Tag: james graham

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Dear England – National Theatre – Review

Joseph Fiennes hits the back of the net as Gareth Southgate

★★★★★

Joseph Fiennes playing Gareth Southgate in front of actors playing footballers in the National Theatre production of Dear England in June 2023
Joseph Fiennes and company in Dear England. Photo: Marc Brenner

You might think if you’re seeing a play about the manager of the England men’s football team, you need to know about football. You don’t. There’s hardly a football in sight. Dear England is the story of a clash of cultures rather than a battle between teams on the pitch. It tells the story of how a self effacing nice guy tries to change the culture of a macho group that is paralysed by fear. In the process it provides us with a lot of comedy, as well as some thoughts about the state of the nation

I know next to nothing about football and that actually helped when I saw Dear England because I was probably more excited for not knowing the outcome of some of the matches than if I’d known what was going to happen. But the thing is, it’s not really about the results. I think we all know England didn’t win the World Cup last year. Or even the Euros the year before. Or it would have been all over the front pages, because one thing we do know is how important England the football team is to a significant part of England the nation.
James Graham has built Dear England around the idea that the team is a microcosm of the country.  One other footballing event we probably know about is the infamous missed penalty, the one taken by Gareth Southgate back in 1996 that meant England lost to Germany in a Euros semi-final.

It’s a failure that hangs over him throughout this play, because, for some reason, it has come to symbolise the moment when everybody realised there was something rotten at the core of the England team.

That’s where we begin. Rupert Goold’s production takes place sandwiched between the glare of two harsh neon circles, one above and another at stage level, recreating the feel of a stadium but also emphasising the pressure on the players of being in the middle of a pitch and indicating the magnifying glass focus of a nation’s expectations. On the stage floor are a mass of dotted lines and arrows of the kind that show attacking manoeuvres.

On stage are cubicles through which people enter and exit, symbolising perhaps the changes that take place in cubicles but also in a practical way cutting down the immense distance from the actual wings where actors appear and disappear. It is an imaginative and effective use of the Olivier’s large thrust stage by designer Es Devlin and lighting designer Jon Clark.

There’s a quick run through of a succession of England managers, who in amusing cameo impressions have plenty to say about their management style and why they have failed. Until eventually, Gareth Southgate takes over and, in his reticent way, asks why, with some of the world’s best players, they are not a winning team. He concludes it’s all in the mind.

Joseph Fiennes in Dear England. Photo: Marc Brenner

So he calls in a psychologist Pippa Grange. And this is where the fun begins. Well, actually it’s already begun when Mr Southgate (Call me Gareth) first meets his coaching team. Played by Joseph Fiennes, this is not simply an impressionist’s turn, although I’m guessing his mannerisms- the looking down, the pointing when he agrees with somebody, the precise use of language, the slightly nasal tone, the nervous grin, are all reasonably accurate.

What we get in an outstanding performance is a rounded character who admits he doesn’t know everything, who listens, who isn’t confrontational, who doesn’t shout (I have heard of another famous manager’s hairdryer treatment) but who ultimately has a steel resolve. We realise that when he lets players go or when he stands up to racism.

Or when he meets Mike, the assistant he has inherited. I think this character has been invented to represent the antithesis of Gareth. He is a blustering ‘man’s man’, who has no time for losers or psychology and woke thinking. Played hilariously by Paul Thornley, he is red-faced and always on the brink of boiling over. Gareth lets Mike have his rant, and then ignores him.

I think we must assume that Mike and the new senior assistant coach Steve Holland, brought in by Gareth, continue to support the schooling of the players in physical training and tactics elsewhere, while the work on their minds takes place in front of us.

I only saw one football for the whole length of the play. Probably just as well because they are actors. I mean they’re physically fit and go through some balletic movements, thanks to movement directors Ellen Kane and Hannes Langolf, but they wouldn’t have convinced as professional footballers if they’d tried to kick a ball. In fact a feature of Rupert Goold’s direction is constant, feverish movement, heightened by the regularly turning stage.

Together Gareth and Pippa work on moving the team away from being individuals whose loyalty is to their club to a team who know and support one another. And away from people who bottle up their feelings to ones who are open about their emotions. And most importantly, away from a fear of failure to embracing and learning from it (echoing Samuel Beckett’s ‘Fail again. Fail better’).

There is immense enjoyment is in seeing the players gradually change from resistance to embracing the new approach- as well as each other. Near the beginning, Gareth tells his squad that it will be a long haul to victory, like a three act play. You could feel the sigh of relief from the theatre lovers that he was finally talking their language.

Apart from Gareth Southgate and to an extent Pippa Grange, all the other characters are caricatures. It is James Graham’s style in his many plays and TV dramas based on real people to create the truth of a person’s character through humour rather than a nasty or saintly portrait. You may remember his Brexit: The Uncivil War, Tammy Faye, Ink, Best Of Enemies, Quiz or This House. In this play, James Graham can’t resist introducing our recent prime ministers- all trying and failing to score.

So good, so good, so good

I can’t say how accurate the portrayals of the players are but I did end up feeling for them. England captain Harry Kane, as portrayed by Will Close, is barely articulate but seen to inspire the others through his lack of ego and a simple confidence in his ability. Josh Barrow’s goalkeeper Jordan Pickford is gloriously hyperactive.
Darragh Hand’s Marcus Rashford stands out as a young man from a deprived background with a bit of a chip on his shoulder who is inspired to become an enthusiastic leader. Adam Hugill is the solid defender and plain speaking Yorkshireman Harry Maguire.

It’s such a good cast that it’s hard not to mention everybody. I must pick out Gunnar Cauthery who gives us terrific impressions of a wisecracking Gary Lineker, a cool Sven-Goran Eriksson, a blustering Boris Johnson and a sanguine Wayne Rooney. And Crystal Condie who does the same for ex-footballer and now commentator Alex Scott and Theresa May.

Gina McKee in Dear England. Photo: Marc Brenner

I haven’t said enough about Gina McKee whose twinkling eyes and turned-up corners of the mouth are like the smile of a tiger, and whose soft northern vowels sugarcoat a hard centre. She made the most of a part that seemed to me slightly superficial, but this may be because Mr Graham didn’t want to distract too much from his main character.

The idea of someone coming to a football club and creating a successful team by getting them in touch with their feelings and believing in themselves may make you think of Ted Lasso. Both shows clearly touch the zeitgeist of the 21st century.

But unlike the Apple TV hit comedy, Dear England explores some big issues. At the beginning, the expectations the nation has of its team reflect the nation’s view of itself. The fans are steeped in a history of England as the birthplace of football, as the winners of the 1966 World Cup, as the home of the finest league football. The team should have success on the world stage by right. If it doesn’t, the frustration leads to riots.

Although this is not explicitly stated, I would be surprised if Mr Graham doesn’t intend a parallel with England the country, which historically once ruled half the world, invented so much, and won World War 2, leading many of its people- at least an older generation- to expect that the country should by rights be a successful world power.

‘Believe in people, care about people, be kind’ is Gareth Southgate’s message to the new generation of England players but it is also a vision of the kind of nation England is in the new century or, at least, can be.

I was caught up in this journey and moved by its outcome, and loved being in a National Theatre audience singing along to Sweet Caroline.

Dear England can be seen at the National Theatre in London until 11 August 2023.

Paul received a complimentary review ticket.

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

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Best Of Enemies at Young Vic – review

The best new play I’ve seen this year

★★★★★

David Harewood and Charles Edwards in Best Of Enemies by James Graham at the Young Vic in London.
David Harewood and Charles Edwards in Best Of Enemies at the Young Vic. Photo (c): Wasi Daniju

Best Of Enemies at the Young Vic is the best new play I’ve seen this year. James Graham’s writing is vivid, funny, and shocking. There are towring performances by the two leads David Harewood and Charles Edwards. And the production directed by Jeremy Herrin with a set by Bunny Christie is perfect.

Given the subject matter – the 1968 presidential election and in particular some televised debates between the influential conservative thinker William F Buckley and the liberal writer Gore Vidal – you might think Best Of Enemies is not for you, but you’d almost certainly be wrong. I know it sounds boring but believe me, in the hands of writer James Graham and director Jeremy Herrin, it becomes electrifying theatre.

Best Of Enemies may tell us a lot about the polarised society we live in today, but it does so in the form of a gripping entertainment that takes us inside the heads of two protagonists, narcissistic to the point of recklessness.

The play begins with the immediate aftermath of one of the later debates. There is anger and shock at language that has been used, although at that point we don’t know what’s been said or how it’s come to this. We then go back and see that the story began with ABC TV News, in a race for ratings, deciding to have well known intellectuals talking about the Presidential conventions, at which the Republican and Democratic candidates are elected.

This is about the corrupting influence of TV and there are three big screens high up at the back of the stage to remind what viewers are seeing, as well as showing us the studio control area. We see how the participants both take part because they see it as a way of promoting themselves. We then see over a series of debates how the confrontational format generates more heat than light.

We and they realise that how they come across is more important than what they say. Buckley’s wife Pat says: “That’s all this is. Who do I like the most?’ At the end, Vidal prophesies that this means that one day a candidate could get elected because he was more likeable rather than having the best policies. Don’t we know it?

Okay, that’s the bones of it but what James Graham has done is flesh that skeleton with bits of verbatim speech from the debates and lots of fictional dialogue that brings to life the two protagonists.

Electrifying performances by David Harewood and Charles Edwards

The two leads charge the production with electricity. David Harewood plays William F Buckley. You might be surprised that a Black actor is playing a right-winger whose whiteness was part of who he was, but a good actor inhabits the role. In this case, the role is of a man not comfortable in his own skin. Mr Harewood relishes the part, not only the external mannerisms, tics and lip licking and other nervous affectations, but also the inner person- the loneliness of the outsider, the devoted husband, the foundation of his beliefs, and the desperation to win. He does a remarkable job of making us feel sympathy for someone who could so easily be the villain, because of his racism and homophobia. When the first debates go badly for him under an onslaught from Vidal, I actually felt sorry for him. Then we see him planning to raise his game.

Charles Edwards conveys the smooth charm, razor wit, the insufferable superiority, obsession with power, and the vulnerability of Vidal. He was a patrician and his sense of superiority, while insufferable, helps him dominate those early debates. Then Buckley prepares better and starts to score points, and as Vidal squirms, so do we.

They are both intellectuals and they’re both narcissists. They want to win the debate so they can be more influential in the world of politics. Each of them is delighted when they’re recognised by leading politicians. They’re not portrayed as bad people, their extreme views seem to be more like an academic exercise than something from the heart, but they do have hearts and it’s their pride, and above all their desire to win that drives them from civilised conversation to conflict to playground name calling. Both seek out each other’s weaknesses, initially of their arguments but eventually personal ones, and you find yourself not wanting to look, as their feelings are exposed.

They live in ivory towers, not what most of the electorate would recognise as the real world. Obsessed by their personal dislike of each other, they don’t even anticipate the effect of their clashes on the world of politics, which is moving from compromise to polarisation. In the real world things fall apart.

Justina Kehinde in Best Of Enemies

We are shown something of what’s going on in that real world of 1968: Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King are assassinated; an extreme feminist shoots Andy Warhol; there are protests about the Vietnam War. Looking back, we see that this was the beginning of the end of consensus politics and the start of polarisation: Left v right, young v old, plus conflicts of gender, race and sexuality. And on the other hand, there’s the so-called silent majority which Presidential candidate Richard Nixon appealed to. So tempers are rising, creating a sense of a pressure cooker.

The set itself is a small open stage surrounded on three sides by audience, turning the protagonists into gladiators in an arena.

All the other actors are first class. Among them, there’s Clare Foster as Buckley’s cheerful wife Patricia, Syrus Lowe as the angry but expressive James Baldwin and John Hodgkinson who plays the chair of the debates, revelling in the viewing figures but out of control of the wild horse he is riding. It’s only a cast of ten but they take on many characters, all well delineated, so you might think there were twice as many actors. It seems like every one of the characters has a contribution to make and every line has something to say.

Under the direction of Jeremy Herrin, this production zings along. As with the Wolf Hall trilogy or James Graham’s This House, which he also directed, he uses movement to add a physical excitement to the dialogue. I like the way he and James Graham make politics exciting. Because politicians shape our country and it’s a crying shame we find them boring or see them reduced to personalities.

Why were they the ‘best’ of enemies? They needed one another and they’re really quite similar.

Best Of Enemies is performing at the Young Vic until 22 January 2022.  Performances will be streamed live on 20, 21, 22 January, 7.30pm, and 22 January 2.30pm GMT. Tickets from youngvic.org

Paul received a complimentary review ticket from the producers.

Click here to watch this review on YouTube

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This House – NTLive – review

Film fails to convey thrill of live theatre

★★★

Production shot of Phil Daniels in the National Theatre production of This House
Phil Daniels in This House. Photo: Johan Persson

I’ve watched quite a few recordings of theatre shows since the Lockdown and the more I see the less sure I am that that they’re a good advertisement for theatre. By which I mean, what works on stage often doesn’t work on film.

At the heart of live performance, there’s a conspiracy between audience and actor. We all know we’re watching someone acting out a story. So we accept the artificiality, the theatricality if you like. That unnaturalness is exposed when we are forced to stand back from it and view it through the medium of film. So when the actors in This House race up and down the stage, it looks exciting in the flesh but on screen it just looks a bit silly. When actors speak loudly on stage, it’s riveting, on screen it’s a bit shouty.

Films and television dramas are more artificial than theatre but they do everything they can to make it seem like it’s real- the photographically detailed set, the convincing makeup and so on.

What we want in theatre is simply to watch those actors telling us that story with their words and actions. Film wants to show us flashbacks and dreams. It has to provide something to keep the eye interested: you can’t have a detective go question somebody without that person carrying on with their gardening or car repair.

Prodcution shot from the National Theatre production of This house by James Graham
Photo: Johan Persson

We theatregoers want to use our imagination, just as we did when our parents or teacher told us a story as a child. We conjure up images of, as Shakespeare said, ‘the cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces’- not to mention pitched battles and shipwrecks. We don’t need imagination for film and TV drama because they do it for us. In This House, as the Labour Whips desperately try to get MPs back to give them the votes they need, a silhouette of a helicopter appears at the back of the stage, to great comic effect. That’s all we need. In a film, we would expect a real chopper.

Theatre is on a human scale (with the odd exception where the director insists that the production will be better for using video screens). We may like the odd spectacle but only because we can really appreciate a barricade built on a stage in front of our eyes. Generally, we like engaging with people who are not small and removed from us on a TV screen or larger than life in the cinema but people who are the same size as us, alive in front of us. For that reason,  recorded theatre works best when following one character close up, like Fleabag or Sea Wall, or a small scale play dominated by one person like Cyprus Avenue.

Thrilling production from Jeremy Herrin and Rae Smith

When watching a live performance, our brains and eyes are remarkably good at seeing detail, even from a distance. On TV, we either view the whole set and miss the detail or the camera hones in on our behalf and creates its notion of what we should see. In theatre, we may be nudged by the script or the direction but we still make the choice to look at the person talking or the one listening or a detail of the set. Rae Smith’s set for This House is brilliant. She uses a traverse stage with green seats on either side creating both the sense of gladiatorial combat and the close intimacy of parliamentary politics. Not so great when you’re not one of the people sitting on one side looking at the other side.

So, no, I didn’t think the NTLive recording conveyed the quality of This House. It’s a superb piece of theatre deserving four or even five stars, reduced to maybe three at the most. What saves it is the wonderful script by James Graham and the great way it’s acted.

This House tells the story of the time in the 1970s when the Labour government was hanging on with small or nonexistent majorities. The play may be about politics which you might think boring but it is actually thrilling as the Labour whips tried to find the MPs’ votes to keep the government going and the Conservative whips tried to bring it down. And it’s funny,  as when they drag in a dying member to vote.

Production photo of Charles Edwards in the National Theatre production of This House
Charles Edwards in This House. Photo: Johan Persson

It’s also a very good explanation of how parliament works- and sometimes doesn’t work- and an advertisement for respect and compromise at a time when extreme positions are in danger of bringing down democracy.

Among many fine performances in Jeremy Herrin’s production at the National Theatre, I would pick out Charles Edwards and Reece Dinsdale as the ruthless but mutually respectful deputy whips, Phil Daniels as the conspiratorial cockney Chief Whip and Lauren O’Neill as the newcomer who grows in confidence and stature as the years go by.

I would definitely advise you to give it a watch, despite all my caveats, but I am glad I originally saw This House live on stage.

This House is streaming on the YouTube channel National Theatre At Home until 3 June 2020.

Click here to watch the review of This House on YouTube

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This House – Touring – Review

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See my review on the YouTube channel One Minute Theatre Reviews

Promotional photo for This House at Chichester Festival Theatre showing Steffan Rhodri and Nathaniel Parker. Photo by Johan Persson
Steffan Rhodri and Nathaniel Parker in This House at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson

I would never have thought day-to-day politics could be so tense. This House, which I saw at Chichester Festival Theatre’s Minerva is set in the 1970s when Labour was running minority governments and ends at the moment the Tories returned to power. But it’s not about Wilson, Callaghan or Thatcher. The play is set in the Whips’ Offices, the people who organise their party members’ voting.

These are dramatic times as Labour struggles to maintain its majority and govern, a situation not dissimilar to Theresa May’s government. The tension mounts when ‘pairing’ is suspended. This is the agreement whereby members absent through government business or illness have their missing vote cancelled by someone from the opposition not voting. To go behind the scenes and see that our democracy can only work by co-operation and compromise is an eye-opener.

Phil Daniels & Steffan Rhodri in This House at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson
Phil Daniels & Steffan Rhodri in This House at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson

Many people- some of the Brexit voters and Trump supporters, for example- seem to be rebelling against the perceived cosiness of the establishment. James Graham, author of This House, shows that there is a purpose to this comity. We have only to look across the Atlantic to see how the extreme differences between Republicans and Democrats have brought government to a halt after decades of working together.

Politicians Are People

But more than the drama and the lesson in democracy, This House reveals the real people behind the parliamentary constituencies. Plays need characters and This House is packed with flawed human beings with feelings. They are sometimes bullies, sometimes desperate and, most movingly, they can be compassionate. We see that in many cases these are people who care passionately but still respect their opponents and act honourably.

Politicians often try to show their human side in PR exercises- a pint down the pub or an appearance on Have I Got News For You– but This House does a far better job at showing they are as funny, sad, triumphant and tragic as the rest of us.

This House can be seen on NTLive showings. Watch it on YouTube on the National theatre At Home channel from 28 May for a week.

Here’s my review on YouTube

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Quiz at Minerva Theatre Chichester

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Click here to see my review of Quiz on YouTube

Paul Bazely, Gavin Spokes & Keir Charles in Quiz at Chichester Festival Theatre
Paul Bazely, Gavin Spokes & Keir Charles in Quiz at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson

James Graham’s Comedy Puts The Media On Trial

When you watch one of my reviews on YouTube, is how I look the main thing you remember? Does my actual review only account for 7% of the impression I make on you?

According to Quiz, that’s what MPs were told when parliament was first televised. Television, it argues, blurs appearance and reality because it’s a visual medium and an entertainment medium. The assertion that in today’s world image is more important than facts runs through James Graham’s latest play which has opened in Chichester’s Minerva Theatre and may well follow This House, Ink and Labour of Love into the West End.

In Quiz, we learn about the history of popular ITV quizzes and their connection to the commercial nature of the channel thence to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire via pub quizzes throwing in along the way the televising of parliament and the way the dangers of news becoming entertainment.

These many facts sprinkled throughout the evening distract from what is at heart an amusing, interesting story about the trial of Charles and Diana Ingram and one other for defrauding the makers of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire of a million pounds.

The trial wasn’t televised but Quiz is a warning about what might happen if courts cases were on TV. Television is a visual medium that values appearance above facts and entertainment over reality. And, appearances are deceptive.

The quiz show gives the appearance of being fair but may not be. Major Ingram appears to have cheated but maybe he didn’t.

Gavin Spokes and Stephanie Street are splendid

Gavin Spokes and Stephanie Street as the Ingrams did a splendid job of keeping us guessing as to what was appearance and what was true. Were they more clever than they appeared to be or more stupid?

Keir Charles provided excellent impressions of an unctuous Chris Tarrant and numerous other game show hosts.

Just as politics and the news (and by extension, because of social media, many people’s whole lives) are said to have become entertainment, the trial is turned into a show.  It is presented as a two act theatrical entertainment with act one delivering the case for the prosecution and act two the defence. Laying it on thicker, Daniel Evans‘ production is also set in a TV quiz show studio. Nearly everything on stage is filmed and shown on monitors. We were even given Millionaire style voting buttons on which we can say whether we think the defendants are guilty or not guilty.

If placing much of the action inside a cubic frame that blocked one’s view was meant to have a Brecht-style alienating effect,  the production succeeded too well. I simply saw it as a gimmicky production that added to the bewilderment I was already feeling from being bombarded with so many facts (or fictions) about television.

As a result, it is hard to get involved in the characters as real people or the story or the interesting issue of television blurring image and reality.

James Graham has had a series of winners with Our House, Ink and Labour of Love. Daniel Evans has put on a victorious first season at Chichester. Neither of them have hit the jackpot with Quiz, but that’s entertainment.

Quiz ran at the Minerva Theatre until 9 December 2017 then at Noël Coward Theatre on 31 March 2018 where it will ran until 16 June. It is due to tour in a revised version in autumn 2023 starting at Chichester Festival Theatre

Further thoughts on Quiz

Quiz is a warning against televising one of the last parts of public life that is still not filmed, arguing that the media will turn justice into entertainment. Whether it makes a convincing case, I am unsure.

The trial of the ‘coughing Major’ inevitably excited the media in the way that most don’t because it involved a hugely popular TV programme and massive amount of money. Making it carry the burden of showing that television turns everything into entertainment is asking too much of it.

Courts are already a form of theatre in which judges and advocates play to their audience. Juries have a tendency to decide verdicts on appearances rather than evidence whether cameras are present or not.

I don’t believe television has made as much difference to politics as James Graham thinks. It seems to me politicians were aware of the importance of image long before the televising of parliament: Harold Wilson put a pipe in his mouth for public appearances; President Roosevelt made sure he wasn’t seen in his wheelchair. In fact, leaders have been image conscious for centuries as evidenced by the work of Holbein, Van Dyck and others.

The news media have been inventing stories for most of their existence. Hollywood decided early on to encourage media interest in the lives of their actors, thus making their often fictional offscreen lives an extension of the onscreen entertainment.

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