The Birthday Party - Review

Ustinov Studio, Bath

*****

Written by Harold Pinter

Directed by Richard Jones

Jane Horrocks, Carla Harrison-Hodge and John Marquez

One of Pinter’s earliest plays, The Birthday Party’s plot defies explanation. Written in the 1950s and set in a boarding house in an unnamed English seaside town, Meg and Petey own the establishment, Stanley is a long-term resident, Lulu is a glamorous local girl and friend of the household and then, upsetting the already fragile equilibrium, come Goldberg and McCann who throw this gentle world into complete and unsettling disarray. Imagine, if you will, a fusion of the BBC’s Fawlty Towers, ITV’s George and Mildred, with a dash of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho thrown in for good measure and even then, in all honesty, you will not be any closer to unfathoming where this story has come from, nor how it ends. But you know what? That really doesn’t matter. Pinter’s finest writing is pure Absurdism and for such writing to take flight requires a high-calibre, finely-tuned company – and it is such a troupe that Richard Jones has assembled in Bath.

Jane Horrocks is Meg and such is this actor's versatility that it is almost impossible to believe that it is Horrocks playing this apparently small-minded and delightfully dotty little landlady. Pinter’s language fuses the everyday and the mundane – and Horrocks’ interpretation of the mundanity is simply a joy to behold. Nicholas Tennant is Petey, a municipal deckchair attendant – again a character from the most ordinary slice of life, and yet when given Pinter’s dialogue, elevates the everyday into excellence.

Sam Swainsbury is Stanley, the birthday celebrant and a man with a clearly damaged background, although the cause and circumstances of whatever trauma has befallen him is never revealed. Swainsbury captures Stanley’s mental fragility in a beautifully weighted performance that has the audience crying out for him with their empathy. Carla Harrison-Hodge plays Lulu in what is one of the play’s smaller roles, but to which she delivers an enormous amount of (ultimately) damaged complexity.

Sam Swainsbury and Jane Horrocks

And then there are Goldberg and McCann, the villains of the piece, played by John Marquez and Caolan Byrne respectively. Marquez is brilliant in capturing so much of what makes Goldberg evil. Is it the predatory sleaze or the wafer-thin veneer of polished charm? Either way Marquez’s (and Byrne’s) mastery of Pinter’s quickfire interrogatory style is outstanding. And again, for both characters to slip into the Jewish or Irish-Catholic heritage of their respective youths is yet another masterclass in outstanding writing, brilliantly performed.

John Marquez, Carla Harrison-Hodge and Caolan Byrne

And for all of the characters, from Meg to McCann, Pinter makes it clear that there is so much more to them than meets the eye.

This production of The Birthday Party needs to follow Jones’ recent Machinal into a London run. A gripping, complex, troubling play that is by no means an evening of easy entertainment. It is however, flawless theatre.

Runs to 31st August

Photo credit: Foteini Christofilopoulou

Nachtland - Review

Young Vic, London

*****

Written by Marius von Mayenburg

Translated by Maja Zade

Directed by Patrick Marber

Jane Horrocks

Nachtland is an intriguing, brilliantly delivered examination of post-Holocaust German identity. 

Philipp and Nicola (John Heffernan and Dorothea Myer-Bennett) are brother and sister meeting in the house of their recently deceased father to clear his belongings.

Opening with typical sibling squabbles over who had cared the most for their father in his decline, their dynamic soon shifts on the discovery of a framed picture in the attic that on close inspection, is found to be one of Adolf Hitler’s early watercolour paintings. The drama quickly evolves into an exploration of base greed, as the siblings engage Evamaria (Jane Horrocks) to verify the artwork’s provenance with a view to realising its value, contrasted with the emotional agonies of Philippa’s Jewish wife Judith (Jenna Augen), who is appalled at the siblings’ crass materiality in their exploiting an artefact of Hitler. 

Marius von Maayerburg’s genius (expertly translated by Maja Zade) lies in his crafting of brilliantly worded arguments that never once fall into maudling or simplistic explanations, but rather outline the ongoing traumatic legacy of the Holocaust and its impact upon modern Jewish identity - and counterpointing this impact with the blunt disinterested disconnection of Judith’s in-laws.

The second half of this ninety minute one-act work introduces Angus Wright as Kahl, a would-be purchaser of the painting and Nazi sympathiser, who is found to be a vile misogynist. Throw in a small turn from Gunnar Cauthery as Nicola’s husband Fabian who contracts tetanus in picking out nails from the picture’s antique frame and the evening’s sextet is complete.

The writing is brilliant, the cast is flawless and as the evening evolves, occasional pockets of humour lead to a final act that is both harrowing and shocking. Anna Fleischle’s deceptively mind-bending set is the perfect complement to Patrick Marber’s assured and deft direction.

With occasional musical interludes ranging from Bowie to Beethoven and Mahler, Nachtland is outstanding theatre.

Runs until 20th April

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz

Swimming With Men - Review

****

Screenplayby Aschlin Ditta

Directed by Oliver Parker

97 minutes

In what must surely be the feel-good movie of the summer, Swimming With Men mixes up a quirky storywith a sprinkling of fairy-tale fantasy, but bases its charm on a rock solid core of friendship and camaraderie.

Rob Brydon is Eric is a disillusioned 40-something accountant, convinced that his newly elected Councillor wife Heather (great supporting work from Jane Horrocks) is cheating on him, and struggling to communicate with his teenage son. Eric’s escape is to the local swimming pool where quite by chance he stumbles across a suburban, aquatic and quintessentially British take on Fight Club (to use a cinematic analogy). Half a dozen men from a range of ages and backgrounds meet once a week as an amateur synchronised swimming group - and it all goes swimmingly from there

The storyline may be delightfully improbable - but what slices through this movie’s choppy waves of incredulity are the back-stories that the six pals bring to the pool. There’s Tom played by the young Thomas Turgoose, a chancer who’s forever dodging the local cops, Rupert Graves is is the once-suave Luke, now divorced and missing his daughters, while the venerable and always excellent Jim Carter is Ted, the elder statesman of the group and perhaps the wisest too. Each man has his own personal tragedy that for one blissful hour each week, is left in the changing room with their clothes.

When Susan (Charlotte Riley), a swimming instructor at the pool engineers an encounter with a member of the Swedish Men’s Synchronised Swimming team, the plucky Brits are spurred on, trained by Susan, to enter the international amateur synchro-swimming finals in Milan. The story’s ability to upend common sense is matched only by its all consuming charm, sensational acting, and ingenious photography. And in a world thats increasingly dominated by CGI and special effects, see this movie if only to marvel at Jim Carter, aged nigh on 70, performing real underwater loops in the synchro-swimming routines!

With a gorgeous score from Charlie Mole that occasionally doffs its (swimming) cap at Ennio Morricone and David Raedeker’s stunning underwater photography, Swimming With Men is British film-making at its eccentrically beautiful best.

At cinemas across the country