Springwood - Review

Hampstead Theatre, London

***

Written and directed by Richard Nelson

Andrew Havill and Robert Lindsay

There’s a great premise underlying Richard Nelson’s Springwood. The title comes from the country estate in upstate New York that President Franklin D. Roosevelt would retire to when he wanted to escape Washington DC, with the play’s fictionalised action revolving around the actual visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to the estate during the summer of 1939.

As war in Europe looms, Nelson picks out the birth of the Special Relationship between the USA and the UK in some delightfully nuanced conversations between FDR and Bertie (the King) as well as some deft interchanges between the two men’s wives.

The first half plods, weighed down with caricature and clumsily crafted exposition. The second act however sees the drama come alive from the perspectives of not only international statesmanship, but also the unconventionalities of the Roosevelt’s living arrangements

The overarching strengths of the evening lie in a handful of the performances on stage. Robert Lindsay as the polio-stricken President captures not only FDR’s sardonic strengths, but also his vulnerabilities too. As the two heads of state compare their respective afflictions (the King suffered from a distinct stammer)  the evening hits a rare note of profound pathos. There is equally fine work from Rebecca Night as Queen Elizabeth. 

Andrew Havill plays the King in a role that, albeit carefully crafted and faultlessly performed, has been epically mis-cast. The King was 44 in 1939, Havill is in his sixties and looks it. The effect on seeing him therefore is to associate him with more of a grey-haired elderly man (think perhaps of King Charles III) rather than the more youthful monarch that he was (for visual comparison, reference today’s Prince of Wales, also aged 44). Jemma Redgrave’s Eleanor Roosevelt is an incredibly complex woman given the strains and falsehoods of her marriage, and Redgrave does not dig deep enough to address her character’s emotional challenges.

Springwood is unquestionably entertaining theatre. But a play about the Special Relationship demands a special company. This isn’t it.

Runs until 25th July

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Bird Grove - Review

Hampstead Theatre, London

****

Written by Alexi Kaye Campbell

Directed by Anna Ledwich

Owen Teale and Elizabeth Dulau

Bird Grove is a well crafted and beautifully performed study on fathers, daughters and the conventions of the 19th century.

The title of the play is drawn from the Warwickshire home shared by Mary Ann Evans and her widowed father Robert. Mary Ann (played by Elizabeth Dulau) was an educated woman, as her father (played here by Owen Teale) was a traditionalist who, as his daughter’s challenges to his faith and his lifestyle become more apparent, finds such evolutionary thinking increasingly hard to bear. What makes this story even more remarkable is that Mary Ann was to go on and change her name to George Eliot, becoming one of the greatest forces in English literature of her time.

Dulau and Teale are magnificent protagonists. As Mary Ann rails against the stifling and oppressive chauvinism of the era, Dulau imbues her with a measured yet powerful presence. She commands our respect and as the evening evolves, our sympathy too, director Anna Ledwich deftly helming the narrative of Mary Ann's complex arc.

Teale is a man whose stature and character is chiselled from the granite of humanity. There are hints of both Lear and Tevye in his temperament and he commands his scenes with passion and pride, his love for his daughter matched only by his inability to recognise her wishes and desires. A man trapped by the strictures of both church and convention, his struggles are recognisable and, in many ways, timeless.

A handful of supporting characters enhance the narrative, with Jonnie Broadbent’s take on Horace Garfield, a would-be suitor to Mary Ann, proving a first-half cameo that comes close to stealing scenes, such is his comic excellence.

Alexi Kaye Campbell’s writing is, for the most part, delightful. His dialogues are deft, even if some of the plot’s advancement (notably the epilogue) is at times a little expositional and clunky. Sarah Beaton's set and Matt Haskin's lighting design create an elegant suggestion of the titular country house.

Fine new writing, Bird Grove makes for a night of provocative, stimulating theatre.

Runs until 21st March

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Indian Ink - Review

Hampstead Theatre, London

***

Written by Tom Stoppard

Directed by Jonathan Kent

Felicity Kendal and Ruby Ashbourne Serkis

Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink is a time-hopping study on India towards the end of the Raj, that’s written and researched with meticulous detail and acted, in this revival, with equal finesse.

A coquettish young flapper named Flora travels to India in the 1930s to restore her health. A poet with a love for art, as she beds her way across the subcontinent we witness her discovery of the complexities of Indian society and politics. Ruby Ashbourne Serkis plays Flora, as Felicity Kendal plays Mrs Swan, Flora's (now elderly) younger sister who, towards the end of the 20th century, looks back and reflects on her sibling's short, colourful life.

Jonathan Kent directs his cast with pinpoint precision, against Leslie Travers’s ingenious (if sometimes wobbly) set and Peter Mumford’s impressive lighting design, but it’s all just far too long. Stoppard’s attention to the historical minutiae was impressive, but the evening for all its excellence, feels like a tedious, culturally name-checking, three hours. That this 1995 play started out as a 1991 radio drama, In The Native State (that back then, in an enchanting theatrical alignment, starred Felicity Kendal) is revealing, for it is possible that Stoppard's arguments may have been forged more concisely under the discipline of radio.

Indian Ink may perhaps crave yet a further adaptation, this time into a TV mini series such is its richness. On stage today however it feels like a bloated self-indulgence, albeit brilliantly performed.

Runs until 31st January 2026

Photo credit: Johan Persson

The Assembled Parties - Review

Hampstead Theatre, London

****

Written by Richard Greenberg

Directed by Blanche McIntyre

Tracy-Ann Oberman

Rooted firmly in late 20th century New York City, The Assembled Parties offers two glimpses of a Jewish family gathered to celebrate Christmas. Firstly in 1980 and then, after the interval, 20 years later.

Tracy-Ann Oberman as Faye and Jennifer Westfeldt as her sister in law Julie share the respective matriarchal honours amidst a clan that is riven with both tragedy and dysfunctionality. 

While the entire narrative plays out in the two apartments that have been Julie's evolving homes through the years, it is both women who sensitively deliver roles of fragile complexity. Oberman's presence however electrifies the drama. Faye is gifted the lioness's share of the more acerbic one-liners, presenting the rare treat of a Dorothy Parker-like wit that has been infused with the humour of the Borscht Belt. Oberman's timing and nuanced delivery is en-pointe throughout, creating a bittersweet combination of caustic compassion.

It is the fractured relationships between parents and children that drives Richard Greenberg’s story and if the overall piece feels a tad long at 2 1/2 hours, it leads towards a finale that is surprisingly satisfying and uplifting. Alongside the two leads there is fine work from Alexander Marks and Sam Marks playing a clutch of younger men caught up in the family's issues.

Blanche McIntyre directs with understanding. This is a rare chance to see a play that in 2013 captivated Broadway.

Runs until 22nd November

Photo credit: Helen Murray

Firebird - Review

Trafalgar Studios, London


***


Written by Phil Davies
Directed by Edward Hall

Callie Cooke and Phadlut Sharma

Transferring from a sell-out run at Hampstead's Downstairs theatre last year, Phil Davies' Firebird tackles the ghastly undercurrent of child sexual exploitation that blights so many of this country's towns and young people.

Pitched in a fictional Northern town, the play is at its most touching in the exchanges between the deeply harmed and 14yo Tia (played by Callie Cooke), who has been placed in local authority care since a baby and her friend Katie, who by contrast has at least a loving mum in her life and a background sheltered from ruthless violent abuse.

The play opens with a well worded exchange between the two kids, that subtly hints at Tia being, in her words "damaged goods". In what is Davies' first full length play, this dialog displays a talent for carefully crafted drama. The one act play concludes with this opening scene continuing - however in between the two halves of this poignant park-set scene, Davies' subjects us to the horrors Tia endures and its here that his dramatic structure weakens. We shift from the brilliant pathos of the two girls' friendship (and Waterloo Road's Tahirah Sharif who plays Katie is a carefully crafted turn), to first a kebab shop, thence to an abuser's house and finally a police station.

At the take-away joint Phadlut Sharma is AJ, a flashily impressive (to Tia at least) Asian man who knows how to groom and who quickly impresses the naive child. Inside the bedroom of torture however, we are subject to the excruciating pain of what Tia has to endure. There is so much blood and shouting however, that Davies' dramatic impact is lost amongst the yells. It's not pleasant to watch, but it's also not that moving either, drifting dangerously close to prurient sensationalism in place of dramatic structure. When the scene shifts to the police station, Sharma, who here doubles up as a disinterested detective, fails to convince. As we read the real life nightmares of agencies charged with protecting children and which failed abysmally in their duties, Sharma’s cop is just too much of a poorly fleshed out shallow cliché.

The strength of this piece however rests with Cooke’s superhuman performance. Just out of drama school, Cooke throws herself vocally and physically into this most consuming of performances. And when, in the closing scene, Katie invites her back home for dinner with her mum, Tia's struggling to comprehend such an unsolicited act of kindness, amidst a world that has only shown her contempt, is truly heartbreaking.

In the light of the Rochdale and Oxford abuse scandals (to name but two) there is an important story to be told here. Davies doesn't pull his punches, but sometimes "less is more". One only has to think of Bryony Lavery's Frozen, a play that that dealt with the harrowing impact of murderous paedophilia but which had no onstage horrors, relying instead only upon a brilliantly crafted narrative and commentary.

Davies is to be saluted. Whilst his writing is sometimes patchy, Firebird is a brave and contemporary play that tackles a horrendous situation, head on. And in Callie Cooke’s performance, Edward Hall has unearthed a cracker of a leading lady.

Runs until 19th March

Photo credit:  Robert Day

Old Money - Review

Hampstead Theatre, London

****

Written by Sarah Wooley

Directed by Terry Johnson

Maureen Lipman in rehearsal for Old Money

Old Money is a new play by Sarah Wooley. Encompassing three (with an unseen fourth) generations of a south London family, it considers growing old (dis)/gracefully and throws several family relationships under the microscope, in a play that is very good (in parts) and is skilfully directed by Terry Johnson

Central to the piece is Maureen Lipman’s Joyce who we meet, together with her mother, daughter and son in law, at the funeral of her just deceased husband of 40 odd years. Joyce is proud to be the same age as Paul McCartney, Jean Shrimpton et al and as the story unfolds, it is clear that she has been the subject of repression and enforced emotional denial throughout her adult life. She talks wistfully of an affair she had whilst a teenager with a married neighbour, as being the happiest years of her life and when we learn in act 2 of her resentment of the fact that her late husband actually selected her wedding dress, we get a glimpse of the extent to which he had been a controlling individual and how those around her had continually sought to smother her spark of character. Condemned to suburbia but yearning for the city, upon achieving widowhood Joyce forays occasionally into London, where stopping at a pub for some refreshment, she stumbles across Candy, a young stripper and single mother, with whom she strikes up the most inspiring of friendships. Played by Nadia Clifford, Candy positively fizzes with a Facebook fuelled energy of modern youth in a performance that is a charming foil to the older woman’s quirky discovery of independence. Miss Lipman’s performance however is nothing short of remarkable and in Joyce, Wooley has created a heroine that inspires and commands our sympathy. Such is Lipman’s expert craft that this gently ageing woman becomes a character whom we find ourselves passionately caring for and cheering on her journey.

Timothy Watson is Graham, the workshy musician married to Joyce’s careerist daughter Fiona, played by Tracy-Ann Oberman. In a familiar scenario, Fiona likes to spend whilst Graham cannot earn and their dependence upon Joyce’s cash, whilst being ever so recognisable, is a plot line too thinly fleshed out by Wooley. Similarly, their eagerness to move into Joyce’s home as theirs is repossessed is again a clichéd mechanism. Whilst Oberman’s performance and the challenges she encounters are real, the dialog afforded her frequently lacks credibility and depth.

In his poem This Be The Verse, Philip Larkin wrote the now much quoted line, “They f**k you up, your mum and dad, They may not mean to, but they do”.  Few people however are familiar with the second verse, that opens, “But they were f**ked up in their turn, By old style fools in hats and coats” nor with the third and final verse that commences “Man hands on misery to man….” Larkin's famous words are a bitter reflection on the failures of parenting, and suggest that the cycle repeats itself through the generations. With Old Money, Wooley seeks to argue that the premise of Larkin’s first two stanzas is correct, but by providing Lipman's character with an ultimate escape to a life of freedom and expression, Joyce's own treadmill of misery is ended (who cares about the callous, albeit pregnant, Fiona?) in a climax that maybe unbelievably cheesy but is still rather uplifting.

Runs to January 12th