"Make vile things precious": psychotic laughter, villainy and ageing - King Lear @ NTLive, National Theatre broadcast 1 May 2014

In recent years I've seen three pretty big productions of King Lear - the first was Jacobi's at the intimate Donmar Warehouse (with the 'restart the scene' moment on the NTLive Broadcast); the second was the electric live experience of seeing Pryce's version at the Almeida; and then there's this BIG production starring the incredible Simon Russell Beale on the Olivier theatre stage from National Theatre, again seen via NTLive.

Beale is an angry dictator of a father and King, with the initial carving of the kingdom based on declarations of love in front of a massed audience of the king's supporters.  No wonder he's royally foul when Cordelia refuses to play along.  But the setting of making a microphoned demand for filial affection in front of others also gives context to Goneril's acquiescence to the display and Regan's scathing upping of the ante in her gushingly flirty embrace on Lear's lap (she's clearly been playing this game for years, with her combination of suppressed disdain and wilful playfulness as the coy sexually focused middle sister). These older siblings have learnt to give what is required.

Cordelia does not, cannot, perhaps by virtue of her having been the most beloved of Lear's three daughters (and what of their mothers?) I have to say that this was the first production where I felt any kind of real connection to Cordelia - it's a pretty limited role and of the three portrayals I've recently seen I'd possibly say it was the most rounded  (the problems being inherent to the part not the actress playing it).  All credit to Olivia Vinall, whose performance actually felt moving. (The reuniting of Lear and Cordelia near the end - apologies for the spoilers people - actually moved me to tears: partly through Beale's conveying of Lear's flashes of lucidity from amidst his madness, and partly through her heartbroken temporary pleasure at the recognition he shows her).

I know others will have come because of SRB (who is pretty damn fine), but I'll admit the really big draw for me was Anna Maxwell Martin as the venal Regan, whose psychotic giggles were simultaneously flirtatious, manipulative, and sadistic in tone. I've been following AMM since I saw her in The Coast of Utopia alongside Douglas Henshall back in 2002, before she even did His Dark Materials at the National in 2003 (a work that brought her to prominence in theatre, along with Cabaret in 2006, and ahead of Bleak House in 2005 which brought her television presence to the fore). She is, frankly, on all kinds of levels, breathtaking. She strikes me as having the same intensity and beauty in her acting as Lyndsay Duncan has always conveyed (this isn't just about physical beauty, though both are astonishingly women, but as much about the internalised truth of a character, whether good or evil, that each can convey).

Her foil here is a chilly Goneril played by Kate Fleetwood, lacking some of the energy that Gina McKee brought to the Domnar production, or the hinted at abusive relationship from Zoe Waites in the Almeida version, but a fine performance nonetheless.

Beale's performance has been largely praised - and it's large performance in so many ways, especially in the early scenes where his anger is that of a bulldog who has been in charge of the house for many years, increasingly wayward in his behaviour and vicious in his responses.  He storms and shouts across the stage, irritably barking and biting those around him.  His shaven head lends him a Stalin-like appearance, but at least it stops him looking too much like 'Santa Claus' (as he notes in the interval documentary, a fine short study of the production's approach to the play'). As the play progresses and Lear's faculties fail, he becomes more stooped, shaky, haunted and hunted.  He is increasingly distracted, experiencing hallucinations, regressing to childhood and adopting the tell-tale signs of sexual inappropriateness and lost inhibitions, often scarcely aware of his actions (he is aghast with horror as he sees a dead body in the scenes just before the Interval*).  For all his diminished state of mind - and the sag of his undergarments even makes it seem as if he loses physical weight as contrasted to the belted fitted military garb of his initial scenes - this is a monumental Lear.  The investigation that Beale undertook to understand the despair of Lear certainly seems to pay off, for Lear's moments of lucidity feel increasingly heartbreaking as anyone who has seen first hand the combination of symptoms associated with dementia and Parkinson's will attest. "O let me be not mad".

Elsewhere there are other fine performances, only occasionally overshadowed (or undermined) by slightly excessive set design or staging decisions.  I don't think anyone doubts Adrian Scarborough makes a fine Fool but he and Beale didn't need to ascend the mighty hilltop with thunderbolts and lightening (very very frightening me).  There are a LOT of bloody bodies on stage by the end (meaning Regan has to shuffle in her death-throws out of the way of the action).  Poor Tom's performance is properly - albeit briefly - naked ("Poor Tom's a-cold" indeed), which could have felt awkward but actually worked very well with Tom Brooke bringing stronger pathos to the scenes once he becomes Poor Tom than to those he has as the hapless brother  Edgar to bastard Edmund. Much as I like Sam Troughton and have found him capable of strong performances, his was a less convincing one as the vile and villainous Edmund, but I think that was as much down to direction and costume as anything else.  He resembled an ageing school boy in his suit more than a wily, manipulative seducer of both older sisters and of the pliable suspicions of his father.  Troughton seemed to lack appropriate heft (though not physically) and the necessarily conspiratorial asides were unfortunately stagily presented with on-glasses/off-glasses direction.  A shame, as I've been very convinced by previous Edmunds.

Elsewhere Stanley Townsend makes for a generous Kent, supportive of Cordelia right through, whilst Stephen Boxer's slight frame gave Gloucester the air of a semi-valued privy counsellor as civil servant to the ruler; as ever it is a role that comes into its own once he is blinded (a scene that always shocks and which created paroxysms of delight from Regan who clearly 'got off' on the whole torture thing, despite what happens to her husband Cornwall in the process).  Albany remains a cuckolded sap, though honestly this Edmund didn't feel like a threat - but nevertheless Richard Clothier invests this husband with enough sense to feel that he understands what has happened by the end (and his tangential part in it).

Overall, it is a strong but resolutely 4 star performance (as has been a recurring response in most reviews) - magnificent in so many respects and yet lacking something crucial to bring the rating up to a full five star value. Very much worth seeing with some exquisite performances and moments, but not the full-force it could be.  

* No intended spoilers here, but it explains a hole in the narrative that has bugged audiences and readers for centuries.  Marvellously well done I thought.

"Anon, anon" - reflections and reminiscences on Henry IV Part I (RSC, Stratford upon Avon Thursday 20th March 2014)

Framing comment: My O level Shakespeare text was "Henry IV part I", which means it has a special place in my heart and memories (even though  the tape recording we were regularly subjected to at school was less than wonderful, with a Hotspur who had more accents than Russell Crowe was accused of having in Robin Hood).

We'll be seeing Part II later in the season, but for now I wanted to immerse myself in Part I, attempting to rid my mind of the experience of seeing this play at the Globe a few seasons ago with the marvellous Roger Allam as a memorable Falstaff.  I don't think I'll ever quite move Allam from my mind, but Sher is such a fine actor that he nevertheless takes the role on with glee and gusto.

The RSC under Greg Doran take a conventional medieval staging for Henry IV Part I, and bring a wonderful cast to the production with fine echoes for those who saw the earlier Richard II.  Indeed, the opening scene with King Bolingbroke, penitent and praying for forgiveness for his regicidal actions, is even haunted by the ghost of Richard. (I felt sorry for the actor who had to don Tennant's white robe and a wig to figure his presence from gloomy shadows on the balcony over the stage to Jasper Britton's still-shaken Henry IV).

Although we saw an early preview (first preview was 18 March), it already felt very polished as RSC productions usually do.  Sir Anthony Sher is clearly having a whale of a time, grizzling joyously as Sir John Falstaff.  He shakes effectively from the drink; he clearly adores Hal; and he is so in love with life that all his errant ways are but means to survive another day for drinking.  His deception is not malice - he believes his lies even as they run away from him ("A hundred upon poor four of us").

It is the interaction between Harry Monmouth (Prince Hal, wonderfully played by Alex Hassell) and merry Jack Falstaff that drives the force of the play as the Prince moves from his embedded life of wastrel indulgence and humour to bravery on the battlefield against his changeling 'brother-at-arms', the fiery Hotspur, Harry Percy.  Falstaff remains present throughout this shift and Hal cannot quite abandon his adoration of his alternative father figure, even as Falstaff blatently lies about killing Hotspur and feigning his own death.  Yet we know from early on that things will turn, as prefigured by the wonderful Act 2 scene 4. Both Hal and Falstaff play at being the King and exchange on the actions and merits of Hal's behaviour and the company he keeps: it is a comic and dangerous impersonation of the King that turns its humour on its head in two simple phrases: "I do.  I will."  Moreover, Hal has already let the audience in on his secret self (the soliloquy at the end of scene Act 1 scene 2), a self that he knows will willingly abandon his friends and bawdy life.  He will banish "plump Jack".  We know, eventually, he does.

But in the meantime, we have one of the Shakespearean plays that is most playful with genres, switching eagerly between history to tragedy to comedy.  There are battles, references back to the murder of Richard, deaths amongst the families (for so many are interrelated back through the bloodlines from King Edward III), but there are also the aforementioned mockeries of Kingship and courtly power, demonstrations of cowardice, bawdy associations and much drinking of sack.

For those who delight in ensemble performance, we have several casting reiterations from Richard II, that echo and re-employ actors to fine effect.  These include resurrected Antony Byrne, previously Mowbray, who comes back as Worcester, who does not take the King's advice to make peace and instead leads "three knights... a noble earl and many a creature a else" to their deaths in the culminating battle of the play,  Sean Chapman reappears as Northumberland, father to a maniacal Hotspur (Trevor White), with the latter all growed up from the feisty naif figure who appeared in Richard II (when played by Edmund Wiseman) into a positively unhinged warrior with a wife he doesn't quite deserve (Lady Kate Percy, played with considerable vigour by Jennifer Kirby).  Sam Marks, a finely sycophantic Bushy in Richard II, also reappears here, as foil to Prince Hal in the form of Poins, the transitional friend between the life that Hal appears to live (the sack-soaked clockless days with Falstaff, with the cries of "anon, anon" from hapless Francis) and the life of court and valour that as Prince Henry he will instinctively re-take by the end of the play.

What is charming about this production is that it does not appear that the cast/audience are forever waiting on Falstaff to reappear (although Sher is delightful and clearly appreciated by the ensemble cast).  Everyone holds their poise, even as Hotspur runs around the stage twitching for a fight, even as he finds he forgets the map that will mark out his borders of power (which of course he rails against).  At the centre of the play is the now quieted King, the Bolingbroke who took the crown from Richard's cousinly hand, who longs for a son who would live up to the bold actions of himself or at least that of rival Northumberland and his fearless son Hotspur.  But in the end, King Henry IV comes to realise that there is more to his seemingly errant son than wasted days of sack and whores alongside merry Jack, and that a Hotspur for a son is no gift at all as the latter rages to his death near pointlessly.  Of course we all love Falstaff's wit and self-delusion, but we also know that forces of power will move on and past him, that his beloved Hal will throw off his "loose behaviour" and shine far better as a son to the King, and that honour - that "mere scutcheon" - will come to the fore.

I'm looking forward to seeing Part II (which I am far less familiar with as a play, something I always like because I like not having too many preconceptions), not least to see more of Paola Dionisotti as Mistress Quickly, but also to watch Oliver Ford Davies, always an excellent actor, taking up the role of Shallow.  I'm also looking forward to seeing upcoming Elliot Barnes-Worrell more as Hal's brother Prince John. But that is for a later date.

Apologies and something sweet

Gah - I had such plans.

Then Sherlock took over.

And there was Richard II at the Barbican (along with a backstage tour and a gloriously unexpected if fleeting collision with a certain cast member and his plaited hair on the stairwell).

And then there is life, and work, and choir, and all the usual.

So as recompense, here is a sweet video from The Big Bang Theory.  I know it's a bit love/hate for people, but we're rather fond in our house and this is a bit lovely.

Will try and do better...

"Here, cousin": of divine kings destroyed and traitors risen higher than their worth - Richard II @RSC Stratford, matinee performance 26 October 2013

I wrote a less spoilery review from my first visit (on the first night) so I thought I would take the time to give a more revealing commentary here having seen the show a second time, from a physically different angle.

For the first visit, we were in the stalls; for this, as we were taking the sibling part of the Roberts' family (Mark, Sarah, Grace and James), we were on the Upper Circle, but this turned out to be no bad thing for getting a different perspective on things on many levels.

So, in terms of this production, if you are planning to see it - whether onstage, or on screen, or on the planned later DVD release - and if you don't want to know the quirks of this version.....

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It is a fine ensemble production, and there are plenty of pleasures in every performance from Elliot Barnes-Worrell as the groom through to Edmund Wiseman as Harry Percy (wonder what will become of THAT character... rhetorical question folks).  Everyone in between, from the most experienced to the young upcomers, give everything and make not only every line count - it is exceptionally well-spoken and clear, perhaps some of the clearest deliveries I've heard for a long while - but every look and gesture counts as well.

On which note, how I love the long piercing glare that Richard throws at Mowbray, a kind of 'don't even think about it' look, when Mowbray is directly asked by Bolingbroke "Confess thy treasons ere thou fly this realm"... ouch. There is such an extended pause when Mowbray considers his options before replying "No", that one wonders if Richard may lose his pacing cool stance in exhalation of relief at Mowbray keeping his silence. But the King barely flutters an eyelash.  At this stage, he still feels himself to be divinely approved, comfortable in his effete luxury, (over)confident in his actions.

As a whole, the production seems no less tight than it did on the first night, though they have tweaked a couple of things. They've probably shortened a few hems (no trips or snags this time around), and no-one got smacked by a snapping stick (they've moved the action with the gardeners in Act 3 scene 4 - which opens the post-interval acts - to face the centre of the stage rather than the hapless audience). Some very minor changes in staging have been made - a couple of sequences seem to be located further up the thrust stage, but nothing that especially makes a returning visitor gasp or bemoan a change in emphasis.  The RSC at its best knows how to get it right from the start.

The 'halves' of the show remain intact, with the interval coming after a potentially numbing 1 hour 40 mins (before a brisk second 'half' of around an hour).  There are a lot of events and persons to get your head around if coming raw to this play, and I wish I had better prepared the family for their trip.  Never mind: the second half has more humour and certainly it makes sense to knock Richard down before the interval and then chronicle his further decline and end after the break.  I'm sure there are multiple ways of staging this, but it is difficult to judge where the timing of the break could come - before Act 3 kicks off at all?  That would make for a strangely flat culmination of the first section, with Salisbury and the Welsh captain at odds for Richard's failure to show his presence - and therefore to confirm he still lives - to the warring soldiers amidst the ailing Irish battles Richard was so keen to source funds to fight.  Scheduling the interval after Act 3 scene 2 would break the transition of power as Richard realises how lost he is and would bring the audience back in the midst of that demise, so I can absolutely see the logic of breaking ahead of the gardener's scene. The unevenness is within the play itself it seems.

Back to the staging (and high credits to designer Stephen Brimson Lewis and lighting director Tim Mitchell):

Being down below, it is harder to appreciate some of the lighting and projections onto the stage floor; from above these are glorious - branches, streaks of dark fragmented bark, shadows and shapes.  For the final prison scene, where Richard is chained in a lonely dungeon, the beautiful use of mirrors allows those in the stalls to appreciate the below stage scene.  When located high above the action, it is possible to see and appreciate both the mirroring and the actors.

From stalls level, you see the great height of the staging - the magnificent projections of cathedral spaces; but from above they look just as spectacular.  It is also good to have a different viewpoint on the bridge on which the throne sits - it drops into place, sometimes to stage level, but more often at the Circle level and as Richard is brought low by the traitors who surround him, the fragility of this balcony becomes apparent: he unsurprisingly returns at the end, angelic white robes, to cast a gloomy eye down on Bolingbroke's attempts to refute that he had in any way wanted Richard's death

It is also a great treat to be on the same level as the incredible musicians and singers: the excellent trio of sopranos singing Paul Englishby's music are especially wonderful to see in closer proximity.  I'm looking forward to listening to the CD: it all sounded beautiful.

Back to the play itself.

There is much grief in this play, and not least because of the enormously popular Ben Whishaw/Rupert Goold adaptation for The Hollow Crown series of Shakespeare adaptations for television, which attacked the tearducts with customary heartfelt passion from both parties.  This is more of a heartbreaking sting than full-blown tears; the inevitability of downfall tempers the Christ-like allusions (which are no less absent here, just differently conveyed).  This is indeed a sad story of the death of a king.

The grief is there from the start, with the luminous Jane Lapotaire's silky grey hair cascaded down her black widow's garb for the demise of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester.

Her fretful, stumbling desperation to address the death of her husband pulls at our sensibilities of how grief should be expressed.  It is contained and uncontained, urging action and yet paralysed to achieve.  There is the grief of Gaunt, his son banished on a half-whim by Richard who is even at this stage a compromised figure, and whose illness in response is brushed off as lightly as Richard takes his flatterers seriously (til he realises just how they pandered to his ego and power).  There is a clear dismissiveness in Richard's "So much for that" after Gaunt's death is announced and perfunctory regret is expressed.

It has to be said that Pennington as Gaunt is toweringly good, bring life (and death) to the potentially-all-too-familiar "This sceptr'd isle" speech.  That he makes it fresh is wonderful to watch and hear: fiery passion and fading breath at its best.

It is after Gaunt's death that the fatal compromise that York undertakes to not go against the challenge of Bolingbroke and his supporters, to ultimately not just accept but facilitate it, come to the fore.  Oliver Ford Davies does weary so well, and he is well cast here as the flawed York who given governance of England in Richard's absence can do little to protect it, and makes pragmatism a resignedly sad decision to survive.

Several have commented on how this production still manages to "find the funny"; sometimes this maybe goes beyond expectations of more traditional viewers for the play, but actually this largely works.  It is a particular despairing first 'half' as Richard falls from careless power, cronies and fey recklessness to his eventual (second half) handing of the crown to Bolingbroke, so bringing in a level of farce to proceedings adds some much needed levity.

There is certainly a tragi-comedic undertone in the lengthy pause after "For heaven's sake let us sit upon the ground..." before the continuation of "and tell sad stories of the death of kings".  The break in the pattern allows us to see Richard in a transitory position - he remains King, despite the wreckage of his power falling to Bolingbroke's populist might, and as such can petulantly demand the grown men around him seat themselves upon the ground like children in a ring for games... but when the game is being pulled away from him and smile stings. There are little details like the step back and forth of the Queen and her ladies-in-waiting as she playfully tries to get them guessing what move she will make that they must follow.

In the second 'half', the humour is more broad, though again varies between intonation, context, pacing, and stage direction.  Several have commented on the "here, cousin" as Richard calls Bolingbroke to collect the crown - like the calling of a pet dog to fetch a treat.  

The tone is biting, and yet in it there is Richard's last vestige of power as he is able to undercut Bolingbroke's thievery of this potent and well-like symbol.  Adding an edge of ludicrousness to the multiple 'throwing of the gages' (a kind of "I challenge you Sir" - "NO, I challenge YOU sir!") in Act 4 scene 1, somehow seems right, not least because it suggests that Bolingbroke's power might easily crumple before it is fully won between these bickering lords.  Similarly, there is excellent use of Oliver Ford Davies's comic timing, especially alongside Marty Cruickshank as York's wife.  Even from the start of that scene (Act 5 scene 2) there is an inevitable playfulness in the delivery of the lines so apt to a Tennant-adoring audience as this is (and as it was for Hamlet too, which OFD also shared):

"As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious...."

And yet, this is such an ensemble piece that the audiences are entranced even without the star-turn on stage (though he is on stage a lot).  When the Yorks discover their son Aumerle's part in a plot against Bolingbroke as king, we know each character is feeling for their part in Richard's downfall (and York especially has much to feel responsible about). Each pleading with Bolingbroke is made with heartfelt anguish but deep comic bones, and it was a wonderful final flash of exhalation for the audience before the inevitable final downfall of the former King.

And of that fall...? Aumerle is the key, and we've been set up for this throughout the play.  When others act as flatterers - Baggot, Bushy and Green are just the most visible of these - Aumerle quietly adores and fears in equal measure what it means to be in the presence of his King, his Richard.

Oliver Rix brings Aumerle to fruition elegantly, sparely.  It's isn't an especially large role, but you feel his sharing of the pain that Richard has to swallow as this King realises that all the divine appointment in the world cannot stop rebellion (and Richard has more than a little of himself to blame for how he got to the crown and that 'divine appointment' in the first place).  The balcony scene when Richard effectively surrenders to Bolingbroke's request - you can see how Aumerle flinches at having to deliver the lines - is a real heartbreaker.

So it is all the more heartbreaking by the end when Richard is killed and in being killed he pulls back the hood of the one who wields the dagger: to survive, to prove worth after being implicated in a plot to kill Bolingbroke the usurper King, Aumerle takes on the worst task in the world.  The omission of the tentative Act 5 scene 4 now makes sense, and is all the more painful for it. To quote Wilde:

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!"

Presented with the body of his erstwhile enemy, the deposed King, Bolingbroke understandably flinches, and there's an even clearer sense of his 'supporters' backing off despite the refuting that the death was anything he wanted.  As Richard had predicted earlier, the duplicitous Northumberland (an excellent Sean Chapman) - the vilest of those who had thrown in with Bolingbroke - will "knowst the way to plant unrightful kings [and] wilt know again".  When he backs off, you expect that there will be trouble ahead for Bolingbroke's peace of mind.

And so a final visiting angel comes to glower over this departure: a throne was squandered and yet also stolen.  No one comes out good, those who live nor those who die (one cannot envisage that Aumerle's soul will be rested or reunited after his actions).  Bleak?  Yes.  But utterly magnificent.  Everyone - even if I have missed off a few names - contributes everything they have to this production.  It is a triumph.

"The weight of this sad time we must obey" - Theatre Review King Lear @ Almeida Theatre, London Saturday 20 October 2012

When this was first announced about 18 months ago, Helen Lisette and I were both very excited - the prospect of seeing Jonathan Pryce on stage doing King Lear was a great prospect.

And we waited.  And waited.  We thought we may have missed the public ticket sale dates, but then somehow, HLW did it ---- she got us tickets.  Hurrah!

So last weekend, with the late addition of an early schedule performance of 55 Days to enjoy as well over the weekend, we headed to London for what we hoped would be a tremendous theatre experience.

It was: if I see a better Lear in my lifetime I will feel privileged indeed.  I suspect it may take a current generation to get older before there will be something to match it.  The sisters, especially Goneril (Zoe Waites) and Regan (Jenny Jules) were excellently venal in their manipulation and overthrowing of Lear's power - but there was also a well-played (and mostly understated) hint of a somewhat abusive relationship between Lear and his older daughters.  For example, in the opening scenes, where Lear throws open the map to allocate his kingdom according the whim of the daughters' ability to flatter him, Lear kisses Goneril.  And the kiss is... unseemly, excessive, inappropriate, unnerving. The jealousy of the older sisters towards the youngest, Cordelia, reaffirmed by Lear crowning her with a coronet before the division of land has even begun, is thus undercut by the pointers to the past.  What horrors have the older sisters endured before their - much younger - sibling arrived?  It is not overplayed throughout, but there are hints to highlight the power relationship between father and daughters that perhaps contextualises the later violence and horror of the play.

The cast was uniformly good I felt - a real ensemble performance.  Cordelia (Phoebe Fox) stands her ground to her father; Gloucester (Clive Wood) is powerhouse of a figure, bought low by the betrayal of his King and his bastard son; Kent (Ian Gelder) never waivers from his loyalty to Lear despite the horrors that ensue, and he works throughout to bring Lear back to himself, to those who care for him; and the Fool (Trevor Fox) is charmingly wise in his observation of the social disintegration around him.  These are just a few of the key performances, and I always find the worst weaknesses in the role of Cordelia are within the text itself (though Fox and the director Michael Attenborough, do their best to make this a livelier Cordelia than is usual).  But everyone does their part.  I never quite got the measure of the Duke of Cornwall (Chook Sibtain), but Cornwall is an odd role - the utter violence and spur of action with Regan at his side one moment, having come across initially just as an ambitious and thwarted husband to Lear's second daughter who ends up cuckolded almost as badly as Albany (Richard Hope).  Indeed, the husbands to the elder Lear daughters have a rough time all round really, and it is credit to Richard Hope that Albany's own cuckolded haplessness is pitiable rather than despicable (Steven Elliott as Oswald really bring out the self-serving venal qualities of this character). I was also impressed with Richard Goulding as Edgar who was suitably fit (in all senses) to play the high-born, well-born son of powerful Gloucester, who is bought down by the intense hatred of his illegitimate sibling, Edmund (a finely powered Kieran Bew).

An additional note: hilariously, at the interval (post-eye-gouging) I actually heard someone complaining about the production "excessively bloody, far more than necessary".  I nearly fell over in astonishment - did they fancy bloodless eye-gouging?!  What is this - the Disney version?

Probably difficult, if not impossible to get tickets before this closes next weekend, but a gem nonetheless.

Striking tone: The Comedy of Errors, RST, Stratford-upon-Avon - Saturday matinee 4 August 2012

I had made a promise to a former student of mine when she finished her English degree last year that I would go with her to Stratford to see a Shakespeare play, along with her daughter.

On Saturday, after a few bumpy organisational moments on my part, we finally managed it - and despite some tremendous showers of rain, nothing dampened our spirits.

The Comedy of Errors is one of the shorter plays (slightly, depending on the production) and has at its core a good bit of farce: two lots of mistaken identity twins.  High-larious, and potentially perfect fare for a first-time full-length Shakespeare experience for a young person.

So the rather brutal opening, even if undercut by involving a fish-tank with plastic fishes, was slightly alarming.   I didn't envy what Nicholas Day underwent as Egeon.  He seems to have got the short-straw presently for being the brutalised actor.  All this after Marat/Sade!

I shouldn't have worried though, despite the occasionally varied tone: the basic gist of the story - the wrong husband, the wrong servant - was charmingly portrayed and ultimately easy to follow.  There were plenty of laugh aloud moments, and the two Dromios were wonderful (Bruce Mackinnon as Dromio of Syracuse and Felix Hayes as Dromio of Ephesus).

And actually, there was an underlying sense to the violence of certain scenes: the text makes clear that Ephesus is state in terror, with the Duke executing anyone from Syracuse who lands on the shores.  And unlike others I had no problem with Sandy Grierson's Scottish accent in playing the Duke/Solinus - well, you probably could expect that.  Making the docks a place to import bodies and goods, at great risk to all concerned, underpins this interpretation and heightens the risk that Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse take in smuggling themselves to Ephesus in pursuit of Antipholus's lost sibling.

Overall then, a joyful production with plenty of staging amusement - I especially liked how Adriana and Luciana's room 'flies' in as a box to the stage.  (Indeed, both sisters were great:  a mix of steel and confusion - and a piercing scream - from Kirsty Bushell as Adriana, and prim little-sister-ness from Emily Taaffe).

And it was hard not to be charmed by Amie Burns Walker as the Courtesan, an ostensibly small role which she absolutely utilised to the maximum, not least in her reactions to confused wife Adriana pulling down the Courtesan's dress to a moderately more decent length. She was suitably flirty and utterly ran rings around the men who encountered her.

Overall, it was an enjoyable way to spend an afternoon, especially in good company.  Doctor Pinch - a very scary cameo role from Jonathan Slinger - was excellent, and there was much hilarity to be gained from rapping, singing, and general inability to actually be cool and 'hip'.  Plenty of out-of-their-depth attempts at being cool fell flat in the most comedic ways possible.

I hope that the experience - combined with having seen the Open Stages taster events last month - will have given another youngster a taste for Shakespeare.  It's certainly a good way to spend your days.

David Tennant reading sonnet 18

The problem is in the play - 'The Taming of the Shrew': RSC on tour, Nottingham Theatre Royal Thursday 15 March 2012

The Taming of the Shrew is a VERY uncomfortable play: there is just no getting around the domestic abuse, the sexual fantasy, the 'surrendered wife' business. Does that make it not worth seeing? Despite the plays difficulties, I was nevertheless sad to miss the Michelle Gomez version the RSC did a couple of years ago, so was pleased to catch this new one as it toured to selected UK venues - including Nottingham's Theatre Royal (til Saturday 17 March 2012).

David Caves and Lisa Dillon make up our turbulent couple this time around. As Petruchio, Caves stands a terrifying foot or more over the petite Dillon, but she's a fierce match for his bravado, in the macho setting of late 1940s Italy. This Katherina is angry at the patriarchal power her father holds over her and her simperingly manipulative sister, furious at the expectations of her gender to be sold to the highest bidder, and is scarcely ever separated from a flask of alcohol from which she regularly imbibes (is drink a means to anaesthetise Kate to her situation, a prop to 'justify' her 'Shrewish' behaviour, or a 'genuine' evidence of her out-of-control lack of appropriately behaved femininity?) It is in the gestures and actions between the lines that one gets the best sense of the power-plays at stake, even as the language can make you wince.*

That this production comes close to offering an admirable and enjoyable version of the play is credit to the combined efforts of the cast and director and set designer.

Set on a giant bed, the production makes use of the (still somewhat) contentious framing device [the Induction] of Christopher Sly - the drunken tinker manipulated by a Lord and his servants into believing he is a lord himself, and for whom the narrative of Petruchio and Katherina is performed as a play within the play. Sly is brilliantly brought to life by a rambunctiously grubby Nick Holder, and his pants - and lack of them - are the source of much entertainment throughout the play. But even here there is an undercurrent of discomfort as we see Sly exploited for entertainment purposes by a bored aristocrat out hunting. At the end, he's thrown back into his previous existence: is the tale of taming a fantasy for him, a projection of the Lord's own frustrations, or is the Induction merely a way of softening the audience to be comfortable with seeing Shrew as farce rather than disturbing and iniquitous in tone?


It's a tricky one, and I feel loathe to be too down on a production that makes the best of such problematic material - I nevertheless cannot help but be unconvinced by male reviewers reactions to this play: whilst it was good to see a 5-star review in the Telegraph, I still grimaced at reading "she finally submits, with humour and grace". Urgh. I can't quite allow my unreconstructed feminist head and heart think that particular phrasing and summary of Kate's big speech to Bianca and the Widow can stand...

Nevertheless, there has to be a way of reconciling that final big speech with the discomfort it induces. Perhaps it is better expressed in Susannah Clapp's review for The Observer which gets close to finding a way to articulate what works about this particular production:

Nothing can make the speech (really the only proper speech in the play) in which she asks women to put their hands under their husbands' feet either sympathetic or good sense. Yet in Bailey's production something mysterious happens. Dillon speaks it with such careful consideration – ironic, gentle, with a thrill of anticipation – that it becomes truly moving. This is Dillon's triumph but it is Caves's too: they act together as if they are reaching not a truce but an understanding, as if dominance and submission were a tease taken seriously only by the dullards around them. They have been partly playing, trying each other out, and now can go to bed in earnest. Bailey has made this ill-natured drama look as if it has a heart. And loins.

Certainly it is easy to miss that as Petruchio 'starves' and 'forces on' Katherina, he is also pushing his own body and appetites as well. There is perhaps (just) a mutuality to the subjugation ---- but I'm not entirely sure. It's an excellent production, well acted and structured: at the end of the day, the problem is the play.

Anyway.

On the back of such problematic material, Neil and I then had an interesting discussion on the way home: should all plays have curtain calls? It arose around such 'problematic' plays, plays of darkness, the thought-provoking, the difficult, even distressing.

I made the argument that although I can see the point against curtain calls being automatic, there is perhaps an even better argument for them when it IS a problem play.

I'm kinda (badly) appropriately some Brechtian-like ideas here: for surely what the curtain call does is shake the audience into awareness that what they have watched is a play. Not 'reality' but acting; these players are but actors, not an actual Kate and Petruchio, dealing in subjugation. To throw off the guise of their characters is a good thing, right? To recognise that these are showing their audience a play, a version of reality/unreality, is surely appropriate, yes?

Because otherwise there is a danger of being unable to distinguish fiction from reality (to believe that actor X really is their character, really is a murderous cheat, and therefore deserves vitriol and scorn in the street away from their acting role). The curtain call therefore draws attention to the artificiality of performance even as it allows a way of acknowledging how convincing the players have been as their characters.** But it remains disturbing the level of 'pleasure' audiences get in seeing a woman subdued, and in that context our applause remains problematic in breaking the spell.


* Both Neil and I do get uncomfortable when audiences - especially blokes - laugh QUITE so uproariously at how Kate is treated and 'tamed'.

** And of course, when directors and set-designers take their bows, the audience can appropriately boo what they inflicted on nevertheless excellent performers, pace the opera 'The Little Mermaid' recently.

Theatre Review: Bingo - Scenes of Money and Death: Young Vic, London matinee Saturday 10 March 2012

Erratic reviews have been thrown at this awkward play - from 1 and 2 stars to laudable 4 stars. It's pretty easy to see why there is this diversity of opinion, though I'm not convinced the loathing is deserved. For me, it didn't feel like anything less than 3.5 at my least charitable about the play's premise and probably a 4 given the performances.

The thing is that Bingo is a play ABOUT Shakespeare rather than by Shakespeare - there's one whole job-lot of expectations going to be thrown for a start.

Beyond that, in some ways, it isn't even as explicitly ABOUT Shakespeare as the writer - it's set in Shakespeare's latter days in Stratford, past the point of him actively writing plays (and certainly the 'great' plays). It isn't an exploration of the life in the way that (say) Simon Callow's 'Being Shakespeare' works - in that instance, the audience gets lots of crowd-pleasing quotations of best-loved lines and passages. There is almost nothing of that in Bingo. Problem number two.

Additionally, in many respects, the pre-interval act particularly could be about any land-owning, doubt-ridden older man, frustrated at his living arrangements, powerless to see how to change them, and torn between self (and self-pity) and empathy for the local community in a time of social upheaval, and against a backdrop where religion and attitudes to morality and poverty have been rattled about for quite some time. There's another problem.

But this nevertheless IS Shakespeare and part of the reason why he succumbs to the plans of enclosure that will benefit him but negatively affect his neighbours is likely tied to his own financial insecurity in earlier life (what little we know of Shakespeare senior is a falling off from temporary power and authority into ignominy and insecurity). This does not however make for comfortable viewing for those who want their Shakespeare to be a straightforwardly humane writer, let alone the relatively god-like figure of eloquence he is held up to be by Callow's one-man extravaganza.*

Above all, this is a play by a Marxist with avowedly Marxist themes and characterisations and whilst I personally have no problems with that at all, 2012 - all that cultural Olympiad nonsense being thrown about - is perhaps not a great moment for a 1973 play on such lines to woo audiences to depictions of Shakespeare amidst his servants railing 'was anything done?' in regret for his inaction to do more for the poor.

Bingo therefore makes for uncomfortable viewing - it is not a play presenting easy, enjoyable thoughts and reactions or even easily managed philosophical debates (even the most awkward of Shakespeare's own plays don't hurt their audiences psychology in the way Bond forces his to be hurt). It is a harsh and awkward play, with harsh voices and difficult characters hurt by and causing hurt in unequitable times - there is little that is lovable, likable, and nothing laudable. Only drunken Ben Johnson (and dizzingly cantankerous Richard McCabe berating Shakespeare 'but what are you writing?') brings any kind of light relief and he's hardly a beacon of positivity.

I read the excellent James Shapiro's book 'Contested Will' a while back, and I've become rather drawn to its analysis of how the Shakespeare-worshippers were a goodly part responsible for generating the 'Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare' crap that has been flying around the last few centuries (I'm not watching 'Anonymous' however much you pay me).

It therefore strikes me that as well as carrying Marxist baggage, there is an element of audiences perhaps not getting on board with the character that is 'Shakespeare' being portrayed in a negative (or at least non-positive) light, as irredeemably confused, angry, cruel and frustrated by coming to the end of his life. This is not the Shakespeare they expect and he's too tied to being 'Shakespeare' to be viewed as A.N.Other person of the 1600s. 'Was anything done?' applies not just to Shakespeare's action/inaction over matters of class and poverty but a doubt about his own worth overall - are the plays and poems worth anything if family life can still be miserable, if the poor still starve and the 'rich' can exploit their power? What could have been done to make life better?

Perhaps my personal empathy for the play and the production were also tied with the experience: HLW and I were with my colleague Caroline, a long-term admirer of Sir Patrick Stewart who took the lead role. Sat on row C in the stalls, it was a giddyingly close experience and we may well have felt more out of sorts with the play's tone if we'd been sat further away. Additionally, I'm not easily put off by Marxist intentions and topics: I'm an insufferable old leftie at heart.

And the cast were very good and intense at what the play required them to do - Stewart is unsurprisingly excellent whether delivering lines or simply letting his expressive face communicate his isolation, and McCabe's small role is delivered with characteristic gusto. But in various ways the rest of the cast also deliver the goods, from Ellie Haddington as the housekeeper/confidante to Shakespeare, to Alex Price** as her moralistic son leading the campaign against enclosure. Catherine Cusak has a horrible role to play as Shakespeare's daughter Judith: taught enough to know there is more to life, but not able to break free of home, she lurches from righteous indignation and frustration at her father to lonely despair at managing her mother and father's separate lives. It's a thankless part in a pitiless play where no-one comes out feeling good.

Does that make it a bad play? No: it perhaps makes it a flawed and definitely an awkward play, but not to my mind itself a bad play.



* Don't think I don't like Callow's performance or Bate's script for 'Being Shakespeare': H and I loved it when we saw it in Sheffield a couple of years ago. But it is much more of a crowd-pleaser.

** Yes, he DID play Francesco the vampire fish-man in Doctor Who.

"What's Mine is Yours..." Measure for Measure, RSC Swan Theatre: Theatre Review (matinee) Saturday 28 January 2012

Well, as Helen inimitably stated "That was a first - I've never seen Shakespeare delivered through a gimp mask before."

Yes folks, this production kicks off the brothel scenes with high S&M and lewd abandon. It was like 'Marat/Sade' all over again!

But it would be unfair to labour this alliance in tone with the play as a whole: for 'Measure for Measure' is an awkward play of dark and variably high comedic tones. For example, Raymond Coulthard made for a dazzlingly magical Duke, beautifully comic and with a great turn in sleight of hand. Joseph Kloska was similarly engaging - his performance as the pimp Pompey showed an inventiveness and interaction with the audience worthy of any heir to William Kempe. There were a (small) number of judiciously included asides and 'improvisations' to the audience that had us in fits of giggles: as aptly quipped, "I've got work with what I've got here."

Interestingly, given that my main exposure to 'Measure' is the short scene of David Tennant as Angelo, seeing Angelo performed more as a scared and confused character (rather than manipulative) was actually rather intriguing. It made for a very different dynamic to the scenes between Isabella and Angelo which was very good to see after multiple watchings of the YouTube scene.

(Additionally, given the lewd tone of the brothel scenes, we were pretty grateful that Tennant was not taking a role in this production!)

Anyway, we thought it was very good and I wish that it hadn't sold out so much that tickets to take Neil back are unlikely to be feasible. Boo.

As penance for the filth of this play though, we saw 'Written on the Heart' in the evening and this time I saw the whole play! Morally better for us for sure...

Much Ado and more to download...

Yes, Digital Theatre are now allowing on-line viewing or downloading of several British theatre productions from recent times, including Much Ado About Nothing starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate.

There are a select number of plays available, but that's fine. I may well watch the RSC production from 2009 of As You Like It to see how Katy Stephen's compares to the adorable Maria Gale (when I went to see this production As You Like It with the Wolves gang in July 2009, Stephen's was unwell, but Gale was a great understudy).

Anyway: the biggest delight is seeing Much Ado again and reliving the pleasures of summer 2011. To all who attended (multiple times) and those who did the stage door madness, here's to the memories!

"We'll crack on then" - Theatre Review: A Midsummer Night's Dream - RST Stratford Upon Avon Saturday 29 October 2011

Feeling much better - though frankly I couldn't have gone had not felt better than the Friday night - we headed into this production of Dream with high hopes for both much needed laughter and magic.

It did not disappoint.

The production used the now common Peter Brook's technique of 'doubling' characters between the scenes in Athens and the fairy world. Theseus becomes Oberon; Hippolyta becomes Titania; Philostrate becomes Puck (aka Robin Goodfellow).

The last - indeed only stage version - that Neil and I had seen of Dream was way back in 1992 when we saw The Pocket Dream: a prodution by The Comedy Store players (led by Sandi Toksvig, Michael McShane, Meil Mularkey et al). It was a fine and hilarious production putting play within play within play and marvellously sending up overly serious actor groups.

This more than lived up to the recommendations I had heard.

What was especially interesting to note was how well several key players from Marat/Sade performed:

• Amanda Wilkin (Kokol in M/S) was a brilliant understudy for Lucy Briggs-Own as Helena, and although LB-O has garnered some storming reviews I really feel that Wilkin adeptly filled in and was deservedly well-applauded by both audience and cast.
• Imogen Doel (Charlotte Corday in M/S) made for a truly terrifying fairy - she and Maya Barcot had to make up for lost fairies with the promotion of Wilkin to the role of Helena, but it was scarcely noticeable. The hissing malevolence of Doel's fairy incarnation made the fairy world a much less comforting place than some productions make it. She was excellent.
• Arsher Ali (Marat in M/S) was for me a joy: he's clearly a talent to continue to watch and was a delightful Puck/Philostrate. The balance of Puck to the other characters can sometimes be a problem in certain Dream productions; whilst Ali didn't steal the show he did (quite rightly) have a great charisma, all gangly limbs and wry smile. This was especially well done as Philostrate near the end when (in 'best man' guise) his rapport with the audience provided a chuckleworthy "we'll crack on then" as we tried hard not to totally lose the plot. Puck's outfit was awesome as well - flailing ties of colour over his gold long coat. A delicious pleasure.
  

But there were other highlights as well: Pippa Nixon and Jo Stone-Fewings made for a wonderful Theseus and Hippolyta / Oberon and Titania. Scarcely has the Queen of the Amazons seemed so clearly disgruntled at being 'forced' into marriage with the conqueror Theseus; yet their transformation into a loving couple, through their dream alter-egos as Oberon and Titania, is a joy to watch. The scene where the King and Queen of fairyland 'undress'/'redress' each other to into the soon to be new Queen and King of Athens is sensuous and moving. Beautifully lit as well (as is the whole production).

Though everyone played a key role in this wonderful version, I would also want to note Matti Houghton, last seen by us in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, who made for a furiously spiky 'little' Hermia. Mark Wootton (Bottom) - though his comedy on screen really hasn't been to my liking - was ideally cast here and brought a note of genuine slapstick to the proceedings that was truly funny. I actually found Bottom's transformation at the hands of Puck rather disturbing, but he was hilarious. Indeed, all the 'players' were excellent and I loved the lion's footstep sound-effects.

Overall, pure joy and pleasure. I only wish I could see it again - and that I had not missed the previous night's play.

Aside
Helen Lisette missed out on seeing Arsher Ali as Puck/Robin Goodfellow (and his other guise of Philostrate), and instead saw Lanre Malaolu whom Neil and I last saw in Marat/Sade playing the exceptionally onanistic Duperret. (Indeed, we struggled to imagine him as Puck, but HLW assured us he was very good indeed).

Tennant Hairline - an 'unplanned' stage door encounter for Much Ado

So, we've had a mega long walk from South Kensington to Covent Garden where we pause to eat. I'm thinking it's about 9.45pm when we pass through St Martin's Lane near the back of Wyndham's Theatre. Consequently, my 'jokey' request to head to see how many fans are already loitering for her stage door exit isn't seriously thinking I can join them for the Tennant and Tate emergence.

Actually, the time is closer to 10.15pm which as all good Much Ado attendees will know is just close enough to the exit time to justify loitering...

Ahem.

The fact I had a 'spare' unsigned play programme with me in my bag is of course beside the point.

Neil stands back and lets me weave a space through, befriending (luckier and more organised) girls than I who had smartly bagged the first signing slots. Well at least I got the programme signed and proved that if you CAN get those perfect positions then it is possible to get a cracking photo with David/Catherine. If you come here and recognise this very happy American girl over here for the summer then do pass on the photo!

Sadly all I could manage was the Tennant hairline...!

And yet another blurry picture of delectable Catherine (what is it with my inability to stop camera shake on taking her picture?!)

Thankfully once I had climbed out of the melee, Neil said "I've done a video!"

Bless - it does capture the madness of the event! And at least it gave me the chance to get a programme signed for Chrissie!

"Well, it isn't about Scotland, is it?" - Dunsinane Preview night @ Swan Theatre, Stratford on Avon Wednesday 15 June 2011

Cloud's remark when we came out of this play possibly suggests a harsher review than will follow. Certainly, although the narrative is ostensibly one based on a follow-up to Macbeth (albeit rooted more in actual medieval Scottish history), you'd have to be pretty dim not to spot the analogies to present-day wars and occupations.

"Tell the men we'll be in Scotland a little longer than we expected"

Nevertheless, this is not a one-dimensional sledgehammer of a play about the problems of Iraq/Afghanistan, particularly given its lively, sharp and incredibly funny dialogue and the excellent performances. This new revival of David Greig's 2010 RSC Hampstead theatre new play is ending a short tour from the National Theatre of Scotland in Stratford, having been on in Edinburgh and Glasgow earlier in spring/summer 2011.



Since this year is proving to be a rather expensive year for theatre-deficits induced by hot actors treading the boards in abundance, I also felt I should treat Cloud to some pleasure for himself. Having carried a torch for Siobhan Redmond since her days in Bulman and then Between the Lines, I couldn't deny Cloud the chance to have his own Scottish heaven (no, I don't know what it is about our house and its love of Scottish actors!)

Redmond is glorious as the Queen, Gruach, particularly when she plays opposite Jonny Phillips as the English Siward. The latter's eventual collapse into violent vengeance for his own succumbing to Gruach's clever use of power, and his own weak inability to ultimately overcome her, is sparkling to watch. Brian Ferguson's Malcolm - uncannily resembling Slinger's Macbeth actually, but a far more weasily King - is hysterical. A very sharp humour indeed. It always feels harsh to pick out specific members of the cast, but these three especially turn in spectacularly good performances.

The structure of the play, working around a 'letter to mother' from one of the young English soldiers, eventually permits an overall questioning of what we have seen through his eyes. The bawdy humour, the casual violence, the swearing, are as one may imagine a young boy soldier's view on life stuck occupying a seemingly desolate land far from home. The use of music is also astute, mixing a near pop sensibility of dischordant cello, with lively guitar and drums, with unaccompanied Gaelic singing by Gruach's maids.

Overall, a very engaging production - both as a follow-on to Macbeth and in its own right as a contemporary play commenting on the nature of power and occupation. It may not be (entirely) about Scotland, but it is no less worthy for all that.

SQUEE! SQUEE! SQUEE! (Part 1) Saturday 4 June 2011: Much Ado About Nothing @ Wyndhams Theatre, London

Much Ado - visit number 2: doubt it will even prove to be the penultimate visit (if I can possible manage it...)

After the chaos of getting the collective hormonal hordes to the Much Ado matinee performance on Saturday 21 May, it was now 'take 2': me and HLW down for the weekend and meeting up with grandmother of the lovely girl we got to the stage door all the way back in October 2008.

Additionally, Poly had also suggested meeting up for lunch so it ended up with the four of us giddily lunching together, sharing the squee of Poly's visits this week (that's VISITS: plural, PLURAL... - honestly, Poly is a one-woman tour de force keeping the British theatre industry functional!). By the time Poly left us as our party of three headed into the theatre, we were all fit to squee ourselves to death. However, we were also plotting logistics since I had decided I was DEFINITELY going to try the stage door scrum this time around. Our visiting friend from Stratford understandably wanted to join us, but this was a hot day where the sun was beating down furiously, where there were multiple Transport for London closures and workings, where most of London's roads seemed to be in a permanent snarl up of traffic, and she would only have approximately an hour and a half after the show to make it to her train back. Yikes.

But of course, once in and enjoying the play (sadly we hadn't been able to get that odd seat to be together with H and I) it was hard to resist the lure of the door. Handily I had a seat at the end of a row so legged it promptly (and was STILL 3 rows back at the door: grr!) but I had no idea how our friend would get on as she had hesitated about whether to chance it.

It was pretty chaotic out there I have to say, and though I get that some had maybe waited a long while, when people arrived out of the actual performance to join the throng some of those in front of me could have been a little more gracious in their defense of their space (not for me I hasten to add, but for a young slender boy hesitantly stuck behind me whom I did attempt to sneak at least a little closer, only to be snapped down harshly with a "no he can't actually" ---)

Anyway: minor grumbles aside - and I think/hope the boy did manage (just) to lean over and get his programme signed - there were delighted squeals when David and Catherine emerged. Responding to every call of "you're gorgeous David" "we love you Catherine" with grinning cries from them of "thank you!" and "and so are you!" it was generally a jolly affair, though there was a bit of pushing near the end.

Oh did I not say? I got my programme signed with a nice wink from both David and Catherine (especially) as they did so, thank as well Tom Bateman and Sarah MacRae (Claudio and Hero), though I just missed catching the fantastic Adam James (Don Pedro). Another time I hope...






Considering I had NO IDEA where I was pointing my camera I thought I did quite well (even with the blurry shot of Catherine's fantastic figure: she's just stunning!)

And just when I thought things could not be more brilliant, I get to pick up a phone message from our friend: she was heading back to get the train home to Stratford... and had chanced the stage door and got both David and Catherine's autographs! *happy* *happy* *happy*

Truly, there is almost nothing so exquisite as helping bring about other people's pleasure! I hope it was worth the exhaustion and the physical exertion, but man it was a helluva day.

And for me and Helen, it wasn't even over...

"Loved of all ladies" - Much Ado About Nothing @ Wyndhams Theatre London Saturday 2.30 matinee 21 May 2011

It's been coming a LONG while and was the cause of my giddiness both at the time of booking and over the past week. Yes: finally, the collective got to see Much Ado About Nothing starring Catherine Tate and David Tennant.

Whoever they are.

A wider review of the day will come later: certainly it was a day with much brilliance and beauty surrounding the central event.

The Play/Production
There is much to enjoy about Much Ado anyway: despite the horrible central moment where Hero is humiliated unjustly, virtually all of the play is about the laughter, the bickering, the biting wit and the verbal comedy.

The staging is relatively sparse, with columns and a rotating stage that allow us inside/outside views of the characters and their positioning in rooms in relation to each other. This production also lends the play a suitable amount of slapstick (or slap paint) and the height of the stage space is wonderfully utilised for comedic effect. Everyone gives their all, and it was really nice to see so many familiar faces amongst the actors performing. There are many delicious lines delivered with great incision and verve. But....

It's all about Benedick and Beatrice
Oh we'd all be lying if we said this wasn't what we'd come for. Whilst an RSC production inevitably HAS to be all about the ensemble and the play - with particular performers the icing on the cake for the production, albeit incredibly desirable icing - with a West End production it can be harder to ignore the power of the specific performers in key roles.

Tennant and Tate acknowledged this in the rounds of interviews they've done for the show: they're savvy enough to realise that their names create a buzz and draw attention. They put bums on seats and potentially bring in audiences to a Shakespeare who may otherwise not have been interested. Mind, with the Globe also doing Much Ado this season, this production may turn out to have stiff competition on the Shakespeare front - one can also imagine the Globe sniffily groaning at its commercial rival for even thinking it could steal the Globe's 'Authentic Shakespeare' thunder.

But as I say, in this instance, our Beatrice and Benedick are our central focus and not just because of who is playing them. These two verbally dextrous figures must be a delight to play: bitterly witty, playful, human, and a little reflective. With the right staging and use of their characters on stage, even little gestures can become points of high entertainment.

From Tennant's first entrance, positively making great show of his emergence to an attentive audience, to the finale of joyous dancing, one can't help but feel the director and Tennant were thinking 'how best can we wind up the fangirls/fanboys?' for there are so many directoral decisions that are beyond the play text. Poses - a languid stretch at one point emphasises his slender physique; dances - every movement of body, clothes and hands screaming 'flirt!'; glance - his oh-so-expressive eyes contacting with the audience with mischief.

Tate also continues to prove her worth on stage and provides further evidence of her dramatic as well as comedic talents - to combine such gifts for physical comedy with such elegance and excellence of delivering verbal humour is a rare combination. And she clearly gets a huge buzz of performing with her 'mate' Tennant.

And that's another thing: if ever a pairing required chemistry of some sort, Benedick and Beatrice are that pair. I'd make an argument that the best performances of B&B are where there is some kind of pre-exisiting connection between the actors in these roles. Whether that is as friends, colleagues who have worked together over some lengthy period of time, and/or indeed are in a romantic relationship --- one of the core things underpinning the B&B relationship in the play is the longevity of their knowing each other, the history that is behind their barbed wit and seemed animosity. So it just makes sense that some of the best performances of this play involve pairings where there is a history of some sort. Two unknown actors coming together for the first time have to work extra hard to begin to convey the easy intimacy and connection that Benedick and Beatrice need to convey to the audience. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it is possible to tell when there isn't some kind of history between the actors I think.

I'm avoiding spoiling too much of the stage direction and quirks of the production - others will provide that elsewhere should you desire to read in advance. The main thing is go and enjoy. There may even be a few tickets left for certain performances if you're lucky. Give it a whirl anyway if you're not already going because it's certainly a helluva ride.

Theatre Preview: "Destiny" - The Merchant of Venice @ RST Stratford Saturday 14 May 2011

From first you walk into the auditorium of the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford for Ruper Goold's new production of "The Merchant of Venice", you will know you have entered a space ready to present a reinterpretation of the text's setting that is likely to divide critical responses. I'll try and avoid taking all the fun out of the 'shocks' the production presents, but inevitably there will be some here. Call it 'spoiler-ish' if not quite 'spoiler-lite'.



Casino settings for this most money-driven narrative are not new - indeed only earlier this year did Derby's production of Merchant adopt a similar approach (it used a Manhattan 1920s format). But utilising a long-reported concept from John Logan of taking Merchant to a Las Vegas casino, Rupert Goold gives this version of Merchant the full-blown Elvis treatment.

The Logan idea reportedly arose from a conversation in 2007 between the Star Trek writer and Patrick Stewart where Logan called Merchant "a loathsome play" and Stewart sought to defend the play (see this Argus report when Stewart was about to embark on the Chichester premiere of his previous collaboration with Goold, the much-acclaimed Macbeth).

Merchant is undoubtedly a very uncomfortable play for modern audiences. It is classed as a comedy, and indeed this production is extraordinarily funny (though there were some braying laughers in the audience who didn't always seem to get when this was less appropriate). It is unavoidably racist: something again 'played up' by this production in some quite horrifying ways: for example, when the Prince of Morocco enters with the line "Mislike me not for my complexion" the act that accompanies this takes you back to the taunting faced by black footballers in the 1970s and 1980s. And the final act is probably one of the most disjointed in tone when set against its predecessor: the comedic business of husbands, wives and rings set against the resolution of the court sequence when Shylock has been demanding his bond forfeit of "a pound of flesh".

This production takes all of these points head on and more: the updated monetary values (from 3000 ducats to 3 million dollars) creates resonance with contemporary worlds of gambling and finance; all talk of destiny in relation to Portia's beholden commitment to a game of choice for her future is given a 'whoop and holler' glitz that nevertheless highlights the restrictions of Portia's options as an orphaned daughter; and there are the visually innovative uses and creations of space that we can now expect from Goold's creative use of space (lifts and cars are hilariously conveyed to the audience with the sort of panache one might expect more from the recent production of The Thirty-Nine Steps).

As one may expect, Stewart is on fine form, investing his Shylock with suitable frustration and contempt for Antonio from the start. It is a contempt that cracks over into venomous persistence for the forfeit once Shylock losses his beloved if ill-treated daughter Jessica, something that robs Shylock of his one prize valued beyond monetary worth. Again, Scott Handy proves an emotional catalyst to a production without being overwrought. As much as he is the eponymous Merchant, our first sight of Antonio is at the overnight nigh-empty tables of the casino in the thrust stage's pre-text preamble. He looks less like a high-risk financier than a gambler preoccupied with other thoughts --- thoughts of his friend Bassanio (a never especially over-stated 'love'). It is hardly surprising he gambles and loses so badly in the course of the play. Additionally, though their first appearance caused outraged gasps and giggles from the audience, Portia and Nerissa (Susannah Fielding and Emily Plumtree respectively) are vivid characters who make the adoption of a particular type of regional accent seem like the most natural directorial decision imaginable. Fielding especially manages to convincingly portray desperate uncertainty in the power of faithful love at end of the play's erratic Act 5 and lends a Blanche de Bois-style unravelling of self to her performance of Portia.

The RSC music ensemble are here given a rip-roaring opportunity to jazz things up; alongside Jamie Beamish's Launcelot Gobbo there's an alternately acerbic and bleakly hysterical edge to the production in its use of jazz and pop. Beamish - who was similarly well-used as the bleak comedian Seyton in Macbeth - certainly deserves some plaudits for taking on a cartoonish figure and succeeding in making him apt to the whole play. Even if I did get various flashbacks to the quirky world of Blackpool (the programme rather than the place).

Preview Issues
This was only the second audience performance of the play, and they've clearly got some ironing out to do. Though I graciously interpreted the final scene as performed as intended, there may well be aspects of it that were somewhat unintended (e.g. Portia and her shoes). More dramatically the running time is clearly not as planned: it started at 7.15 and the programme estimates the play will run 2 hours 45. Even allowing for the preamble (which makes knowing WHEN the play has started a little difficult to exactly pinpoint) and a slightly over-run interval, this still didn't let us out until after 10.30pm which makes it at least 30 mins over-running. Some trims and practice with certain scenes are likely to tighten this, but I still reckon audiences should bank on it averaging 3hours instead. Having said that, it doesn't drag and even though I estimated it should have finished by around 10pm (as it should have) it is only the play's internal quirk of that bizarre final act that renders the finale less dramatic than it could be.

There are three more performances before the Press Night and I'll be interested in seeing how critics react to this come Friday/weekend. I have a horrible nervous feeling they'll hate it, a kind of backlash against Goold's style of directing that has often edged close to excess and here is given extreme full-reign. I really hope they like it. There may need to be a little less Elvis (though not too much less, since Beamish is so endearing as the songster narrator Launcelot Gobbo), but I hope it keeps it's Vegas spirit and defies the critics. It's one helluva ride.

Overheard in the theatre
At the interval: "So, do you think Shakespeare would be turning in his grave?"
At the end: "So apparently it was written by Elvis..." (to which Neil tartly muttered "Lieber and Stoller actually" --- though that's probably only true of selected aspects of the production).