A Christmas Carol - Review

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon


****


By Charles Dickens
A new adaptation by David Edgar
Directed by Rachel Kavanaugh

Phil Davis

This year's seasonal offering in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is a grand affair as David Edgar (it was he who famously adapted Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby for the company back in 1980) tackles A Christmas Carol. The classic fable is timeless in its tale of Ebenezer Scrooge who is forced to re-discover his compassion and humanity. What concerns Edgar however is that some of the book’s rich social commentary upon the time may have been been lost over the decades and this 2017 adaptation seeks to redress that balance.

Edgar’s trick is to frame the story as a spin-out of dialogue between Dickens himself (as a young man in his 30s, played by Nicholas Bishop) and John Forster, the author's editor and friend played by Beruce Kahn. It is a novel conceit that serves well to remind us of the inhuman poverty of the time along with the widespread and crippling exploitation of very young children employed in the nation’s factories. But in his history lesson, Edgar does us a disservice –Dickens’ prose spoke of the harshness of his time through a beautiful (and quintessentially English) dynamic of understatement, allowing his carefully crafted text to paint the picture. Here, as Dickens and Forster occasionally explain the show’s context in their exchanges, Edgar’s script feels lazy and patronising and, to the purists, a distraction. And as for those references to Snapchat, Uber, Tinder and Boris Johnson - they seem crass and shallow in a show that other than its Christmas scheduling is anything but a pantomime.

The casting however is exquisite. Phil Davis’ Scrooge captures the miserly callousness of the old usurer. The story is traditionally set in London and there is more than a hint of Wilfred Brambell’s Steptoe to Davis’ gnarled anti-hero. Actually, that’s no bad thing, because the tragic pathos of Scrooge’s loneliness is one of the show’s underlying drivers and as Dickens' four ghosts guide him on his path to redemption, Davis cleverly lets the petals of Scrooge’s humanity unfold.

But bah humbug! The full depth and breadth of the RSC's main house is put to fine use and even if the projections are a little cranky, Stephen Brimson Lewis’ scenery and Ben Hart’s illusions are a treat. The cast too offer up a fine interpretation of the festive favourite. Vivien Parry pops up as numerous characters throughout the tale including an enchanting Ghost Of Christmas Past (as well as a wonderfully crotchety elderly aunt). Gerard Carey and Emma Pallant break our hearts with their passionate dignity as Bob Cratchit and his wife, while on press night, the sweetly voiced young Jude Muir made fine work of Tiny Tim.

Rachel Kavanaugh has created quality theatre with A Christmas Carol – the show’s visuals offer a hint of magic – and there is much of our nation’s troubled social history to consider too. But above all, the story’s traditional message of the healing powers of love, warmth and kindness shines through. The people of Stratford are well served this Christmas.

Runs until 4th February 2018

Photo by Manuel Harlan (c) RSC

King Lear - Review

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon


*****


Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Gregory Doran

Nia Gwynne, Natalie Simpson, Antony Sher and Kelly Williams

William Shakespeare's tragedy depicting the 17th Century King's descent into madness has been given a pared down, modern retelling by director Gregory Doran in this new production at the RSC. The audience draw is clearly Antony Sher, taking on the eponymous role (the Stratford run is apparently returns only) but this production has much to commend it.

King Lear decides to abdicate & divide his kingdom between his three daughters. He asks each of them to make a public declaration of their love for him. When his youngest daughter, Cordelia, (Natalie Simpson) refuses, she is disinherited, marries the King of France with no dowry & the elder daughters Goneril (Nia Gwynne) & Regan (Kelly Williams) inherit. And so the story of destruction begins. 

From the outset, the seemingly monastic set, looming bare brick walls & a huge rear iron door, invite us to the openness of the Swan stage. Set designer Niki Turner has created a world of angles, cubes & clean simplicity. The costumes would not look out of place on a couture runway; the female gowns are artful, flowing but with bodice structure or faux breastplates, rhinestone embellishment or matte sequin "armour". However exquisite, the costumes never overshadow the actors but seem to empower them.

When Antony Sher enters, carried aloft within a gilt glass box, enveloped in an enormous fur coat and hat, he looks majestically ursine. His Lear appears huge when the audience first encounters him, both in stature and arrogance. Sher proceeds to disintegrate before our eyes, mentally and physically, totally engaging the audience throughout the 3 hour duration. Even within the play's unremitting bleakness, Sher keeps the man behind the monarch the pivotal focus.

An exciting and diverse cast move across the stage seamlessly. Doran's deft direction allows the actors' performances to flourish, unencumbered, allowing Shakespeare's text to sing. This is a version vicious, visceral and venomous.

James Clyde as the Duke Of Cornwall and Kelly William's Regan open Act 2 with a scene of torture, which is bold but quite brilliant in the way the actors convey the utter callousness and casual acceptance of their evil. He takes out a man's eyes as the blood drips through his hands and she stabs a servant who protests as if crushing a spider. In a neon glass torture chamber cube, centre stage, they are delightfully despicable. Tim Mitchell's lighting is akin to an unnamed character here, highlighting the macabre.

David Troughton brings a heartfelt realism to the Earl of Gloucester, a man who disinherits his legitimate son Edgar and believing the lies of his bastard son Edmund, is forced into hiding to save his life. His later scenes were poignant and physically compelling whilst cast-out in the unknown, dealing with blindness. 

Graham Turners' Fool has the commitment of an old Broadway hoofer with an infectious Northern confidence. Both actors have integral scenes with Sher's Lear that are so warm & connected, you completely believe the relationships of these men are endearingly enduring.

As Edgar, Oliver Johnstone is tremendously exciting, using every inch of the stage, blood stained, conveying a manic craziness to his very toenails. Johnstone's physical acting is bold & top notch. Concealing his true identity to his blinded father, you can almost smell the frustration and pain from Johnstone. Head in hands his body expresses as much as his words do.

And then there was Paapa Essiedu. He plays Edmund with such authority and conviction it's startling. His delightful diction makes bullets of choice words; he brings a modern voice to this Shakespeare text as if hearing the speeches anew. When you feel like someone's up on the stage just chatting with you, something good is happening. Mr Essiedu does that. And the audience lapped it up. 

Sher is outstanding in this marvellous rendition but what elevates this production is the cast working together in harmony, telling a well-told tale, in a new and vibrant way. Truly a great night at the theatre.

Runs in Stratford upon Avon until 23rd October, then transferring to the Barbican Theatre London from 10th November to 23rd December

Reviewed by Andy Bee

Photo credit : Ellie Kurttz

Hamlet - Review

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon


****


Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Simon Godwin

Paapa Essiedu

As the lights come up on Simon Godwin’s Hamlet with Marcellus and Barnardo keeping watch on Elsinore’s perimeter, there are crickets chirping. For whilst Denmark has always been fixed in a traditionally chilly Scandinavia this show shifts it to Africa, a continent infamous for corrupt and despotic regimes. Claudius’ murderous reign is well suited to the territory – and as the production plays out against Paul Wills’ stunning drapes and beautifully sourced Africana, one senses that where some 22 years ago Disney’s Lion King famously and ingeniously shifted this timeless plot to the Dark Continent, so, in Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary, does the RSC proudly endorse the location. 

The little known Paapa Essiedu plays the Prince, rising magnificently to the role. Essiedu’s take on the prose is beautifully nuanced, handling some of the most famous lines in the canon with a youthful confidence that is revelatory. Rarely have I been so moved by the “nunnery” exchange with Ophelia, whilst his “Alas, poor Yorick” flowed with the natural rhythm that Shakespeare imbued into the iambic, long before the text became a cliché.

Godwin has his actor splattered with paint throughout most of the first half’s “madness” and the exaggerated visual depiction of Hamlet’s antic disposition works well. After the interval as Essiedu, bare-chested, confronts Gertrude in the closet, there were gasps from the audience at the actor’s impressive physique.

For the most part Essiedu is blessed with playing off an excellent company. Clarence Smith’s Claudius skilfully avoids melodrama as the extent of his fratricidal wickedness is gradually revealed, whilst Tanya Moodie’s Gertrude (glamorous and in sunglasses at Ophelia’s funeral) offers up the classiest African Queen since John Huston’s Oscar winner. 

Natalie Simpson’s Ophelia breaks our hearts with her mental decline, alongside Ewart James Walters who in the traditional double-casting of Ghost/Gravedigger, is superb. To many there will be more than a hint of Mufasa in his murdered King, whilst Walters’ patois-inflected Gravedigger is comedy gold.

Cyril Nri captures Polonius' pontificating pomposity perfectly as Marcus Griffiths’ Laertes, whose return to Elsinore is via a helicopter-dropped abseil captures the righteous indignation of vengeful son and brother. The play's final fight, between Laertes and Hamlet, is staged in this production with a breathtaking use of staves in place of swords. A mention here for Kevin McCurdy’s perfectly choreographed fight direction and even more so for Mbulelo Ndabeni’s movement work, across the company, that so adds to the African setting sealed by Sola Akingbola’s deliciously drum-heavy musical accompaniment.   

This being Africa, the cast is black with the exception of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. These most celebrated of Shakespeare’s inept and inadequates (James Cooney and Bethan Cullinane respectively) are here played as white English. The message is clear – that England’s imperial bunglings into Africa have been naïve and crass. The argument may not be to everyone’s taste, but it sweetly suits the tone of this production. 

Unencumbered with the overblown expectations of a stunt-cast star in the title role, this is the best Hamlet in years having been given such a finely worked interpretation. This is an inspired and memorable production that plays in repertory until the summer. Broadcast to cinemas in June – don’t miss it!

Runs until 13th August - And in cinemas from 8th June

Queen Anne - Review

Swan Theatre, Stratford upon Avon


****


Written by Helen Edmundson
Directed by Natalie Abrahami

Natascha McElhone and Emma Cunniffe

Commissioned by the RSC, Queen Anne is a new play by Helen Edmundson, directed by Natalie Abrahami in her debut season at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Little is known about Anne's 12 year reign and Edmundson creates an intricate, intriguing and intelligent portrait of the Queen. She also captures a poignant observation upon the friendship between Anne and   Sarah Churchill, later Duchess of Marlborough.

What emerges is a neatly written play that moves the audience from deep laughter to overwhelmed silence in the same scene. With its satirical ballads, its perfectly directed staging and, most of all, a witty and sharp text, Queen Anne shows a not-so-common ability to depict a credible and colourful image of the politics and human condition of the time.

Intriguingly, Edmundson also creates two of the fiercest female roles to have been seen on stage in some time. Her look at the development of Emma Cunniffe’s Anne and Natascha McElhone’s Sarah and of their friendship (and eventually of its end) is a moving and mesmerizing experience encompassing love, betrayal and sacrifice.

Cunniffe embodies suffering, both physical and emotional as her Anne is divided between her duties as Queen and her heart and feelings as friend, whilst McElhone's Sarah offers a bewitching crescendo of emotions.  

Jonathan Broadbent delivers a scheming Robert Harley, representing the emergent political world and providing a link between the Anne's court and the outside world of the Inns of Court, Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift. 

The production's flamboyance – especially in the choral and satirical scenes – owes much to the creative vision of Movement Director Ann Yee.

Helen Edmundson has delivered a fascinating and gripping historical comment. Queen Anne proves to be a story that has needed to have been told and which demands to be seen.

Runs until 23rd January 2016

Guest reviewer: Simona Negretto

Photo Credits: Manuel Harlan

Henry V - Review

Barbican Theatre, London


As The RSC open their Henry V at London's Barbican Theatre, here is my 4* review of that production from its opening at Stratford upon Avon in September 2015.

And this link is to my interview with the company's rising star, Alex Hassell.

****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Greg Doran

Alex Hassell

In a time of celebrity cast Shakespeare productions, it is a pleasure to observe Greg Doran’s take on Henry V and see not so much a band of brothers, but rather a company of craftsmen offering one of the most intelligent interpretations of this complex play in recent years.

Famously seized upon by directors as a platform for political comment, Henry V has often been rolled out as a platform (sorry, make that a bandwagon) to voice opinion upon contemporary conflict. On screen Olivier’s Harry sought to rally the nation as the 1944 Normandy landings loomed, whilst in 2003 as war raged in Iraq, Adrian Lester’s dusty jeep sped onto the Olivier stage, drawing Nick Hytner’s line in the sand as he acceded to the National’s directorship. 

But in this show, today’s politics are sidelined in place of comment on the universal compromises that war imposes upon humanity. Doran eschews all sense of contemporary tub-thumping in place of well honed drama and lets the Bard’s verse speak to its own strengths. Broadly staged in period garb, apart from Oliver Ford Davies’ marvellous Chorus, clad in modern dress, setting out Stratford’s cockpit whilst the House lights stay on, this is an un-pretentious Henry V.

Marking a natural progression from his Prince Hal in both parts of Doran’s Henry IV, Alex Hassell accedes to the throne and his performance is a thing of beauty. Having observed his development in the preceding plays, his Henry matures before our eyes as the responsibilities of inspirational monarchy weigh upon him. Hassell brings a heroic handsome humility to the role that sheaths a steely spine. His Henry’s pragmatic ruthlessness is as credible in dealing with the traitors at Southampton, as it is in the famously troubling (and often excised) command that his troops should kill their French prisoners. 

Hassell’s handling of the St Crispin’s Day speech is majestic yet free of pomposity and condescension, whilst his  entreaties to his troops to treat the defeated French with decency ring with an envious integrity.

Robert Gilbert’s Dauphin needs work – it’s a complex role to carry off and he’s not quite there yet in suspending our disbelief. Elsewhere there is a fine company work to support Hassell’s Harry. Joshua Richards’ Bardolph/Fluellen offers impressive soldiers’ perspectives both on conflict and upon dutiful service. In a minor role, Sam Marks’ (who only recently played Happy opposite Hassell's Biff in the RSC's Death Of A Salesman) French Constable shone out as a beacon of credibility, whilst Jane Lapotaire’s Queen Isobel, in the briefest of speeches, defines with dignity France’s pain in defeat and her nation’s hopes for the future.

As ever, the RSC's stagecraft is world class with Stephen Brimson Lewis’ use of projections and eerily effective understage lighting in his set designs proving particularly effective.

Shortly to move to London’s Barbican Theatre, one suspects that like a fine wine, this already impressive production play will only improve with time. 

Setting politics aside, this Henry V offers up a perspective on war that speaks to us all.


Runs until 30 November 2015

Then runs during January 2016 as part of The RSC's Great Cycle of Kings

Alex Hassell In Conversation

As the RSC cycle of Shakespeare's Histories arrives at London’s Barbican Theatre, Alex Hassell appears first as Hal in Henry IV Pts 1 & 2, before maturing into the series' Henry V.  

35 years old and with enviably chiselled features, whilst not yet a household name, Hassell is commanding increasing respect. It was only last month that he achieved a podium finish as a Best Supporting Performance nominee in the 2015 UK Theatre awards for his portrayal of Biff in the RSC's acclaimed revival of Death Of A Salesman.

Shortly before Henry V opened, I interviewed Alex at the RSC’s London rehearsal rooms, to learn a little more about this impressive young performer and to talk about his Hal, Henry and Biff.

Alex Hassell as Hal in Henry IV Pt ii

Jonathan: Tell me about the career journey that has brought you to the RSC

Alex: I grew up in Essex. When I was 12, I went to see a musical called The Rock Nativity and just instantly knew that I wanted to be an actor. 

Near where I lived there was just musicals. There weren't many straight plays, so I grew up just spending every spare moment dancing lessons and singing lessons and all of that. Dozens of musicals and then went to the Junior Guildhall School of Music and Drama on Saturdays and started to get into Shakespeare and was Hamlet at school when I was about seventeen and where I had a brilliant English teacher, Mrs Stroud, who really inspired the whole class.

From there I went to train at the Central School of Speech and Drama and after a while I was lucky enough to end up at the Globe where I played in Mark Rylance’s last season. That was a massive, massive deal for me. It led to Tim Carroll and myself setting up The Factory Theatre Company in 2006 which presents an alternative take on Shakespeare. Our work was well received with a strong following – and that was where I was ultimately noticed by The RSC.

Jonathan: The transition from Prince Hal in the Henry IV plays, to King Henry V is rarely performed by the same actor these days. What are your observations on accomplishing this development?

Alex: Of course it has been done before – though when we get to the Barbican and you can see Richard II, Henry IV i & ii and Henry V in like three or four days. I don't know if they’ve necessarily done that. 

To be honest I would find it really strange, the notion of just playing Henry V because there's so much that is to do with it being the guy that was just Hal in Henry IV i & ii becoming Henry V. That to me seems massively what the play is about, or what his journey is about anyway.

It's very, fascinating, because the idea, I believe, that Hal was a wayward youth is Shakespeare's invention. Also, the speech at the beginning of Henry IV pt i about, "I know you all, and will awhile uphold The unyoked humour of your idleness ... " About the idea that he's biding his time or whatever, or he's undercover, or something like that and that he's then going to amaze everyone at a later date when he turns it all around. That where that is paying off in the course of the three plays and where that becomes true, if it wasn't true in the first place, I think is very interesting. 

I think if you don't do both parts of Henry IV then Hal's relationship to God is different, Hal's relationship with going to France would be is different, because there are different motives suggested for going to France and for me it seems very useful to remember that as Henry V, my father's dying wishes were that I go to France and that I galvanize the kingdom behind me through that action.

Having Hal be the same person shows his change. He develops and grows as a person, but it's not like it's a different person. It's the same person, so his vulnerability and frailty and self-doubt and at times, I think, self-loathing, fear and dissatisfaction and not wanting to be there, not wanting to be in that role is all still in there somewhere, but he cannot allow it to overwhelm him.

Hassell as Henry V

Jonathan: How do you see that Henry V speaks to Britain today from the perspectives of royalty, monarchy and conflict?

Alex: I think that we've discovered looking through it that it's a play about the cost of war. I don't think it's pro-war. I think in some areas the characters are pro-war and in some areas the characters are anti-war and the same characters can be both.

I don't think the play comes down either way, but I think it's exploring the complexities of war and that what it takes to lead people to war. What it costs you and costs them and why people might go to war. The differing reasons that people might go to war and how maybe God and things like that can be appropriated into those missions. I think it asks more questions than it answers, so I don't think it speaks to us these days in terms of saying, "This is what we are saying. This is what the play is saying about war."

Or take the Governor of Harfleur, for example and what would you do if a king was saying this to you and was threatening to kill and rape your women? What would you do? Would you give up or not? I think that's what the play is asking of us and I think that is an incredibly universal and a timeless set of questions really. I'm really pleased that we're not setting it in a particular time really, or not applying it to a certain war. In fact, we're unusual as a production of Henry V that there's not a war that we are currently fighting that this would be a mirror to, which I think is good. 

Jonathan: You've performed with Sir Antony Sher a great deal now. Can you describe working with him? 

Alex: He's an amazing actor, obviously. Incredibly detailed and his work, his dedication and the sort of hours he puts in and the focus he has on every tiny little detail is really very impressive. He sort of carves out a kind of astonishing statue. He essentially starts with a big block and carves out these tiny, tiny little details so by the end you see this full picture. I think he wants to breathe life into that picture every time, but not deviate too much from it because it's a full, fully realized and extremely well put together and well crafted portrait of a person, whereas I am much more chaotic! It was very exciting for me to be riffing with someone of Tony's ability and quality obviously, but I think it was exciting for him too, to every now and then go, "Oh, I'm out of my comfort zone. I don't know what happens if we do this. I don't know where we end up." It's exciting to throw one another at each other's mercy, especially in Death of a Salesman, which is immensely emotionally fraught and connected.

Antony Sher as Willy Loman (l) w Hassell as Biff

Jonathan: And a complete change of tack for you with your portrayal of Biff in Death of a Salesman, again opposite Sher as Willy Loman. Tell me about taking that 1940’s character into 2015 and what do you think he’s saying? 

Alex: I guess, I don't know about my take on Biff, but I guess the play's take on Biff is, which for an actor is a very useful thing to think about, is to just attempt to be okay with who you are. To do the old AA thing, or whatever. “Change what you think you can change and be okay with the things that you can't change.” If only Willie had learned to do that. Biff I think is trying to do that. I think that is Biff's desire in the play, really, is to find out who he is and try and be okay with who he is. It becomes so moving. It is truly one of the best plays ever written.

Why I want to be an actor is to be given the privilege to get up in front of people and attempt to express and embody the things that they are embarrassed about themselves to have known to other people.

There were a number of times when I would come out of the stage door and young people would want me to hold them because they had felt Biff had represented them and would be crying and would ask me to talk to them about it, which was astonishing really.

Some young people feel and I completely understand, feel lost and feel that they can't live up to the pressure that the world, or their parents, or themselves are putting onto them. I feel that myself as an actor. I put myself under an enormous pressure as an actor and I can fail my own idea of what I think I should be very frequently. It was interesting. I can understand what they're saying.

And then there would be times when we would come out and there would be older men that might have wanted to say something but couldn’t speak because they were so moved. Sometimes they might just say something like, "He was just like someone I know." That was all they'd say.

Lots of people have lots of ways into that play. If you are someone struggling to live up to an idea of yourself. If you are a maligned younger sibling, or an older sibling, or whatever. If you're a partner who's trying to keep the family together despite it spiraling out of control.If you're a next door neighbor or a friend who knows people you don't know how to help, but you can see that something ... If you began to unpick them they would crumble, so what do you do? You just stand by in horror and see it happen. Yes, I feel very moved by being given the opportunity to attempt to live up to that play and embody that play for audiences because it has such power.

I feel very profoundly proud to have been part of something seemed to have the capacity to move people in the way that it did.

Jonathan: And the future. ?

Alex: Ah… of course I would love to play Hamlet in a production with stuff!

It's interesting. I'm a lot older now, and actually my dad has died since I last did it at The Factory, and not that I have a desire to use that or anything like that, but it would be very interesting to have that in my life experience now if that were ever to come up again.

I can be in the bath and suddenly realize that I'm going over the lines of, just sort of exploring them. Hamlet is a play that constantly comes back. You can't ever get it all. You can't ever work it out and pin it all down, and that's what's so amazing about it.

Jonathan: What was your take as someone who today is leading an RSC company in one of Shakespeare's major plays, on the recent publicity that surrounded the Cumberbatch Hamlet?

Alex: I think any hype about theatre is probably a good thing though I do think the critics shouldn't have gone in before they were supposed to.

I would love to be in Benedict Cumberbatch's position and I hope to be one day, and I'm still striving to do so, but there's something I find pleasurable in no one knowing who I am…

Jonathan: Not exactly no one….

Alex: What it feels like at the moment is that I'll go and play Henry V and I know that there are a certain number of the audience that will have seen the other things that I’ve done and are there, hopefully, because they're excited of the notion of me playing Henry V, and that's great. But I know that I've got to this position because Greg Doran thinks I'm good enough to be there.

And that’s good enough for me.

Henry V - Review

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford

****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Greg Doran

Alex Hassell

In a time of celebrity cast Shakespeare productions, it is a pleasure to observe Greg Doran’s take on Henry V and see not so much a band of brothers, but rather a company of craftsmen offering one of the most intelligent interpretations of this complex play in recent years.

Famously seized upon by directors as a platform for political comment, Henry V has often been rolled out as a platform (bandwagon) to voice an opinion upon contemporary conflict. On screen Olivier’s Harry sought to rally the nation as the 1944 Normandy landings loomed, whilst in 2003 as war raged in Iraq, Adrian Lester’s dusty jeep sped onto the Olivier stage to draw Nick Hytner’s line in the sand as he became the National’s director. 

But in this show, today’s politics are sidelined in place of comment on the universal compromises that war imposes upon humanity. Doran eschews all sense of contemporary tub-thumping in place of well honed drama and lets the Bard’s verse speak to its own strengths. Broadly staged in period garb, apart from Oliver Ford Davies’ marvellous Chorus, clad in modern dress, setting out Stratford’s cockpit whilst the House lights stay on, this is an un-pretentious Henry V.

Marking a natural progression from his Prince Hal in both parts of Doran’s Henry IV, Alex Hassell accedes to the throne and his performance is a thing of beauty. Having observed his development in the preceding plays, his Henry matures before our eyes as the responsibilities of inspirational monarchy weigh upon him. Hassell brings a heroic handsome humility to the role that sheaths a steely spine. His Henry’s pragmatic ruthlessness is as credible in dealing with the traitors at Southampton, as it is in the famously troubling (and often excised) command that his troops should kill their French prisoners. 

Hassell’s handling of the St Crispin’s Day speech is majestic yet free of pomposity and condescension, whilst his  entreaties to his troops to treat the defeated French with decency ring with an envious integrity.

Robert Gilbert’s Dauphin needs work – it’s a complex role to carry off and he’s not quite there yet in suspending our disbelief. Elsewhere there is a fine company work to support Hassell’s Harry. Joshua Richards’ Bardolph/Fluellen offers impressive soldiers’ perspectives both on conflict and upon dutiful service. In a minor role, Sam Marks’ (who only recently played Happy opposite Hassell's Biff in the RSC's Death Of A Salesman) French Constable shone out as a beacon of credibility, whilst Jane Lapotaire’s Queen Isobel, in the briefest of speeches, defines with dignity France’s pain in defeat and her nation’s hopes for the future.

As ever, the RSC's stagecraft is world class with Stephen Brimson Lewis’ use of projections and eerily effective understage lighting in his set designs proving particularly effective.

Shortly to move to London’s Barbican Theatre, one suspects that like a fine wine, this already impressive production play will only improve with time. 

Setting politics aside, this Henry V offers up a perspective on war that speaks to us all.


Runs until 20th October

Volpone - Review

Swan Theatre, Stratford upon Avon


****


Written by Ben Jonson
Directed by Trevor Nunn

Annette McLaughlin and Henry Goodman

Trevor Nunn’s production of Volpone at the RSC's Swan sagely contends that the sins of greed and avarice are timeless. With Ben Jonson’s 17th century comedy set squarely in a modern Venice, if some of Ranjit Bolt’s occasional script revisions are schoolboy clumsy (silly references to Greece and the Euro pop up), they can be forgiven in a plot in which incredible complexities may not have weathered the test of time as much as the brilliant observation of the flawed human condition that makes this play so entertaining.

At the play’s core is Henry Goodman’s titular oleaginous oligarch. Prosperously tanned and every inch a convincingly very rich man, Goodman channels his Auric Goldfinger, Albert Steptoe (there's even a hint of a betrayed Max Bialystock at the end of act one) into a masterful performance. Goodman's first appearance in Stratford since his 2003 Richard III, he works well under Nunn’s direction – and his devious deception of the circling townsfolk who crave his as yet un-bequeathed wealth is a fine performance of classical comedy. Aside from his commanding presence, Goodman’s rapid costume changes, grotesque make-up and sublime voice work – his/Volpone’s Scoto the Mountebank alone justifies the ticket price – make for a display of stunning stagecraft.

Matthew Kelly’s Corvino, married to the beautiful Celia who Volpone desires, offers up a delicious caricature of monstrous misogyny as he views his trophy wife as little more than a consumable artefact in his pursuit of Volpone’s wealth. Rhiannon Handy’s Celia is a pleasing turn, but it is Annette McLaughlin’s Lady Politic Would-Be who steals scenes. McLaughlin’s character is also on the trail of Volpone’s wealth and her WAG-inspired performance, all glamour and selfies, is as gloriously clichéd in its conception as her applause-winning delivery is outstanding.

Orion Lee’s Mosca, Volpone’s assistant (reminding me initially of a slimmed down Goldfinger’s Oddjob) puts in a hard-working shift, but with a performance that jars slightly. No doubt this will settle down into the run.

There are some neat touches. Stephen Brimson Lewis’ minimalist set includes a stock exchange crawler that allows Volpone to track his own corporation’s share price, (code “VLP” natch), whilst Jon Key, Ankur Bahl and Julian Hoult as Volpone’s dwarf, hermaphrodite and eunuch respectively, make high camp fun of their scene-setting parts, amidst some witty rap routines.

Women may be marginalised in this celebration of bumbling buffoonery, but Volpone’s cynical observation that “conscience is a beggar’s virtue” can ring as true today as in Jonson’s era. With high camp farce and a classy lampooning both of the rich and those who fawn upon them, Volpone is well worth a summer’s visit to Stratford.

Runs until 12th September 2015

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.  

Death Of A Salesman - Review

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon

*****

Written by Arthur Miller

Directed by Greg Doran

Harriet Walter and Antony Sher

To read my interview with Harriet Walter and her analysis of the role of Linda, click here

Death Of A Salesman not only marks the centenary of Arthur Miller’s birth, but in Greg Doran’s production being staged over Shakespeare’s April birthday, is also the RSC’s jewel in its 2015 crown.

Widely acclaimed as the greatest American play, we witness a meticulous dissection of the last 24 hours of Willy Loman’s life. His sales are flagging, buyers won’t see him anymore and he has been reduced to “commission only” by his young and ruthless boss Howard, a man who (in one of many moments of Miller’s cruel perception) Willy has watched grow up from boyhood to inherit his family's business. The mounting finance bills on car (and hellishly, even the refrigerator) remind us of the domestic pressures that Antony Sher's Willy can never escape.

As guilt and failure take their toll on Loman, we see early on how wise his wife (Harriet Walter's Linda) is to his confusion. “Your mind is overactive, and the mind is what counts, dear.” But she is being kind. As act one unfolds, Harriet Walter delivers one of the most devastating female performances, telling sons Biff and Happy that not only is she fully aware of Willy’s suicidal depression, but that she cannot let him know that she knows, for such a revelation would destroy him. Linda’s strength as a wife and mother, desperate to glue her family together is a recognisable pain and as Walter spoke, the sobbing around the auditorium was profound.

Miller is merciless as he twists the knife into Loman’s last desperate hours. As Biff again disappoints him, the true depths of Willy’s guilt and shame are revealed, whilst Happy (Sam Marks convincing as the shallow even if ultimately loving son, too easily led by his trousers) is happy to desert his desolate father in a restaurant, as he heads off in pursuit of women.

Loman’s descent will be recognised by all and quite possibly be familiar to many and yet along the way he encounters everyday kindnesses too. Linda’s love for her husband breaks our hearts, whilst Charley (a beautifully weighted performance from the lugubrious Joshua Richards) provides one of the most touching definitions of friendship ever penned. In the play’s Requiem, Charley’s eulogy echoes Horatio's "now cracks a noble heart" speech from Hamlet, as the old New Yorker says of Willy: 

”He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back — that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished.”

Nowhere else in the canon has the so-called “American dream” been so concisely revealed as the nightmare that it can so easily become.

Besides the faultless text, it is Doran’s company that mark this production as one of the greats. Sat at his kitchen table, the shoe-shining Sher defines Miller’s anti-hero for a new generation and as his mind unravels, Sher’s Loman is as brilliantly desperate as he is pitiful.

In a pairing that has seen Alex Hassell play Hal to Sher’s Falstaff, so is the younger man now Biff. Magnificent throughout, it is late into act two when Hassell, with minimal dialogue and outstanding acting, portrays a young man watching the rock that he had previously believed his father to be, crumble before his eyes. Watching the equal despair of the humiliated father and his devastated son, both now destroyed, is almost unbearable. 

Stephen Brimson Lewis’ powerfully overbearing set depicts a tenemented Brooklyn, the Lomans’ home, where nothing grows anymore – and as Miller has the play’s action flash between the years, so too does the staging mirror Loman’s muddled mind. Credit also to Tim Mitchell’s lighting and Paul Englishby’s music, both perfectly enhancing time and place.

In 1979 Miller described Warren Mitchell in Mitchel Rudman’s National Theatre production, as “definitive”. I saw the NT show more than once and Greg Doran’s version shares that pantheon. 

A tragedy that is timeless and epic and yet also everyman, Death Of A Salesman plays at Stratford, before an immediate transfer to London. The production is unmissable. Drama does not come better than this.

Plays at Stratford until 2nd May 2015. Then plays at the Noel Coward Theatre from 9th May until 18th July 2015

The Jew Of Malta - Review

Swan Theatre, Stratford upon Avon


****

Written by Christopher Marlowe
Directed by Justin Audibert

Jasper Britton

Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta play takes a tale of cunning and avarice, love and hypocrisy and strips it down to the basest of humanities at its core. Barabas  the Jew is a man for whom it is possible to feel both compassion and disgust.  He hadn’t chosen his calling, having first been a physician, then an engineer and finally a usurer.  Yet it is in that money-lending role that he is singled out by Ferneze, Malta’s Christian governor, to fill the island’s war chest or face conversion to Christianity. And as the Muslim Turks threaten Malta, so do we find Marlowe sketching out a contemporary, if troubling resonance, as the three Abrahamic faiths challenge each other

Justin Audibert’s intelligent production sees Jasper Britton give a warmth and joie de vivre to Barabas that one might not have expected from a man destined to ultimately wreak hideous revenge. Britton’s wiles and connivances serve only to endear him to the audience, whom he plays beautifully, with a string of raised eyebrows and intimately glanced asides. An unexpected counterpoint to the Jew is Ithamore, his Moorish slave. Lanre Malaolu bounces and clowns across the stage as we witness the slave perversely worming his way deeper into the affections of his master.

The threatening Turkish armada is led by Calymath, ably played by Marcus Griffith in true swashbuckling form. As the intrigues of the plot, riddled with treachery and deceit lead to an inevitably tragic conclusion, we witness the duplicity of inter-faith conflict alongside an even more painful intra-familial despair as Barabas and daughter Abigail, (sensitively and spiritedly played by Catrin Stewart) both come to despise the other, with fatal consequences.

Steven Pacey’s Ferneze displays a recognisable statesman-like duplicity, as he schemes both with and against Barabas to defend his nation, whilst we catch but a glimpse of Marlowe endorsing his own personal inclinations when Simon Hedger’s Merchant says ‘I count religion but a childish toy’.

In a production that thrills, Jonathan Girling’s music enhances proceedings. His introduction however of a 19th century klezmer sound, whose history derives from the European Ashkenazi Jewish community whereas Malta’s Jews hailed from a distinctly Mediterranean Sephardi heritage, does seem a little incongruous.

But elsewhere the detail invested in The Jew Of Malta is meticulous, manifest in the clarity, diction and playing of the company for whom neither a syllable nor glance is wasted. Bringing their world class style to this Elizabethan classic, with Lily Arnold’s plainest of sets proving a foil to magnificent costumes, The RSC again deliver magnificent theatre.

In repertory until 29th August 2015

Oppenheimer - Review

Swan Theatre, Stratford upon Avon

*****

Written by Tom Morton-Smith

Directed by Angus Jackson

John Heffernan and the company of Oppenheimer

The writer of Oppenheimer, Tom Morton-Smith recently tweeted that he wished he "could phone 2011 Tom and tell him that the play he's about to start writing looks pretty damn sweet on the Swan Theatre stage." That wish is well-founded, for his is a meticulously researched play, now directed by Angus Jackson, that offers an irresistible fusion of history, art and science. J. Robert Oppenheimer was the brilliant American physicist who led the team that developed the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. If Alan Turing's mathematical genius, in developing the Enigma machine, is credited with having ended the war in Europe, so too did Oppenheimer's work end the Pacific conflict. But where Turing's legacy was the advent of the digital age, Oppenheimer's Bomb, in his on-stage words, has left the world with “a loaded gun in the playground".

To an early rousing rendition of The Internationale, we learn of the scientist's early communist beliefs and of the commitment that he and his peers shared in opposing the fascism that threatened to engulf Europe. From that belief stemmed a commitment to harness the theories of Albert Einstein and design a bomb to drop on Spain and Germany, so powerful that it would not only end World War Two, but would end all wars thereafter...

Initially believing that they were in a race with the Germans to develop an atomic weapon, as the history plays out Oppenheimer's Project Manhattan team come to learn that not only are the Germans out of that race, but they also come to understand more of the devastating potential of the weapon they are building, with the play succinctly exploring the chain reaction that results from conscience and philosophy colliding with patriotism and occasionally, treachery too.

John Heffernan is Oppenheimer, in a tour de force of a dramatic creation the impact of which echoes the Antonioni Salieri that Peter Shaffer gave us in Amadeus. Heffernan captures the resolve and focus of the Jewish professor from New York, yet Morton-Smith embodies him with so much more detail. Emotionally crippled (and Heffernan tells achingly of how his teenage character was mercilessly bullied on camp one summer) we see his the power of his irresistible charm over women and yet also an emotional detachment that prevents him showing his newborn daughter any love. Apart from the mind-boggling science, displayed through clever equations scribbled on the stage floor, Oppenheimer's life offered a rich and varied seam of humanity that Morton-Smith has refined into a critical mass of literary genius.

Alongside Heffernan, all of this RSC company are sensational. Catherine Steadman plays Jean Tatlock, Oppenheimer's first and fatally flawed love, whilst in a performance that combines a hint of Lady Macbeth with the declining frailty of an alcoholic, Thomasin Rand's Kitty is another painful treat. William Gaminara's General Groves is every inch the military man, tasked with delivering the Bomb to the US forces, yet also responsible for managing the interface between the square-jawed servicemen and the floppy haired geniuses of the labs. On its own, this carefully crafted dynamic that evolves between the clipped yet perceptive fighting man and the professor, is worth the price of a ticket. Elsewhere, Michael Grady-Hall convinces as Oppenheimer's overshadowed sibling as Ben Allen and Tom McCall are noteworthy fellow scientists.

The enriched production values of the play define all that is spectacular in one of this nation's world-class theatre companies. Designer Robert Innes Hopkins offers a striking X-frame, thrust diagonally up and into the Swan's space. (And it's remarkable how in an auditorium so Shakespearean in its design, that such a profoundly modern story can be so comfortably accommodated.) As the Heath-Robinson like test bomb that was first detonated at Los Alamos is revealed being slowly winched up the steel frame (and the RSC have constructed a remarkable facsimile) the visual yet subtle horror of the infernal contraption is breathtaking. Paul Anderson lights the Swan perfectly, his lamps cleverly suggesting the intimacy of a cocktail party or the harsh sunlight of the rattlesnake infested Nevada desert. A nod too for the talented Grant Olding, whose music (enchantingly performed by a six piece gallery ensemble) only adds a further texture to the work.

Combining sex and drugs and science with the ultimate of killing machines, suggests that whether or not Oppenheimer transfers beyond Stratford (and it should), the RSC would do well to consider turning this play into a movie. Morton-Smith's work is a stunning opus of history and analysis told as the most fascinating, and ultimately horrifying, of stories.

Runs to 7th March 2015