This is said to affect their sexual relationships with their white lovers. They propose acting out fantasies involving slavery as a solution.
I am assuming from the way the play mocks the researchers that their theory is poppycock. I suspect this extreme kind of unaccredited group therapy is more familiar to Americans than us British. In fact, it’s only a few months since I was at the National Theatre watching Annie Baker’s Infinite Life, another American play about a group of people being conned by bogus therapy.
Slave Play. Photo: Helen Murray
I was amused at first by this central and dominant part of Slave Play, but it is like a satirical sketch that has been stretched out until it stops being funny. A bit like when a pleasant hug carries on until you feel trapped in the embrace.
After a while, I began to wonder how much more humour could be wrung out of these parodies of quack therapists, no matter how well the actors were nailing their techniques. I started to wish there was a safe word I could call out to get us on to the next scene. After all, this play is over two hours long without an interval.
Then, there is a change of gear from comedy to disturbing drama. Despite, rather than because of, the therapists, the black characters overcome what the therapists describe as ‘racialised inhibiting disorder’ and ‘alexithymia’ (guess which term is invented for their difficulty in talking about their emotions). They begin to recognise the true root of their problem, different in each case but with one thing in common.
It has already become clear that the white people are doing a lot of the talking, even though the sessions are supposed to be for the benefit of their black partners. Particularly funny in this respect is the way a middle-aged woman Alana, acted with a wealth of shocked facial expressions by Annie McNamara (from the Broadway cast), constantly speaks for Phillip. He is played with wide-eyed shyness by British actor Aaron Heffernan. She says she doesn’t even think about his colour, until he eventually speaks up and declares that he has been mistaken in thinking that his ability to pass for white is a good thing and that he’s at his most fulfilled when he is seen as being black. He mentions that he was excited by the way they met, when he was brought in by her then husband to fulfil the latter’s cuckold fantasy of seeing his wife have sex with a black man.
Gary, played by British actor Fisayo Akinade, eventually sees that he was wrong to regard a white partner as a kind of prize. Dustin, a flamboyant actor played for laughs by James Cusati-Moyer, who acted the part on Broadway, doesn’t want to think of himself as white. Gary becomes furious that this attitude denies the importance of his own ethnicity. It is one of the most emotional moments in a play that is otherwise more often melodramatic than realistic. The chemistry between them is electric.
Kit Harington‘s Jim, a British white man, is the most skeptical of this so-called Process, and says that he is uncomfortable with role playing a slave master. After some reflection, he observes that his partner seems to regard him as a virus. It is a turning point for Olivia Washington’s Kaneisha, who recognises that her anhedonia has developed because she does see white people that way.
So, at its heart, this play is about an on-going power struggle between white and black people, of which slavery may be the supreme example. The sexual relationships in Slave Play are intended to illustrate that, because white people are used to a society in which they are supreme, they fail to see that they are part of the problem that has caused their black partners’ sexual inhibition.
In the final act, called ‘Exorcise’, the mood becomes more serious. We are back in the bedroom with the couple who opened the play. Kaneisha asks Jim to listen, which he does as she explains to him he needs to recognise that he, as a white man, carries this so-called ‘virus’, because he has inherited a legacy of imperialism, colonialism and, of course, enslaving other races. Then, in a gesture which I took to mean that, this time, he wasn’t simply putting on a costume to play a part, he takes off all his clothes. The lighting is a little subdued as he walks around the bed but it is clear that his body is completely exposed, just as his deepest feelings are now fully acknowledged and revealed.
He once again goes through the ritual of treating her as a slave but this time with sincerity, flinging her, fully clothed, on the bed on her front and climbing on top of her. His aim is not to pleasure her, as in the first scene, but to force himself upon her. All the while, we focus on her calm face and, via the mirrors, and thanks to the bleaching effect of a bright light, at his very white buttocks rising and thrusting. When it’s over, she thanks him, but she is looking at the audience, so it seems she is also thanking those of us who are white for listening and recognising our racial heritage.
Mr Harington does well to convey a character who goes from confident to confused to broken. Ms Washington acts with passion. But, like the rest of the excellent cast, they are portraying characters who too often are ciphers rather than real human beings, and who offer melodrama in place of emotion.
Slave Play may mean more to Americans whose experience of race is different to the British one, so it may not have hit me as forcefully as intended. For me, the points about the psychological effect of white power that Jeremy O. Harris finally teases out in Slave Play, while interesting and provocative, are undermined by the earlier mockery of the psychiatrists. They also take too long to emerge and are less effective than they might be because the narrative is so obviously subservient to an agenda. On the plus side, there is much to enjoy in the sex romps and the send-up of the psycho-therapy industry.
You can see Slave Play at the Noël Coward Theatre until 21 September 2024. Buy tickets direct from the theatre.
This comment was made about the video on the Theatre.Reviews With Paul Seven YouTube channel. It is reproduced with permission:
Thank you for this review. I saw the Broadway production five years ago, and I own a copy of the script, which I subsequently read after seeing the play. So I want to make a few points from the perspective of an American audience member who has quite deep knowledge of the American history of enslavement as an economic institution of domination and exploitation. I should preface this by stating that I’ve volunteered for years for an historic property that is New England’s main site that served as essentially a Northern “plantation.” (The Royall House & Slave Quarters.)
So I think your review is very insightful, but I also think this play is deeply American in a way that probably won’t read the same for a British audience. I deeply appreciate your respectful attempt at having equanimity and reviewing the play on its own terms. However, there are aspects of this play that probably don’t land the same in London. Our particular, awful history with enslavement as an economic institution that formed a backbone to this country’s economy is a deeply American pathology. It really was like a virus that infected us, to borrow the words that the character at the end of the play says out of sorrow and rage. Plantations really do feel like haunted places. Especially the ones whose structures remain in the South. Consider that these sites are sometimes used as wedding venues for white people – how revolting is that? That’s just one example of how the play directly confronts the legacy of this institution. But I don’t even think it is only about that, or enslavement is the antagonist of the play per se.
I think the Carry On reference – which I understand minimally but I imagine you are saying that the sketch comedy aspect feels broad and silly like something called Carry On – is apt. However, I think there is quite a bit more encoded into the seeming humor and whimsy. As another example of the layers this play is operating on and peeping back: the Black characters play surreal versions of harmful Black stereotypes that began during enslavement. These are numerous, and American audiences recognize them right away as integral to our cultural identity. Though they are consigned to the dustbin of history now, it really wasn’t that long ago that these stereotypes carried violent weight. My grandparents’ generation grew up with the colloquial saying, “Eeny, meeny, mynie, mo/catch a __ by his toe/if he hollers, let him go” I’m sure you can imagine the word that goes into the blank, which I could never bring myself to say because it’s so horrifying and destructive. But I’m sure you can deduce what it is from the topic at hand.
When this play came out in 2019 on Broadway, white audiences – even supposed liberals – were getting overheated and angry enough that some of them would scream and yell during the talkbacks. It was the show that introduced “Blackout nights,” where people of color could attend the show among their peers without the intrusion of the White gaze. (Which is something Slave Play addresses – the White gaze – hence the mirror, in case you were wondering why there’s a mirror.) In our country, states are making it illegal to tell the truth about the brutality of enslavement as a racist system of exploitation and appropriation and commodification of the Black body. Even though the public records available in our country will tell us how brutal this system was. In the town in Massachusetts where the farm/plantation was that housed many enslaved people in the years prior to Massachusetts abolishing enslavement, there are public records that list Black/African people as simply property. You can see evidence of these human beings being sold. And bounties being placed on them when they attempted to flee to freedom. This was in Massachusetts, a supposed liberal bastion.
And there is another thing that probably won’t register for an audience member who doesn’t identify as “Queer” or as a member of the LGBTQ+ communities: this play was written by a Black, queer-identifying person whose intersectional identities in both categories are doubly marginalized in this country. Even now, Black queer people in the US are murdered – just for being themselves and existing in public space. That is part of the reason the Rihanna song “Work” is heard in the show. Jeremy O Harris is making a point about the amount of unasked-for labor people with multiply marginalized identities have to carry in this country. That exploitative model is in part due to the legacy of enslavement. If you’ve read a Faulkner novel about these overall subjects, this play is a bit of an offspring of the ideas contained in those books.
I’ll end for now by pointing out: if you want to know just how personal this play is to the US context, a direct example from a current political figure is how white children were afraid to play with Kamala Harris when she was growing up in California. The legacy of this vile institution of enslavement is hundreds of years in the making, and it is America’s Original Sin. (Though colonialism/Other-ing/xenophobia are not unique to the US, of course …) I hope you find these thoughts useful to your consideration of the play.
Barry Sloane in Boys From The Blackstuff. Photo: Alistair Muir
I wonder whether, in the normal way of things, James Graham, author of Dear England, or any other contemporary dramatist, would write a stage play about some men in 1980s Liverpool who have lost their jobs and commit benefit fraud? Possibly not, but then, this is Boys From The Blackstuff, a TV legend from the early 80s. So, how does it translate onto the stage? And was it worth the effort?
I wonder if you have even seen the TV series by Alan Bleasdale? And if you have, how much do you remember of it? (You can catch up with it on BBC iPlayer.) If you’re a fan, you may enjoy this version as an exercise in nostalgia. However, because you might not know the incomparable five-part TV series by Alan Bleasdale, I’m not going to compare this two hours and a bit play with it. Instead, I’ll consider whether it stands up as a theatrical drama in its own right.
The first act is very bitty. There’s far too much in the way of introductions and scene setting. We meet the five ‘boys’ but they appear in a series of fragmentary scenes. We don’t really get to know them. Certainly not well enough to care about their fate, which is inevitably to be caught by the benefit fraud sniffers.
What kept my interest during the first act was the production itself- the varying pace of Kate Wasserberg‘s direction, encompassing rousing ensemble singing, fast-moving crowd scenes, and moments of still sadness; the rusty industrial set by Amy Jane Cook; the video by Jamie Jenkin of black and white images of 1980s Liverpool projected at the back of the stage, so often returning to the swirling waters of the Mersey, which was the source of Liverpool’s glory years as a port.
But the docks are already in decline, our heroes are not dockers but roadworkers, or rather they were. We find out how they brought some of their problems on themselves, and there are many reasons, including greed and selfishness, why they don’t appear to deserve our sympathy. The emotional engagement only picks up when a tragedy occurs. The scene when someone falls from high up is performed in slow motion and immediately segues into a rainy funeral. It’s a wonderfully theatrical moment.
‘I am a human being’
The second act is altogether more involving as drama. The narrative brings the main characters into focus. Chrissie, played to perfection by Nathan McMullen, is the ‘nice’ guy who tries to be their leader and faces a conflict between principles and practical need. Philip Whitchurch as George, their mentor, brings passion and compassion to the part of an old, dying man. Aron Julius is the restless Loggo, and Mark Womack plays the dignified Dixie, dragged down by his situation. And then, of course, there is Yosser. Even if you’ve only vaguely heard of Boys From The Blackstuff, you will probably be aware of Yosser Hughes and his catchphrases ‘Gissa job’ and ‘I can do that’. In the first act, he is comic relief. In the second, we get to see the depth of his mental illness. It is a monumental performance by Barry Sloane that conveys every inch of Yosser’s anger and pain. These are all men for whom life has not turned out as expected and who are struggling to find their self respect in a world that has rejected and persecuted them. ‘I am a human being,’ cries an anguished Yosser.
The cast of Boys From The Blackstuff. Photo: Alistair Muir
But it’s not all anger and pain. There is considerable humour. In a scene that had me laughing out loud, Chrissie’s wife Angie, played by Lauren O’Neill (who is outstanding in multiple roles) pretends not be home, and crawls back and forth on her knees, talking through the front and back doors to callers as well as answering the telephone. Just as comically tragic is Yosser’s meeting with the priests from the Catholic and Protestant churches, at either end of the ironically named Hope Street. Both conversations are an indictment of established religion. Seeing a similarity between free will and free markets, he says, ‘So God’s a tory.’ And, when the friendly Father says ‘Call me Dan’, he speaks the much-anticipated line ‘I’m desperate, Dan’.
The rest of the cast are faultless, and take on a number of roles but I’ll make particular mention of Dominic Carter who plays theshady builder Molloy and Jamie Peacock as the hapless benefit fraud investigator.
An article in the excellent programme talks about the ‘current political parallels’ but they are not always easy to grasp. It’s not that the plight of many working class people under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government wasn’t tragic. Traditional industries were decimated in her relentless battle against the unions, and the lives of the people employed in them destroyed. It’s just that it’s a long time ago. There is still the gap between rich and poor, maybe even getting greater, and benefit cheats are still demonised while corporation tax evaders are virtually ignored. I imagine the modern day equivalents of those Boys from the Blackstuff being employed in low wage and zero hours jobs fulfilling our orders in vast warehouses or delivering takeaways on bikes to our homes, as part of a non-unionised service economy.
Perhaps it’s in the treatment of people who need help not demonisation that the stories most resonate today. Sadly the play tries to cram too many stories into the time available. As a result, we lose some of the sympathy that we might otherwise have felt for these lost boys, had we had the chance to get to know them better. Nevertheless, it is a powerful drama, extraordinarily well acted.
Boys From The Blackstuff opened at Liverpool’s Royal Court, before transferring to the National Theatre, and then the Garrick where it can be seen until 3 August 2024. Tickets are available from thegarricktheatre.co.uk/tickets
Sam Tutty and Dujonna Gift in Two Strangers. Photo: Tristram Kenton
If you’re a fan of romcoms, I think you’ll like this sweet- but not saccharine- musical comedy. Two Strangers (carry a cake aross New York), and this is not a spoiler, is set in New York, but it feels very British. A naive British man and a cynical female New Yorker meet because of a wedding. Think Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings And A Funeral. In fact, if anyone is planning a remake, Sam Tutty would be a shoe-in for Mr Grant, and Dujonna Gift would be a blooming sight better than the insipid Ms MacDowell.
It begins with a naive British man who only knows America through the movies meeting a cynical female New Yorker, because of a wedding. He is the son of the groom, she the sister of the bride. They are the ‘two strangers’. As for the cake, well, that is what Alfred Hitchcock and other filmmakers used to call a McGuffin, in other words a device, unimportant in itself, but vital to moving on the plot.
What Kit Buchan’s amusing script is really concerned with is their burgeoning relationship with each other and, perhaps even more importantly, the two characters discovering themselves. There are a few twists which, frankly, you might see coming from a long way off but the ending helps keep the show from being completely predictable.
Two Strangers has the comforting feel of the kind of musical that Cole Porter or the Gershwins were so good at, and the musical style also reminds one of that bygone era. But let’s not get carried away- while Kit Buchan provides some clever lyrics and Jim Barne‘s compositions range from smoochy to stirring, they are not the Gershwins. There isn’t a showstopper in sight. In fact, I didn’t come out humming even one bar of any of the songs.
Sam Tutty and Dujonna Gift are the top
Nevertheless, Two Strangers is an enjoyable musical comedy with an appealing mix of jollity and pathos. It would be easy for these two slightly clichéd characters to have grated but the two actors, who are actually both British, are very good. There seemed to be more affection than chemistry between them but both are charming, funny and have pleasant voices: his nice and easy, hers powerful. Sam Tutty, who has already made a name for himself in Evan Hansen, establishes a good rapport with the audience, thanks partly to his particular skill at using his facial expressions to comic effect. Dujonna Gift conveys strength that hides vulnerability.
Sam Tutty and Dujonna Gift in Two Strangers. Photo: Tristram Kenton
Tim Jackson directs and choreographs with a light comical touch. Soutra Gilmour’s set may be low budget but it’s clever. Two piles of suitcases which set the scene for the opening meet-cute at the airport, also suggest the towers of New York. Specific elements of it adapt for the later scenes, becoming cupboards, tables, and so on. A revolve mimics a luggage carousel but also keeps the show moving, literally, by bringing the characters together and pulling them apart.
Since its premiere in Ipswich nearly five years ago, and its re-launch at London’s Kiln Theatre, Two Strangers has come on leaps and bounds. It certainly deserves its run in the West End at The Criterion. For me, it didn’t quite reach the heights of great musical comedy but it is a good romcom that will leave you with a smile on your face.
Two Strangers (carry a cake across New York) can be seen at the Criterion Theatre until 31 August 2024. Tickets from twostrangersthemusical.com
Ben Whishaw in Bluets at the Royal Court. Photo: Camilla Greenwood
Bluets is not a theatre show, it’s an unusual hybrid of stage and screen. It certainly won’t appeal to everyone, particularly those who love pure theatre. On the plus side, it’s not like far too many recent gimmicky stage productions where video is used to provide close-ups or scenes of what’s happening off-stage. Normally I would avoid that sort of thing, but this is something special.
It’s the making of a film, live, with the actors reciting words from Maggie Nelson’s book Bluets, while carrying out actions that are projected on a large screen. I admit this sounds more like something you might see at Tate Modern, and without the presence of Ben Whishaw, maybe it wouldn’t have made it to the stage of the Jerwood Downstairs theatre at the Royal Court. Having said that, director Katie Mitchell does have a long and distinguished record of creating what she calls ‘live cinema’. But, if it does sound strange, or even off-putting to you, I can only say I found Bluets both fascinating and deeply moving.
Let’s start with the words. After all, it is based on a book of what could be called short prose-poems, in which Maggie Nelson describes and meditates on three recurring themes- the effect of and gradual recovery from the breakup of a relationship, a close friend’s reaction to becoming a quadriplegic, and her fascination with the colour blue, which is genuinely interesting.
Kayla Meikle in Bluets. Photo: Camilla Greenwood
The language- its rhythms and metaphors- is poetic and moving. It’s also quite funny in a self-deprecating way. For example, she is excited to come across a book called Deepest Blue (I think) in a bookshop, only to find it’s about depression. She hastily puts it back, only to tell us she bought it six months later – pause- ‘online’.
Ben Whishaw will have sold many of the tickets and he does deliver, with a sad voice and a twinkling eye, but so do the other two actors Emma D’Arcy and Kayla Meikle. The trio sit in a row, sharing the lines, so that the words are delivered almost staccato by their alternating voices. The effect is to make you concentrate and hear every word. I found that the varied voices and personas made the author and her highly personal subject matter seem more universal.
Emma D’Arcy in Bluets at the Royal Court Theatre. Photo: Camilla Greenwood
Then there is the videoing. Each actor has a table next to them, a camera in front of them, and a monitor behind them. The film, shown on a big screen above them, illustrates what is being said. The actors sometimes stand in front of the monitors, as if they are green screens, and this, thanks to superb lighting by Anthony Doran, converts onto the large screen as them seeming to walk down a street, drive a car, or dry their hair in a changing room. Often, the actors’ heads or hands are viewed in close-up as they rest on a pillow, or touch each other, or handle blue objects. It is an extraordinary experience to watch them talk and move, sometimes in synch, and then see this, combined with some pre-recorded moments, become a movie before one’s eyes.
Cinema, which is usually immutable, becomes a live performance. The way it can change in small ways from night to night suggested to me the way our mental lives -feelings, memories, dreams- change with each circumstance and in each moment. The live video is a masterpiece in coordination, designed by Ellie Thompson and directed by Grant Gee.
The adaptation of Maggie Nelson’s book by Margaret Perry is a fine work in itself, and the soundtrack by Paul Clark, which mixes music, nature and street sounds, is as disturbing and reflective as the language.
Bluets is only 70 minutes long but it has the timeless quality of a dream or a memory.
This is the opening production of the first season by the Royal Court’s new artistic director David Byrne. After a lacklustre period under Vicky Featherstone, when I all but stopped going to the Royal Court, I am now looking forward to some exciting times ahead.
Bluets can be seen at the Royal Court until 29 June 2024
A visceral performance from Rosie Sheehy in Sophie Treadwell’s classic expressionist drama
★★★★
Rosie Sheehan in Machinal at Old Vic. Photo: Manuel Harlan
Machinal was written in 1928 by Sophie Treadwell who based her expressionist play on a recent true crime story of a woman who had murdered her husband. In this review, I’ll try to define expressionist theatre and describe a performance that could be the launch of a stellar career.
But let’s start with the title. In recent years it has tended to be pronounced ‘MaSHinal’. The logic is that it’s a French word and that’s how the French pronounce it. However, the word means ‘mechanical’ so there is a logic to pronouncing it ‘MaCKinal’, if you want to convey the theme of a play in which a woman is crushed by a mechanised, soulless society. Indeed, that’s how it was pronounced during the original Broadway production back in 1928. Add to that, the current lead Rosie Sheehy says that’s how it’s pronounced, and since she is what turns this production from good to great, I would be happy to accept that. Except… the playwright Sophie Treadwell said it should be pronounced ‘MaSHinal’. And given that the play shows a woman being marginalised and ignored, it seems wrong to do that to the author. So, with due respect to Rosie Sheehy, I’m sticking with with ‘MaSHinal’.
Machinal tells the story of a young woman- named only at the end- who feels trapped by society, is repelled by what goes in around her, and is consistently betrayed by men. We see her feeling claustrophobic on a crowded train, in an office where she is struggling as a typist and mocked for her lateness by her colleagues, at odds with her unsupportive mother played by Buffy Davis, unhappily at home with her repulsive husband- a slimy businessman played by Tim Frances. Then, she is liberated by an affair. After that, there is no going back, and she frees herself from her husband- and stop reading now if you don’t want a spoiler, although I think it is expected by all involved that you will know she goes on to kill her husband- and is then tried by judge, jurors and lawyers who are all men.
All this is told as a piece of expressionist theatre. Expressionism is in many ways defined by what it’s not. What it is not is naturalistic or realistic- the dialogue, the acting, the sound, the whole production combine to evoke a visceral reaction from the audience. Of course, naturalistic theatre can evince an emotional response but that comes from our observation and identification with the drama.
A gripping production
Rosie Sheehan in Machinal. Photo: Manuel Harlan
Sophie Treadwell divides her play into nine scenes, although Richard Jones‘ production, which originated at the Theatre Royal Bath, adds an opening scene in which the Young Woman is entrapped on a train. Each scene has a generic title that is raised above the set, like ‘At Business’ or ‘Law’. While everyone else is sharp suited , wearing black or grey, and moving with precision, Rosie Sheehan’s character is sweaty and clad in an ill-fitting blue dress. She too doesn’t fit. She’s not even comfortable in her own body, moving jerkily and nervously. While not actually shy, when she speaks, she is often inarticulate and stuttering as she tries to express her need for freedom.
The machine-like life around her, driven by industrial capitalism, is shown, not only by the way people look, but by the way they move mechanically, and talk in repetitive language. The set, designed by Hyemi Shin, is a bright, sickly mustard yellow that forms a triangle on the stage with the apex at the centre back, reinforcing the idea of being trapped. The blank walls at times accommodate doors and apparent windows. Props are wheeled on and off.
Sound, designed by Benjamin Grant, is often sharp, discordant and industrial, setting us on edge- for example, a pneumatic drill accompanies the woman giving birth- although sometimes there is the more comforting sound of a spiritual. Adam Silverman‘s lighting design is stark, sometimes strobe, and on a couple of occasions disconcertingly pitch black. One of those times is the moment she experiences sexual ecstasy with her lover played by Pierro Niel-Mee. Significantly, this and other key transformative moments in the woman’s life are not actually shown, which means we are not distracted from the way she is abused and crushed by the men who rule her life and society as a whole.
It occurred to me that the scenes are almost like the Stations of the Cross which depict Jesus heading for his crucifixion.
We don’t gain a lot of insight into the woman’s character. Although a modern audience might suspect she has mental issues of some kind, she is deliberately portrayed as quite ordinary, boring even. She is an Everywoman. The play doesn’t excuse her actions but it does explain the pressures that led her in the direction she took. What is great about Machinal and Rosie Sheehy‘s anguished performance is that we experience at a molecular level the woman being torn apart. Yes, there are moments when it becomes melodramatic, but the one hour and 50 minutes, without interval, fly by in this gripping production.
Coincidentally, there is a new exhibition at Tate Modern which looks at a group of expressionist artists from the early 1900s called Blue Rider that included Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter and Marianne Werefkin. Incidentally, given the feminist standpoint of Machinal, it’s interesting that Blue Rider included and respected female artists, which wasn’t the case with Sophie Treadwell working in theatre. The exhibition is well worth a visit, and the range of work, from the clearly representational to virtually abstract, shows that the common feature of expressionism is an attempt to use shape and colour to convey the feeling of a person or place, rather than the more visually accurate observations made by their predecessors, such as the Impressionists. There are times when you enter a room, it feels like the paint has been thrown in your face.
James Mack and Katherine Jack in Much Ado About Nothing. Photo: Pamela Raith
Much Ado About Nothing is my favourite Shakespeare comedy. I’ve seen many productions, so believe me when I say that, if you’re in the Newbury area, The Watermill’s new slapstick version is well worth your time.
The play has two, maybe three plot strands. There is a comic romance between Benedick and Beatrice which is probably as perfect as any ever written. Parallel to that, there is a more ‘serious’ relationship between Benedick’s friend Claudio and Beatrice’s cousin Hero. There’s also a lot of funny business involving the Night Watch having knowledge of a crime but being so pompous and stupid as to not recognise the significance of the evidence they have.
The ‘Nothing’ in question is not simply as we understand the word today. In Shakepseare’s time the word noting sounded the same as nothing and related to observation. So the two romances hinge on hoaxes in which the lovers observe false reporting. In the comical thread, Benedick and Beatrice, who spend the early part of the play covering their feelings by insulting one another, are brought together; but there are terrible consequences when Claudio is led to believe Hero has been unfaithful.
The former is the highlight of the evening, with Benedick and Beatrice in turn hiding, while their friends pretend they don’t know they’re there. The adaptor Tom Wentworth and director Paul Hart have chosen to emphasise the comedy of this to the point of slapstick. This is overdone at times but mostly it makes for an amusing evening, especially since James Mack as Bendick is superb at physical comedy. He has a cheeky smile when he delivers his barbs against Beatrice, and he submits his body to numerous indignities, not least having his face daubed with blue paint.
We get a double dose of farce in this production, as there already much built-in silliness in the form of Dogberry, the man in charge of the Night Watch, whose self importance and misuse of language (‘O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this’) is always a joy. Hayden Wood uses his rubbery face and lanky stature to great comic effect. He even includes a comedy routine for those who stay in the auditorium during the interval, followed by humorous interaction with members of the audience.
Something is lost in this concentration on farce. Augustina Seymour playing Don John, who conducts the plot against Hero, is given little opportunity to establish her malevolence, and we don’t gain enough insight into why Claudio, played by Fred Double, goes from being head over heels in love with Hero (Thuliswa Magwaza) to turning against her so easily, when his love is tested.
His failure needs to be given proper weight, to make all the more moving Benedick’s reaction when his love for Beatrice is tested.
Beautiful speech and sublime singing
Shakespeare takes great joy in Benedick and Beatrice’s language, both their witty insults and their heartfelt romance, and I was pleased to hear James Mack and Katherine Jack speaking the words beautifully.
Priscille Grace in Much Ado About Nothing. Photo: Pamela Raith
The production is set in 1940s Hollywood, which is a mixed blessing. Designer Ceci Calf does miracles in fitting onto The Watermill’s small stage so many props and flats to help the comedy and suggest film sets, but not enough is done to conjure up the glamour of the period. That’s left to the gorgeous costumes. More of a problem is the lack of clarity about exactly how what you might call the ‘real life’ scenes were supposed to integrate with scenes that were apparently being filmed for a movie. Dogs have had more coherent dinners.
Still, the setting was worth it, if only because if provided the opportunity to weave in some songs from the 40s like When I Fall In Love, It Had To Be You and I Can’t Give You Anything But Love. As is traditional in Watermill productions, the actors play instruments but, in this case, nearly all the singing is done by Priscille Grace. Her sublime phrasing and the range of her voice are so good that I felt a frisson of excitement every time she approached the microphone.
Even if this production doesn’t quite do justice to depth of Shakespeare’s play, it is an enjoyable evening’s entertainment. I thoroughly recommend Much Ado About Nothing at The Watermill.
Much Ado About Nothing can be seen at The Watermilluntil 18 May 2024
Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre.
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Gemma Whelan is a winner in this romp through the lives of the Brontes
★★★
Adele James, Gemma Whelan, Rhiannon Clements in Underdog_ The Other Other Brontë. Photo: Isha Shah
It might be better if you know nothing about the Brontës and simply watch Sarah Gordon’s play Underdog as a portrait of the competition and mutual support that often co-exist among sisters, and of the challenges of being a female novelist in early Victorian times. If you do know a bit about them, you may be annoyed at the liberties taken by this interpretation of their relationship. On the other hand, like me, you may find it jolly good fun. It certainly gains from having the mightily talented Gemma Whelan as Charlotte Brontë.
Let’s start with Ms Whelan. It’s only right, since she begins the play. She enters through the auditorium, chatting to audience members about the Brontë novels. Unexpectedly, for the author of one of those ‘dour’ books, she’s wearing a bright red dress. She goes up on stage and explains that we are going to hear her story.
As promised, Gemma Whelan and her character dominate the whole evening. She is cocky and nervous, knowing and naive, likeable and unpleasant, and very funny. Supported by Natalie Ibu’s sharp and speedy direction, she holds us- and her sisters- in her grip throughout the evening.
This is a good point to tell you about the set. I know we don’t buy tickets to see the design but Grace Smart’s is impressive. At the beginning, there is a thick carpet of moorland gorse and heather. Almost as soon as Charlotte has mounted the stage, this flies upwards until all we can see is the mass of brown roots underneath. Three black walls are revealed that, combined with the ceiling, represent wonderfully the claustrophobia and earthiness so often associated with the Brontë sisters.
One nice touch is the use of a revolve to indicate more frantic activity, or at the start of act two the long slow coach journey to London, complete with theatrical coconut shells clip-clopping. The set has one more surprise at the end of the play when the back opens up to indicate that Charlotte and the other Brontes are nowadays known to the whole world.
The Other Other Brontë of the title is not the middle sister Emily, who wrote Wuthering Heights. Emily’s character isn’t explored so deeply as the other two but then she was the most keen to preserve her anonymity and she died young. So less is known about her. That doesn’t stop Adele James making a good fist of playing a middle sister who challenges the elder and defends the younger.
No, the other other Brontë is the youngest sister Anne who wrote the less well known Agnes Grey and The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall. Anne is played by Rhiannon Clements with an excellent combination of inner strength and outer submissiveness.
The play suggests Charlotte was jealous of Anne’s talent, that she stole the premise of Agnes Grey for her own novel Jane Eyre, and that Anne let her eldest sister walk all over her. Charlotte waivers between undermining her youngest sister and giving her love and support. In fact, this is the greatest joy of Underdog, the way in which many sisters close in age are both competitive and supportive. (This subject has become almost a theme at the National lately, with the great Till The Stars Come Down, The House of Bernarda Alba and Dancing At Lughnasa all featuring sisterly rivalry and solidarity.)
There is a scene, where Charlotte confident of her work but not of her looks, is welcomed into London’s literary grandees’ club (shown as a kind of disco- just one of many amusing anachronisms). On a high because her talent has been recognised, she shrugs off Anne’s concerns. But when she is insulted for her lack of femininity, she turns desperately to her sisters for reassurance. By the way, the sisters’ ‘coarseness’, which at that time was how many perceived their writing and therefore the women themselves, is given substance in the play by their use of modern expressions and a huge amount of swearing, all to great comic effect.
Liberty-taking, laughter-inducing
Gemma Whelan in Underdog. Photo: Isha Shah
Here’s some of the historical background. Back in the first half of the 19th century, women novelists were expected to write romances set in polite society. It was unacceptable to many critics that novels that involved class discrimination, male violence, substance abuse and more, as the Brontes’ did, could be written, or read, by women. Therefore, all three sisters submitted their first novels to publishers under male pseudonyms, something Charlotte and Anne were keen to give up, but which Emily clung to.
Charlotte outlived her younger sisters. After their deaths, she did stop a reprint of Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, despite its success. She also seems to have been the most determined among the three to gain respect in literary society, and worked with Elizabeth Gaskell to this end.
Sarah Gordon uses these facts to support a thesis that Charlotte was ambitious and competitive, while the other two were not, and that Charlotte pushed her own work at their expense. The reality may be different, but let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good story. And it is a good story, full of comedy and a little pathos, and some interesting ideas.
The many other parts are played by a small group of men, including Nick Blakeley as a snooty Elizabeth Gaskell, Julian Moore-Cook as the slimy publisher George Smith and James Phoon as the the Brontes’ troubled alcoholic brother Branwell.
Underdog is primarily about three sisters, and 19th century attitudes to women, but there is an undertow that questions how what we know or think we know about artists influences our appreciation of their art. However, apart from the boisterous relationship of the sisters, everything else is touched on lightly, and the main emphasis is on fun. Which it is.
Underdog can be seen at the National Theatre’s Dorfman studio until 25 May 2024 and then at Northern Stage in Newcastle Upon Tyne (7 to 22 June).
Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre
Roger Evans, Michael Sheen and Sharon Small in Nye. Photo: Johan Persson
A man is dying in a hospital bed. He is flanked by his wife and his oldest friend. Heavily sedated with pain killing morphine, his brain takes him back to significant episodes in his life. And what a life. Because this Aneurin Bevan known as Nye who spearheaded the foundation of the National Health Service.
In the course of the evening, while we do learn something about how the service came into being, much more to the point we discover why it was so important to this man and what made him into one of the Labour Party’s most powerful figures.
Playwright Tim Price’s concept is superb. For the entire play, Nye is on stage in his pyjamas and often in his hospital bed. This may remind you of Dennis Potter’s TV drama The Singing Detective, and there is even a sequence in which Nye sings Get Happy to the backing of a brass band. Whatever the inspiration, it’s a highly effective device.
It may be fair to say that, because of the constant presence of Nye, the production would not succeed without an actor of exceptional brilliance in the role. Fortunately, in Michael Sheen, it has one. He never overplays the part, tempting as it must be when portraying one of the twentieth century’s great orators. Nye himself may have had a huge ego, he may have been disloyal, and these characteristics are hinted at, but what we are given by Michael Sheen is a man scared by his present condition and wondering desperately whether his life has been worthwhile. It is a magnetic and moving performance.
Michael Sheen and the cast of Nye. Photo: Johan Persson
Vicki Mortimer’s clever set uses green hospital-style curtains to open to reveal a whole ward of beds, and close to provide the intimacy of a single room. The beds and curtains also move around to create a schoolroom, the House of Commons, a library, the local council chamber and a parliamentary tea room. A low ceiling from which hang the lights emphasises depth and human scale. The lighting designed by PauleConstable enhances each scene: flat fluorescent for the ward, green laser for the coal face, and so on.
So, we encounter Nye bullied by a teacher because his stammer, and receiving solidarity from his friends including his lifelong friend Archie Lush, given a solid portrayal by Roger Evans, and it’s he who helps him overcome his stammer by introducing him to the miners’ free library where he learns alternatives that avoid the traps of words beginning with ‘s’. And of course, it’s his wide vocabulary that helps him become one of the great orators of his time.
We see how he organises the mine workers in his home town Tredegar. How he was a lone and unpopular voice opposing that other great orator WinstonChurchill during World War Two. Tony Jayawardena giving a very amusing version of the wartime leader as a charming persuader, symbolically dancing light on his feet.
In the post-War Labour government, Nye becomes Health Minister and forces through the National Health Service against considerable opposition both from within his own party (a egocentric patronising Herbert Morrisson is played by Jon Furlong) and from the doctors. He sues tactics learned from his youth, his brief time in the mines and his time in local politics, as well his power of persuasion. Although in the end the doctors are brought round by throwing a lot of money at them. The use of a stark black-and-white video created by Jon Driscoll is hugely effective. First it shows the myriad challenges facing the new universal health service and overwhelming Nye, especially when people step out of the screen to tell their personal story. Then it shows the faces of the doctors harsh, greedy and recalcitrant.
On a personal front, we learn how his poetry-loving mineworker father who died from coal dust in the lungs influenced him. And how he met and wooed his wife and fellow MP Jenny Lee. Sharon Small is wonderful as the far left feminist, sharp of mind and tongue.
A worthy swansong for Rufus Norris
There are elements of a history lesson, but ultimately this is the story of a man and his mission. It is told with humour and compassion. Director Rufus Norris, in his last production as Artistic Director of the National Theatre, uses the stage to the full, creating a feel that is both epic and intimate. There are complex scenes choreographed by Steven Hogget and Jess Williams, there are small moments of passion and poignancy.
Now, you can say, as some critics have, that the other characters have little depth, and that may be true but this is a play about Nye Bevan. You may even say that it is not a full picture of him or the full story of the formation of the NHS. That may also be true, but why expect it to be something that it doesn’t claim to be? What we are given are the episodes that stand out in a life as remembered by a dying man.
When death finally arrives, he asks plaintively: ‘Did I look after everyone?’ It is a moment that brought tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat, and I was not alone. Tears for the loss of someone who we have come to care about, and maybe also for a health service that was started with such high ideals.
Coincidentally on the same day as I saw Nye, I also watched The Human Body at the Donmar Warehouse in which Keeley Hawes as a local GP and Labour politician is involved in ushering in the NHS at local level while having a Brief Encounter-ish affair with a film star played by Jack Davenport. If you’d like to know what I thought of it, click here.
