Cyrano - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

*****

Written by Edmond Rostand

Adapted by Simon Evans and Debris Stevenson

Directed by Simon Evans

Adrian Lester

Anyone who has ever been in love knows the impossible rollercoaster of feelings it brings: from the silly, adorable goofiness of sweet beginnings, to the nuanced hesitation of self-reflection and the gushing warmth of love — and sometimes, the salty taste of a tragic end. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s new adaptation of the classic French play Cyrano de Bergerac, originally written by Edmond Rostand in 1897, offers all that and more: a wild combination of Greek comedy and tragedy.

At the centre of the story is the iconic Cyrano de Bergerac, played by Adrian Lester. A poet, soldier and philosopher whose words are as sharp as his sword, but despite his charm and wit, Cyrano carries a paralysing insecurity about his appearance, feeling unworthy of the woman he secretly loves: Roxane (Susannah Fielding). As a long-standing friend of Cyrano’s, charming and sharp-tongued herself and recently widowed from her old husband who she had been forced to marry, Roxane longs to be dazzled by raw, breathtaking love.

As Cyrano finds himself watching Roxane fall for the dashingly handsome Christian de Neuvillette (Levi Brown), a man with the looks if not the brains that Roxane demands, he becomes the voice behind another man’s wooing, ghostwriting his rival’s terms of endearment, desperately hoping to provide the love that he believes Roxane deserves.

Simon Evans and Debris Stevenson’s adaptation — Evans’ second encounter with the play, having directed it around 20 years ago — provides a thrilling tale, crafted not only by an outstanding cast of actors, but also by a thoughtful balance between modern and classical language. The hilarious dialogue made the whole theatre laugh uncontrollably, while the emotionally moving monologues were full of romantic, rhythmic pathos.

The immersive staging, using the whole theatre with actors suddenly appearing among the audience adds to the evening’s effective comedy. Grace Smart’s stage designs are also remarkable, moving the audience smoothly through time and places, from Cyrano’s theatre to the battlefield.

In the original play, Cyrano says he has won, on a bet, a private orchestra for a day. Quite wittily, in Evans’ version, the band has apparently decided to stick with Cyrano for much longer. The gloomy yet obedient musicians quietly appear and disappear on the theatre’s balconies, on the stage and behind him, providing a heartwarming mixture of comic moments and a subtle echo of Cyrano’s feelings, sometimes before the character himself is able to acknowledge them. Outstanding amazing work from the band of actor-musicians and the composer Alex Baranowski.

There are no weak performances in the large cast of this big-hearted, bittersweet play. Lester is mesmerising and convincing as Cyrano, moving virtuously from impressive action fighting scenes to upbeat comedy and then to raw emotion. Brown, as Christian, reveals a great comic gift too. Fielding crafts Roxane as a believable character, goofy and vulnerable, allowing us to see her through Cyrano’s loving eyes and to care for her deeply too. 

This is a masterful production that tells of insecurities overshadowing even the greatest of loves — a familiar pain that makes this story so timeless.

Reviewed by Florit Shoihet

Runs until 5th September

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Dracula - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

*****

Written by Bram Stoker

Adaped and directed by Kip Williams

Cynthia Erivo

To understand why Cynthia Erivo is the Vice President of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, just go and see Dracula. For close to two-hours straight through, Erivo doesn’t just dominate this intriguing production, she creates it, assuming all 23 roles of Bram Stoker’s classic yarn.

Kip Willliams’s take on Dracula sees a fusion of gothic horror with 21st-century technology, as physical, practical theatre is (almost seamlessly) joined to painstakingly crafted pre-filmed videos. As a squad of steadicam operators buzz around Erivo’s live work, a big screen merges the real-time with the recorded, taking the concept of live performance to a newly defined dimension.

The play’s design respects the original’s Victorian origins, with Marg Horwell creating images that ingeniously and subtly shift the action from London to Romania. The repressed sexuality of Stoker’s novel is similarly played out, with Erivo bringing a sensuousness to the characters’ carnal desires, both the mortal and the undead.

The teeth, blood and bite marks are elegantly done in this subtle portrayal of horror, but for all the show’s visual wizardry and Craig Wilkinson's stunning videos, it is Erivo’s acting that is spellbinding. While her Professor Van Helsing, Stoker’s vampire-slayer, may be slightly more Gandalf than is necessary, her interpretations of the traditional characters, alongside her effortless transformations is breathtaking.

Not only is Erivo’s physicality meticulously rehearsed, her vocal reach is sensational. As Jonathan Harker, the London lawyer sent to Transylvania with property deeds for Dracula to sign, Erivo is required to narrate the story’s opening. Listen to Erivo's exquisite Received Pronunciation and there are hints of Richard Burton in her perfectly measured tone and cadence.

A bold move by the show’s creative minds sees Erivo draw on her Nigerian heritage to voice the bloodthirsty Count with a deeply African pronunciation - a refreshing change from the cod-Slavic accent so often deployed. And look out too for some of the projected images of Erivo’s vampires that pay homage to, amongst others, Klaus Kinski and Christopher Lee’s legendary portrayals of the classic monster.

Be in no doubt, this is a story re-worked for our times. Cynthia Erivo drives a stake through the heart of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, defining it as her own.

Runs until 30th May

Photo Credit: Daniel Boud

The Importance of Being Earnest - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

**

Written by Oscar Wilde

Directed by Max Webster

Stephen Fry

When it opened at the National Theatre late last year, Max Webster’s take on The Importance of Being Earnest was a work of theatrical quality and imagination, delivered by a company that dripped in expertise and experience. Now, transplanted across the river for a 3-month West End residency, the original’s acting genius is replaced by stunt casting and celebrity that takes an inspirational concept, reducing it to poorly performed moments of silliness.

Topping the bill for the evening is Stephen Fry, best known for his screen achievements rather than a career on the boards. In an unexplained gender-swap, Fry replaces (the previously excellent) Sharon D Clarke as Lady Bracknell. In what should be one of the most exquisite roles in the canon for women over 50, Fry gives a hammy performance that other than showcasing his distinctly recognisable voice delivering some of the most famous lines in English literature outside of Shakespeare, adds nothing to Lady B whatsoever. He is of course a big star and will no doubt draw in the punters - but they’ll be disappointed to find the actor delivers little more than a pound-shop Julian Clary.

The evenings other star name is Olly Alexander as Algernon Moncrieff. Alexander focusses on silliness over dramatic heft and while the role is undoubtedly complex, one feels that he barely skims its potential. Likewise Nathan Stewart-Jarrett who seems to concentrate more on the mania of Jack Worthing rather than his character’s depths.

Kitty Hawthorne and Jessica Whitehurst are respectively Gwendolen and Cecily, two parts that again, inexplicably, Webster has chosen to play through channels of over-acted histrionics. The physical comedy of Hayley Carmichael, doubling up as the faithful retainers Lane and Merriman has faint echoes of Tom Eden’s genius as Alfie in One Man Two Guvnors - but its little more than that, as Carmichael’s work descends into repetitive cliché. In a rare moment of class, Hugh Dennis as the Rev'd Canon Chasuble is brilliant.

The scenery is tired. Back at the Lyttleton, Rae Smith’s original designs were sensational. Here, the grassy banks of the Hertfordshire garden scenes are shockingly frayed, while actors waiting offstage for their cue are clearly visible in the wings.

This is a poorly executed transfer and other than the stunt casting, it is hard to see why the National and their co-producers have staged it. Perhaps they could resist everything except temptation?

Runs until 10th January 2026

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

The Comedy About Spies - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

*****

Written by Henry Lewis and Henry Shields

Directed by Matt DiCarlo

The cast of The Comedy About Spies

The Comedy About Spies is the latest hilarious epic from the Mischief Theatre crew. Written by and featuring Mischief’s architects Henry Lewis and Henry Shields, the play sees a madcap plot unravel.

Think of the movies and a fusion of the action of James Bond and Die Hard combined with the comic craft of Airplane, and you begin to get close to the genius of this drama, where England in 1961 is the backdrop to espionage and skullduggery between the USA & the USSR over a Top Secret file.

The plot’s details are of course ridiculous (including an American agent accompanied on his mission by his overbearing mother!) and riddled with double-agents’ trickery but the narrative here is but a mere excuse to display some of the West End's finest comedy.

Slick tongue-twisting dialogue, outstanding punning, immaculately timed physical comedy and slapstick all merge to deliver an evening of first class farce from the cast of eight.

Not only that but David Farley’s set design is a work of art itself. Set in a hotel we see actors fall between floors in brilliantly designed, hilarious stunts, while a thrilling escape into the hotel’s lift-shaft has to be seen to be believed.

Directed by Matt DiCarlo, this is world-class theatre that is performed to the highest standards of discipline, yet which always appears to have its tongue firmly in its cheek - the hallmark of comedy done to perfection!

Runs until 5th September

The Last Laugh - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

*****

Written and directed by Paul Hendy

Bob Golding, Damian Williams and Simon Cartwright

An imaginary dressing room shared by Tommy Cooper, Bob Monkhouse and Eric Morecambe is the setting for Paul Hendy’s new play that makes for an 80-minute one-act wonderland of a tribute to these three legends of late 20th century British comedy.

Damian Williams, Simon Cartwright and Bob Golding make up the trifecta (their names in the same order as their characters are listed above) in this superbly scripted drama that not only revisits countless, gloriously familiar comedy gems but also offers a briefly poignant analysis of how their acts evolved, as well as a glimpse of the sadness that lay behind the three perfectly honed comic masquerades.

It’s not just the script, the three actors nail their characters to a tee. And for those of us fortunate to have grown up in television’s golden-age, the evening is as if we are in the actual presence of these giants of light entertainment.

No spoilers here but be assured that some of the trio’s most loved gags are played out on stage. More than that, the actors truly inhabit the comedians’ personae delivering one of the best shows in the West End.

Hendy also directs with a perfectly nuanced touch, coaxing the gentlest manifestations of genius from all three amidst Lee Newby's immaculately designed set.

Only on for a month before touring - Unmissable!

Runs until 22nd March, then on tour.

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

Dr Strangelove - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

****

Adapted from Stanley Kubrick's film by Armando Ianucci and Sean Foley

Directed by Sean Foley

Steve Coogan

It is 60 years since Kubrick’s movie Dr Strangelove stunned audiences. Playing to a world still grappling with the aftershocks of the Cuban missile crisis, his satirical take on the superpowers’ governments and their armed forces tapped into existential fears of mutually assured nuclear destruction. Today, Armando Ianucci and Sean Foley offer up an adaptation of Dr Strangelove in an entertaining tribute to Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant original.

On screen it was the comedic genius of Peter Sellars that played three of Kubrick’s key roles:  a stiff upper lipped British RAF officer (itself a character offering a precursory hint towards Rowan Atkinson’s Blackadder of later years); the American President; and finally the eponymous Strangelove, a crazed nuclear scientist. The story’s satire was inspired, with Kubrick’s movie now recognised as one of the great anti-war narratives of the last century.

In a bold casting move, Ianucci and Foley give Steve Coogan the Peter Sellars responsibilities - adding to his roles by also making him Major Kong, the maverick pilot of the nuclear-armed B-52 bomber. Coogan is a class act, not least when playing Strangelove afflicted by alien hand syndrome. But his evening on stage is a tough gig and he perhaps needs a little longer to become fully fluent in his performance. The supporting company are a blast, with notably great work from Giles Terera as US General Turgidson and John Hopkins as the deranged General Ripper.

It was always going to be a challenge - transferring the opening salvos of a B-52-delivered Armageddon from the broad canvas of film, to the comparative intimacy of a West End stage - and hence it is little surprise that the production team rely on projections (aka film) to convey some of the story’s more graphic moments. The videos are strong but they have a few distracting glitches that need attention.

Wrapping the whole show up, Penny Ashmore rises from the Noel Coward’s bowels to assume the part of Vera Lynne and lead the company in We’ll Meet Again as the world explodes around them. It’s a neat theatrical moment that almost leads into an audience singalong, but it doesn’t match the powerful brutality that Kubrick achieved in his juxtaposition of that song, set to a backdrop of global conflagration.

Dr Strangelove may cut corners in its interpretation of Kubrick’s masterpiece but it still makes for a hilarious night at the theatre as well as a sad reflection upon our world today.

Booking until 25th January 2025 - then on tour to Dublin

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

The Motive And The Cue - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

*****

Written by Jack Thorne

Directed by Sam Mendes

Mark Gatiss and Johnny Flynn

The National Theatre production has just decamped from the South Bank to the West End and on seeing this play for the third time, like a fine wine it has only improved with the passing of time.

Jack Thorne’s writing is beyond flawless. The perceptive sensitivity with which he pinpoints the passionate, complex relationship between Sir John Gielgud and his direction of Richard Burton in Broadway’s 1964 Hamlet is modern writing at its finest. A carefully curated confection of nuance, rage and pathos sees these two giants subject Shakespeare’s finest play to moments of the most intelligent analysis, with just a twist of heartbreaking humanity too.

Thorne’s words are brought to life by Mark Gatiss as Gielgud and Johnny Flynn as Burton, the same actors who created the roles. They were brilliant when the show opened 8 months ago and are even better now, the chemistry between the two men proving electric. Tuppence Middleton as Burton’s wife Elizabeth Taylor has equally grown into her pivotal role.

Es Devlin’s intriguing set design has transferred well from the Lyttleton - however its automation at the Noel Coward is a tad noisy, that at times is a small distraction.

The Motive And The Cue remains essential drama, exquisitely performed. Unmissable.

Click here to read my May 2023 review of the show's opening at the National Theatre

Runs until 23rd March 2024

Photo credit: Mark Douet

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

****

Based on the book by Neil Gaiman

Adapted by Joel Horwood

Directed by Katy Rudd

Millie Hikasa and Keir Ogilvy

A wonderful exploration of childhood, imagination and memory, the National Theatre production of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean At The End Of The Lane returns from a UK tour to take up a brief residence at the Noel Coward Theatre. 

Making a remarkable West End debut, Keir Ogilvy plays the 12 year-old Boy growing up in England’s rural Sussex. He has struggled to make friends, his mother is no longer around and his family home is shared with Dad (Trevor Fox) and Sis (Laurie Ogden). It’s a neat touch denying these roles any individual names for in that depersonalisation they become us all and as Boy explores his fantasies and nightmares along with complex family relationships, there are moments (in the sometimes lengthy 2½ hours) that will resonate across the audience.

The fantasy of the story is brought to life beautifully on stage by the characters that the Boy encounters in his youth. Millie Hikasa is Lettie, Boy’s magical pal who Is not quite what she seems and who guides and protects him on his journey of discovery. There is charming work from Finty Williams as Lettie’s grandmother and the inspired creation of Ursula, played by Charlie Brooks, who is the nemesis of all things good and the villain of the piece who also meddles with some psycho-sexual manipulation of the Boy (nothing too provocative mind you) that cleverly explores the susceptible curiosity of a child’s mind.

The acting is top-notch throughout, but above all it is the ingenuity of the show’s puppetry, lighting and outstanding physical theatre that gives the evening its breathtaking charm. It is left to a black clad ensemble of four to deliver the production’s heavy lifting and it is the visual beauty of these effects, free of any modern electronic trickery or CGI that give the story an ethereal honesty. What you see is what you get. The illusions are outstanding.

An evening of exciting theatre that will appeal to all adults and kids who can lose themselves in a thrilling story, beautifully told.

Runs until 25th November

Photo credit: Brinkhoff Moegenburg

The Inheritance - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London



****


Written by Matthew Lopez
Directed by Stephen Daldry

The Company

When Mathew Lopez's play The Inheritance opened at the Young Vic earlier this year it immediately caused a stir. This wasn't just another epic piece of theatre, running in two parts over seven hours, it was another epic gay themed play and comparisons to the National's recent production of Tony Kushner's Angels In America were inevitable. In truth, the two plays may have similar themes but otherwise there is little in common save the running time.

Lopez's play reworks the story of E.M.Forster's Howards End, setting the action in New York more than 30 years after the major events of Kushner's groundbreaking opus. In a shrewd theatrical device, Forster appears to a group of aspiring writers to assist them out of their writers' block. In the process, we are introduced to liberal lawyer Eric Glass and his partner of seven years Toby Darling, who has just gained celebrity as an author and is currently bashing out a stage script.

By chance they meet and befriend the bookish Leo, who aspires to an acting career but needs a leg up, which Toby is more than happy to offer as his script is optioned by a producer. In the meantime the self-deprecating Eric entertains the ailing Walter, who has moved in upstairs while his townhouse is being renovated. The pair share common philosophies and Walter enlightens Eric to the realities of the AIDS epidemic that ravaged New York in the Eighties and Nineties.

The joy of this play is found in the rise and fall in the temperature of Lopez's writing. His characters are painstakingly crafted, without appearing heavy handed and they move the story on in sizable but absorbing chunks. There is no slavish attempt to ape Forster's written style, which simply wouldn't work, but he does credit the author with an overwhelming sense of humanity. It's this trait of Forster's writing that Lopez draws on and despite the numerous socio-political themes that ricochet throughout the play, it is this that gives the play its emotional strength.

Despite a quality creative team including Stephen Daldry as director and Bob Crowley as designer, this is very much the author's night. Scenes of great humour and occasionally even eroticism sit easily beside political debate and it's deeply satisfying to note that the author doesn't pander to the vanity of the current POTUS by mentioning his name. There is balance however, as Walter's Republican partner  Henry - a swaggering John Benjamin Hickey - supremely tears a strip off an over-zealous armchair liberal pointedly trying to undermine him. Walter's epic monologue, delivered so earnestly by a sublime Paul Hilton, hammers home the devastating effect of AIDS and more pointedly, the country that deserted its citizens as they suffered and died.

It is the beauty of Lopez's writing that allows him, at least partially, to get away with such a long play. Part One could quite easily pass for a complete full-length piece, albeit one with loose ends to tie up. It is in tying up those strands of the story for Part Two that Lopez begins to repeat himself, drawinging moments out unnecessarily.  The character of Forster long abandoned, reappears to explain why he wrote Maurice and in a nod to the Merchant Ivory adaptation of Howards End, Vanessa Redgrave steals focus as a mother who stayed on at Walter's home, long after her son had died. In fact, Redgrave never made the second press night and the role was admirably undertaken by Amanda Reed.

The Inheritance has been rightly lauded as a major piece of 21st century theatre and Lopez has a gift for crafting argument and dialogue with sensitivity and innate understanding. Does it need to be seven hours long? Hell no, but it's a gripping story, eloquently reminding us that unless we have a conversation with our past, we will never be able to understand the future.

Runs until 19th January 2019

Reviewed by Paul Vale

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Half A Sixpence - Review

Noel Coward Theatre, London

****

New Music & Songs by George Stiles & Anthony Drew

Original Songs by David Heneker

Book by Julian Fellowes

Directed by Rachel Kavanaugh

Charlie Stemp (on banjo) + Company 

This website has already reviewed Half A Sixpence in both its Chichester and West End iterations, however an invitation to meet some of the show’s talented cast and take a peek backstage proved irresistible.

Josh Adams who’d not yet seen the show went along.... 

It's rare to watch a West End musical that is so wonderfully British - and Half a Sixpence really is just that, in so many ways.

The direction, choreography and music of the piece frame the energy wonderfully. Amongst the songs, Look Alive captures the boyish behaviour contrasted with the strict discipline of the workplace, while the title song is sung with such innocence and young love by lead characters Arthur Kipps and Ann Pornick, that you can almost feel the warmth in the auditorium.

Meeting Charlie Stemp who plays Arthur Kipps before the show, together with other cast members was a joy. And even more so, to discover that Stemp has the same laddish, comical yet sincere energy in person as he portrays on stage. Not only is his singing and acting fantastic but Stemp makes the choreography look like spur of the moment celebratory leaps of joy as he makes discovery after discovery throughout Act 1.

Other exceptional work comes from Bethany Huckle as the naughty playful Flo, Sam O'Rourke in the ensemble and of course the stunning Emma Williams as Helen Walsingham, Kipp’s alternative love interest. Williams is slowly becoming a legend of our time, consistently glorious to both watch and listen to.

While the above mentioned are particularly impressive, Half A Sixpence is undoubtedly one of those shows with the ensemble at its very heart. From the hustle and bustle of frolics at work through to bat and ball on the lawn, Andrew Wright’s choreography looks completely at home, at times going right to the edge of the Noel Coward Theatre’s tight playing space.

On as Ann Pornick for the night was Rebecca Jayne Davies, who like Stemp delivers a wonderful balance of youth, innocence and sincerity as her relationship with Arthur develops from childhood sweethearts. Davies yet again proves that the quality of London’s understudies remains utterly perfect

The show oozes charm from start to finish and leaves its audience beaming from ear to ear. In dance routines of breathtaking complexity glasses, curtains, bouquets and more are thrown across the stage and not a single one is dropped.

Stiles and Drewe’s musical additions to the 1960s original keep the charm and energy flowing throughout, all excellently executed by musical director Graham Hurman. The seamless transition from pier to parlour, that never sees the show lack pace, reflects slick direction from Rachel Kavanaugh.

The show builds to a flash, bang wallop of a finale. Long may it continue!

Booking until 2nd September

Reviewed by Josh Adams

Harriet Walter : In Conversation about Linda in Death Of A Salesman

Harriet Walter

For my review of the current West End production of Death Of A Salesman, click here 

Rarely has a show moved to the West End at the lightning speed with which the RSC have transferred Death Of A Salesman. Opening in Stratford upon Avon only last month, to rave reviews across the board, Greg Doran's interpretation of the Arthur Miller classic features Antony Sher as Willy Loman, the titular doomed salesman.

It is Harriet Walter however, one of our finest performers and arguably the RSC's leading lady of her generation, who plays opposite Sher as Linda, Loman's long suffering spouse.

Having reviewed the Stratford production, I can confirm that both actors deliver virtuoso performances - with Walter in particular giving a finely tuned display of loving loyalty, made all the more excruciating as she witnesses her family disintegrate before her eyes. Few playwrights have offered such a devastating analysis of the complexities of marriage and maternity as Arthur Miller does with Linda.

The RSC company were completing their rehearsals last week, prior to opening at London's Noel Coward Theatre, when I caught up over lunch with Harriet to learn more about her remarkable interpretation of Linda.  

Good People

Noel Coward Theatre, London

****

Written by David Lindsay-Abaire

Directed by Jonathan Kent

Imelda Staunton

Good People is a searching drama for the modern age. Jonathan Kent directs the London premiere of David Lindsay-Abaire’s 2011 Tony-winner that explores the two faces of America’s Dream with a nod too to some of that country’s greatest 20th century literature.

With the first half of the action set squarely on the wrong side of South Boston’s tracks, the play follows a few days in the life of Margaret, a “Southie” all her life and a middle aged single parent who has cared for a severely disabled adult daughter since birth. Her daughter’s demands have denied Margaret the ability to hold down steady employment and the play opens with her being fired from her supermarket cashier's job. Desperate for work she tracks down Mike, a childhood friend and now a successful doctor and amidst banter with her bingo hall buddies and an intriguing past with the doctor, so Lindsay-Abaire’s tale pans out.

The star turn of the play is Imelda Staunton's Margaret. She and Kent have previous form together (he directed her Oliver award winning Mrs Lovett in Chichester's Sweeney Todd three years ago) and he coaxes from Staunton a performance of the most marvellously measured mania. Margaret’s lot is a tough one and Staunton never once lets us forget that hers’ is a character that has only known the hard knock life. There is a hint of Arthur Miller's Willy Loman in the story's opening moments as we see her fired, reluctantly, by a supermarket manager who we learn is the son of an old friend. Her tragic circumstances are continuous and whilst Staunton’s performance of a woman, literally on the edge, is sublime and sensitively realised, that so many of the audience laugh at her so often, is actually rather uncomfortable. There’s a distasteful prurience at work here, (Is it really so "blisteringly funny" as the posters proclaim, to laugh at a woman so tragically desperate?) that possibly says more about the chattering classes of the play’s predominantly well-heeled audience, than it does about the painstakingly fleshed-out heroine.

Mike is played by Lloyd Owen. Life has dealt him aces and he has clawed his way out of the South Boston poverty projects through a combination of luck and hard work. He has a complex history however and in his dialogues both with Margaret and with young wife Kate (Angel Coulby) the timing and nuance of all three actors is exquisite. We find that Mike and Kate's marriage is shaky and built on some reluctant compromises and there are moments in act 2, largely set in their beautiful suburban mansion, that echo Edward Albee’s Whose Afraid Of Virginia Woolf.

At the bingo hall Susan Brown and Lorraine Ashbourne put in delicious caricatures of hardened harridans, ultimately loving towards Margaret yet as sceptical as good friends should be. Again, the dialogue between the three women is acutely observed by Lindsay-Abaire, with perfectly weighted performances.

Whilst some of the story’s links may stretch credibility and occasionally the tale’s chapters sit oddly together, what is unquestionable is that each chapter is brilliantly scripted. The text convinces and all the actors are nigh on flawless. Hildegard Bechtler’s ingenious use of the theatre’s revolve also impresses.

Lindsay-Abaire captures the grit of human endeavour, tragedy and deceit in his two hour work. Whether Good People leaves you amused or troubled it will surely make you ponder. The play should not be missed and its outstanding cast will leave you stunned.


Booking until 14th June 2014

Henry V

Noel Coward Theatre

***

Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Michael Grandage

Jude Law

Jude Law is an inspirational Henry V. Michael Grandage knows the actor’s potential well and in this closing production of the director’s innovative West End season, Law represents a glimpse of what can be the finest of British stagecraft. 

Shakespeare’s Chorus (a youthfully rucksacked Ashley Zhangazha) famously asks in his prologue “can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France?” and in truth, the answer is “No”. Christopher Oram’s design seeks to replicate a timbered arena, but whilst his endeavours are noble, to modern audiences accustomed to savouring their Shakespeare on the vast and visually accessible expanses of the subsidised Olivier and Royal Shakespeare stages, the confines of the Noel Coward and its antiquated Edwardian sightlines, present a hurdle from the outset. Law is unquestionably fabulous and his performance hints at greatness, but this Henry V is a Rolls Royce engine performing inside a far less glamorous arena. 

The play of course is a clever study in leadership, both political and on the battlefield. Henry is a brilliant reader of men and when in Act Two Cambridge, Masham and Northumberland's treachery is found out and they are challenged by the king, it is thrilling theatre. Law's monarch displays righteous menace through a combination of cool understatement and steely determination and we sense the traitors' terror. Law's St Crispin Day speech too is another humbling and inspiring treatment of some of the Bard’s most beautiful verse. When he speaks to his band of brothers, the sincerity is unquestionable. Ever the consummate actor, Law saves the best until last. The courtship scene with Jessie Buckley's Katherine is simply a masterclass in Shakespearean cool. An actor who not so long ago was the country’s alpha-male (and to many, still is), Law woos the M'lle with wit, charm and passion. It is rare for a Shakespearean role to lend itself to a swooning audience, but one senses that there will be swoons aplenty throughout this run.

The company work could be tighter. Seen some days after the first press night and whilst Norman Bowman and Ron Cook as Nym and Pistol respectively provide a wonderfully authentic grit to their more humble but critical characters, veteran kiwi James Laurenson should know better than to race through Exeter's text. Grandage would do well to keep a regular eye on maintaining the original tightness of his work. 

Law’s name alone will ensure that the production sells well and he justifies the face value ticket price (though no more). Amidst a production that occasionally falters, he shines and gives a very modern Henry to a classic history.

Runs until 15th February 2014