Manhunt - Review

Royal Court Theatre, London

****

Written and directed by Robert Icke

Samuel Edward-Cook

Written about Raoul Moat, infamous following the 2010 tragedy of violence that he wreaked on Tyneside, the mise-en-scene to Manhunt is the live projection from an above-stage video camera that broadcasts the bald-headed Moat pacing the confines of the stage much like a human snooker ball bouncing itself off the Royal Court’s walls. It's an apt metaphor for the evening that is to follow with Robert Icke’s debut script for the Court making a compelling narrative. Onstage throughout the play’s 90 minutes, Samuel Edward-Cook turns in an astonishing performance as the troubled murderer Moat, channelling energy and complexity into his work.

Rodgers & Hammerstein of course were here decades ago, when Carousel explored the suicidal mania of masculinity. Their Billy Bigelow however was only a fictional wannabe killer. Moat was to end real people's lives and devastate the lives of others, with Icke treading on morality’s very thinnest of ices as he seeks to consider if his protagonist was a man more sinn’d against than sinning.

Edward-Cook is superbly supported with the cast including Sally Messham as his (ex) girlfriend Sam and Trevor Fox offering up a banging take on Paul (Gazza) Gascoigne. Hildegard Bechtler’s set design, fusing practical props and effects with an ingenious use of video is outstanding.

That Sonia Friedman is co-producing suggests that shrewd folk see Manhunt following last year’s Giant into the West End. Manhunt’s production values are world class, but is the drama a well argued thesis, or has Icke simply assembled a harrowing barrage of exploitative exposition? Go see it for yourself and decide. Either way it’s a brilliant evening of theatre.

Runs until 3rd May

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Hamlet - Review

Harold Pinter Theatre, London

****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Robert Icke

Andrew Scott

Andrew Scott’s take on Hamlet, in Robert Icke’s Almeida production that has just transferred to the West End, is a testament to the versatility of Shakespeare’s prose. With Benedict Cumberbatch, TV’s Sherlock, having been London’s last celebrity Hamlet, Scott’s (who played Sherlock’s nemesis Moriarty) take on the role offers us a striking glimpse into the breadth of interpretation and intrigue that is offered by the Prince of Denmark.

On Hildegard Bechtler’s modern, flawless set, seamlessly lending itself from Elsinore’s grandeur to its dungeons, the cast offer up the classic tale with daringly long pauses and underplayed comic timing. They revel in the poetry and articulation that the dialogue commands so that the audience, however numb their bums are getting as the third hour passes, never miss a moment.

The play is directed with Icke’s signature dystopian flare. His is a Denmark obsessed with cameras on every corner and machine guns in authoritarian hands. Here it is only Hamlet who finds this setup odd and slightly ridiculous. Scott plays the perfect madman, convinced of his sanity in a world of insanity, grounded only by his friend Horatio (Joshua Higgott) and the wisdom in his monologues.

As Hamlet’s perceived craziness unravels, with Scott’s small voice and large gestures demanding a quiet room, there is little doubt of the incessant screaming inside this mourning man’s head, buried under his philosophical and iconic words.

The drama is all the better highlighted by Natasha Chivers’ lighting, unsettling the audience with flashing lights and almost spotlit soliloquies. Bechtler’s costumes dress Hamlet as a woeful performer, with others as uptight citizens in a despotic world. 

Jessica Brown Findlay’s marvellous Ophelia is a light in the darkness for everyone from Hamlet to Polonius (played with bumbling perfection by Peter Wight). The old man’s inherent waffling makes most sigh, smile and shake their head - thus his death is even sadder, with Ophelia’s loyalty and despair ever more understandable.

There is much clarity of tone from Scott and the ensemble, which occasionally contrasts with Icke’s work feeling rushed and muddled. Key moments unfold in seconds, while asides seem to last for minutes. And as for the play’s conclusion it is over in the blink of an eye, almost as if the dramatic action of the finale had not been given the same care and attention as elsewhere in the production.

Saying that, the show is well worth the night bus home, offering an evening of passion and surprise for even the most well-versed Shakespeare student. Scott’s is a Hamlet we can all relate to.

Runs until 2nd September

Reviewed by Heather Deacon

Photo credit Manuel Harlan

1984

Almeida Theatre, London

*****

By George Orwell
Adapted and created by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan

Mark Arends, (centre seated) and Company

This adaptation by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan of George Orwell's chillingly prescient classic, respects the story and its 65 year old heritage, yet gives it a disturbing relevance that speaks to our 21st century lives.

One wonders what Orwell would make of today’s multi-lane information superhighway. A world in which millions of digital fingerprints are left every day, creating a priceless seam of data to be mined or exploited by governments, corporations and bandits able to reach beyond the always outmoded and feeble data protection legislation. And that’s just here in the free West. Elsewhere dictatorships and fundamentalists across a spectrum of political and religious extremes tragically perpetuate the evils that Orwell’s oft quoted dystopian hell sought to mimic.

The Almeida’s co-production with Headlong and the Nottingham Playhouse is vivid and perceptive. Chloe Lamford’s set design shows meticulous detail in depicting Winston Smith’s world, details that literally fall away after his arrest, with the stark screened whiteness of Room 101 being so bleak that Smith’s blood, shed during harrowing torture scenes, provides a shocking splash of colour. Ingeniously Lamford deploys large video screens across every scene, graphically promoting the reality that Big Brother is watching everything.

Mark Arends’ Smith embodies the flawed everyman that Orwell intended and his grappling with desire, love and betrayal, against a backdrop of the pernicious Thought Police is as plausible as is his pain during torture that is almost unbearable to witness. Onstage throughout the single act 100 minute play, his performance is a flawless demonstration of his craft. Provoking and breaking Smith, Tim Dutton’s O’Brien is almost a cliché, were it not that the spook he represents is just so believably manipulative. Hara Yannas’ Julia, who loves Smith and yet who betrays him, as he betrays her under duress, gets the balance spot on in her character’s ambiguity.

Deservedly sold out, the play holds a mirror to our fractured world. That our democratic society provides a forum in which theatre such as 1984, together with the political debate it sparks, can thrive, is a liberty that in itself should be cherished. In far too many nations, the worst aspects of Orwell’s grim fantasy remain a terrible reality. 

Runs to 29th March 2014