Giant - Review

Harold Pinter Theatre, London

***

Written by Mark Rosenblatt

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

John Lithgow

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Back in October 2024, when Giant premiered at the Royal Court, this website declared John Lithgow a likely Olivier contender for his world-class interpretation of Roald Dahl, in Mark Rosenblatt’s new play. And so it was that the Olivier award came to pass, together with numerous other gongs that have been bestowed upon this production. And while Giant's cast were impressive at the Court, they are equally impressive in the West End with all the key players remaining  other than Romola Garai who is stunningly replaced by Aya Cash in the role of Dahl’s American publisher, Jessie Stone.

While the production values remain exquisite and the acting world class and Rosenblatt’s words still pack a tightly constructed 2+ hours, the quality of the drama that he has created remains highly-debatable. As this website set out last year, Giant lacks a base objectivity. 

Rosenblatt (and Hytner?) rightly highlight Dahl’s vicious antisemitism and the evil of his appalling conflation of Israel’s actions as being the ultimate responsibility of the entire Jewish people. But for all that signalled virtue, there remains a failure to effectively posit or argue any explanation whatsoever (save for a brief passing nod by Stone in act one) for Israel’s military actions, with the play remaining an unbalanced soapbox for anti-Israel tropes. And from there it becomes all too easy for audiences to take the writer's evident Israel-sceptic stance and translate his comments, drawn from a 1982 conflict between Israel and Lebanon, onto a critique of today's current military action in Gaza.

Giant offers quite possibly the finest acting in town, matched only by a premise that is as deeply flawed.

Runs until 2nd August

Photo credit: Johan Persson

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

A Knock On The Roof - Review

Royal Court Theatre, London

*

Written by Khawla Ibraheem

Directed by Oliver Butler

Khawla Ibraheem

Khawla Ibraheem is Mariam, a young widow in Gaza and mother to the pre-teen Nour. The play's title refers to the sound made by small projectiles dropped by the Israeli military to signal an impending attack and to allow individuals to run for cover.

In her 75-minute one-act monologue Ibraheem offers little considered analysis of the Gazan conflict. Understandably, Mariam dreads the incoming missiles and bombs, and outlines in verbal detail the images of the region’s destruction that have already saturated Western media. However she makes no comment at all on the possible embedding of Hamas militia amongst Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and communities, a practice that exposes vulnerable non-combatants to lethal harm. Similarly, while we know that Hamas had constructed a network of tunnels underneath Gaza, Ibraheem is again silent when it comes to pleading for these tunnels to be deployed as air-raid shelters.

One can only ponder as to why the Gazan authorities appeared to have been so content to risk the lives of their citizens, and equally why Ibraheem is so reluctant to criticise their stance?

Culminating in a predictable ending, A Knock On The Roof is more melodrama than message.

Runs until 8th March

Photo credit: Alex Brenner

Giant - Review

Royal Court Theatre, London

***

Written by Mark Rosenblatt

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

John Lithgow

Set in a bucolic summer’s afternoon in Buckinghamshire in 1983, amidst the drilling and banging of a country residence that’s being lovingly restored, Giant is a drama loosely based on facts, about the antisemitic views and writings of that hero of children’s literature, Roald Dahl.

Bearing a striking resemblance to how we recall Dahl from his appearances in the media, with perhaps a nod to JR Hartley too, John Lithgow makes his Royal Court debut as the author. His foils across the lunch table are real life publisher Tom Maschler (played by Elliot Levey) and the fictional Jessie Stone (Romola Garai), an agent from Dahl’s US publishing company. Dahl has recently published a book review, widely seen as antisemitic, and the two publishing professionals are there, over glasses of Chablis, to coax him into drafting an apology.

Mark Rosenblatt’s drama is tightly written. In what feels like a slightly overlong 2hrs 20mins, the pace never falters, with Rosenblatt’s dialogue proving well-structured and his characters, credible. Garai and Rachael Stirling, as Dahl’s Mitford-like fiancée Felicity Crosland are both outstanding. Levey plays a recognisably luke-warm diaspora Jew, not too bothered by Dahl’s pronouncements and more concerned with trying to smooth things over at all costs. Of the three supporting characters, his is perhaps the least compelling.

Lithgow’s work however is tremendous - and under the direction of Nicholas Hytner, turns in an Olivier-worthy performance.

But other than some smug references to Ian McEwan and the literary world of that time, ultimately what is the point of this play other than to provide a platform for Dahl’s rabid ravings? Giant drips with Dahl’s criticism of Israel (the 1982 Lebanon War was raging), with clear echoes of criticisms that have been levelled at the Jewish state in more recent times during the Gaza conflict. Unsurprisingly for the Royal Court there is little offered by way of challenge to Israel’s actions, although it ultimately has to prove some comfort that Dahl’s rants against Israel are coming from the same mind and mouth that throughout the play utter the vilest antisemitic slurs. There remains of course the sad but realistic possibility that much of that irony may have soared over the heads of many of the Royal Court’s audience.

That this is brilliantly crafted theatre is unquestionable. That it also provides a soapbox for countless tropes makes for an evening that is ultimately deeply unsatisfying.

Runs until 16th November

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Jews. In Their Own Words - Review

Royal Court Theatre, London

**

Written by Jonathan Freedland

From an idea by Tracy-Ann Oberman

Co-created by Vicky Featherstone, Tracy-Ann Oberman & Audrey Sheffield

Co-directed by Vicky Featherstone & Audrey Sheffield

The company of Jews.In Their Own Words

Jonathan Freedland’s verbatim play Jews. In Their Own Words sees a company of seven actors perform a hundred minute one-act verbatim drama that has been drawn from the words of twelve British Jews interviewed by Freedland earlier this year. It is their true stories that form the framework for much of this play that seeks to examine the history and present state of antisemitism.

The play is born from the Royal Court’s own troubled relationship with Jews. Smarting from being caught out over the stereotypical naming of a villainous billionaire in the Court’s 2021 production of Rare Earth Mettle (a non-Jewish character curiously named Hershel Fink, an admitted lapse that the Court blamed on “unconscious bias” before renaming the character as Henry Finn) Freedland was swiftly hired by the theatre to expiate their sins, taking Tracy Ann-Oberman’s original idea and setting it to paper.

The dozen interviewees who include politicians Dame Margaret Hodge (played by Debbie Chazen) and Luciana Berger (Louisa Clein) all brought sound testimony, some of it terrifyingly mundane in the racism they spoke of and much of it harrowing. What these individuals have suffered and endured is not to be criticised at all. It is however Freedland’s stitching together of their stories that has created a flawed play.

The flaws lie in the structure of the piece that at times relies too heavily on exposition, lacking dramatic initiative. The historical depictions of the tragedies of York and Lincoln are treated with a patronizing simplicity that diminishes their horror and equally, a musical number that pops up half-way through the work is both incongruous and childish. If one is going to satirise Jews on stage and in song then recognise that both Monty Python and Mel Brooks have done it before, to perfection. Freedland’s verse pales in comparison.

And then there are the glaring omissions and bias of Freedland’s work in a play that may have been better titled Some Jews. In Their Own Words. Those of his original twelve whose political stance was known, were all from the Left. It may well be the Labour Party that has had to challenge its own problems with antisemitism, but in excluding Jews from the other shades of our political spectrum, where was the balance? The clumsy and dangerous impression that has been created here is that political antisemitism only exists on the Left.

Where was the reference to the ghastly, commonplace antisemitism that so many Jewish students face on campus today? And where was any reference at all to the vile antisemitism that sees frequent calls for the destruction of the State Of Israel and which was so clearly thrown into relief last year, with calls in London for the murder of Jews and the rape of Jewish women? 

Notwithstanding Hodge’s remarkable and tragic personal history, where was there any argument to counter her harsh criticism of modern Israel? By all means let Dame Margaret have her opinion, but for Freedland to have omitted any balanced debate on current Israeli policies simply letting Hodge’s criticisms stand as an unquestioned truth, could be charitably described as his own unconscious bias. Others may call it a useful idiocy.

There has to be a good play waiting to emerge from Oberman’s original idea. This isn’t it.

Runs until 22nd October

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Teh Internet is Serious Business - Review

Royal Court Theatre, London

***

Written by Tim Price

Directed by Hamish Pirie

In 2011, a small group of hackers affiliated with Anonymous and calling themselves ‘LulzSec’ (a contraction of ‘laughing at security’) embarked on a short reign of mischief  targetting the websites of Fox, Sony, PBS and eventually the FBI and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency. At the heart of Teh Internet is Serious Business is the tale of LulzSec's youngest members – teenagers Jake Davis and Mustafa Al-Bassam – as they are slowly drawn into an online world that seems to free them from the mundanity and struggle of reality.

But this is no conventional narrative drama. Without a computer or untidy bedroom in sight, Hamish Pirie and designer Chloe Lamford have re-imagined the dark underbelly of the internet as the protagonists themselves see it: a kaleidoscopic big-kids’ playground, complete with multi-coloured ball pit and bristling with anarchic energy. The world of the internet chatroom is literally brought to life, ‘Condescending Willy Wonka’ dances around with ‘Grumpy Cat’ and Rick Astley appears through a trapdoor any time someone is ‘Rickrolled’.

How well this central conceit works probably depends to a great extent on the audience’s familiarity and sympathy with internet culture (beginning with the in-joke of the misspelt title). Despite a handy glossary in the programme of hacker terminology and online memes, I’d have thought much of the piece would still be utterly baffling to a large number of people and indeed both directly in front of and behind me in the audience were people aged 50 and over, neither group returning after the interval.

For those more versed in the culture, the necessary spoon feeding of various concepts and conceits felt a touch episodic at times. The first half, in particular, feels more like a series of sketches – Memes! Pirate Bay! Anonymous! Trolling! – and after the audience has got over the initial bursts of energy there is a danger that ‘acting out’ every last chatroom post and hack can start to have a slightly simplistic feel to it. 

The fifteen strong cast are uniformly excellent, but the nature of the piece leaves most dealing in stereotypes and clichés. Whilst the onstage madness does a wonderful job of representing the anarchy of the internet, it offers little chance to invest in any of the characters. Kevin Guthrie and Hamza Jeetooa bring warmth and humanity to the two teenage hackers and Sargon Yelda is excellent in a variety of roles – the best as a man whose life is turned upside down by hackers and who, in the play’s funniest song, is mocked for using the same password for every online account.

Teh Internet is Serious Business is at times very funny, wonderfully energetic and even genuinely poignant. There is, however, the slight suspicion that the overall concept, brilliant and ingenious as it is, leaves some fascinating and moving human stories only half told.

Runs until 25th October 2014