The Deep Blue Sea - Review

Theatre Royal, Haymarket

*****

Written by Terence Rattigan

Directed by Lindsay Posner

Tamsin Greig

Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea is a minutely observed take on one day in the life of Hester Collyer. Middle aged and having suffered a failed marriage and a failing affair, we encounter Hester, prone on the floor of her tawdry Ladbroke Grove flat following yet another failure, this time in her attempt to kill herself. Lindsay Posner’s take on 1950s England delivers a sepia-tinged snapshot of social mores that have long since been discarded. But while life’s customs may have evolved and changed, the play’s underlying themes of passion and despair are timeless.

As the day unfolds we meet Hester’s landlady, neighbours, her husband and her lover, as the jigsaw pieces of her life are slowly revealed. Rattigan has a powerful and perceptive understanding of the human condition, with each of his characters carefully crafted as they impact onto the fraught and fragile Hester.

But more than just the sublime writing, the acting at the Theatre Royal Haymarket defines this production (a transfer in from the Theatre Royal Bath) as one of the finest dramas currently to be found on a London stage. Tamsin Greig is Hester, on stage throughout, in a performance that captures the complexities of her depression, self-loathing and desperate desire in the finest of detail. Never melodramatic, Greig delivers a masterclass in perfectly nuanced acting.

As her High Court judge husband Sir William and some years her senior, Nicholas Farrell turns in an equally assured performance of a complex love that still burns for his estranged wife, while Hadley Fraser’s Freddie, Hester’s younger lover, offers up a snapshot of a man battling his own demons.

The key supporting roles of Miller, a lapsed German doctor and Mrs Elton, the landlady of the house are perfectly and sensitively fleshed out by Finbar Lynch and Selina Cadell respectively, each contributing valuable colour to Rattigan’s harrowing palette. Peter McKintosh’s set is an understated masterpiece of 50’s austerity, perfectly lit by Paul Pyant.

Rattigan’s eye for English misery is unmatched, and under Posner’s direction and with Greig’s breathtaking performance, The Deep Blue Sea is unmissable theatre.

Runs until 21 June

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Alfred Hitchcock presents The Musical - Review

Theatre Royal, Bath

****

Original score by Steven Lutvak

Book by Jay Dyer

Directed by John Doyle

Sally Ann Triplett

A fabulous fusion of parody and style that is immaculately performed, Alfred Hitchcock presents – The Musical celebrates one of the greatest television series of the 1950s, arguably one of the foundation stones of television history, in a multi-faceted musical tribute.

Mounted on an open stage, (design credits shared between the production's accomplished director John Doyle and David L. Arsenault) with one vintage TV camera and a boom mic to set the scene accompanied by six suspended brute film lights, the monochrome colour scheme of costume and props fixes the show’s era and all viewed through the borders of a television screen mounted around the edges of the Theatre Royal’s proscenium arch. Amidst this melee of ‘50s iconography a star-studded cast of 14 play out a handful of B-movie crime stories in the style of Hitchcock’s series’ 30-minute episodes. The stories intermingle like a patchwork quilt – cheating spouses and laconic beat-cops a recurring theme, mixed in with murder and blackmail and all sung exquisitely (albeit annoyingly, with no list of musical numbers included in the programme). The opening routine pays homage to the familiar motif of the TV series’ theme tune, while the songs themselves include some deliciously complicated harmonies. This is the America of Betty Crocker, ice-cold glasses of poisoned lemonade, and Chevrolets with front seats so wide they go on forever.

Sally Ann Triplett, Nicola Hughes, Scarlett Strallen and Damien Humbley get the lion’s share of the narratives – but there are juicy solos for all throughout an evening that showcases the country’s finest musical theatre talent.

The stories’ punchlines come with twists that feel like a cascade of Roy Lichtenstein cartoons. A familiarity with 50’s flair, albeit non-essential, will aid an appreciation of the show. For novices to the genre, just sit back and enjoy some of the most imaginative new writing around. 

A gloriously niche pastiche.

Runs until 12th April

Photo credit Manuel Harlan

The Whale - Review

Ustinov Studio - Theatre Royal Bath

****

Written by Samuel D. Hunter

Directed by Laurence Boswell

Teresa Banham and Shuler Hensley

Charlie weighs 40 stone (or 250kg) and his blood pressure is 238/134. He’s not just morbidly obese, this play finds him on the very precipice of death – confined by his bulk to his Idaho apartment, where he earns a modest living teaching English Literature to students via internet audio broadcast.

The two-hour (no interval) play never leaves Charlie’s sometimes squalid front room. He can move, just, from his sofa, but his bulk has him beached in what is perhaps the most obtuse reference to the play’s title, though we learn more of his fascination with the poetry of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick as the cetacean references emerge in Samuel D. Hunter’s text.

A massive man in a tiny town, Charlie is literally eking out his existence, breath by gasping breath. However, it is in Shuler Hensley’s portrayal of desperately damaged humanity that we catch a glimpse of acting greatness. Simply put, Hensley’s achievement is as enormous as the character he portrays. Hensley starts by being naturally of large frame and readers may recall his Olivier-winning turn as the hulking, menacing Jud in Trevor Nunn’s Oklahoma at the National Theatre 20 years ago, while only last year he returned to London to reprise his creation of The Monster in Young Frankenstein. Here however, with the help of well crafted prosthetics, he is brilliantly, tragically ballooned.

But it is so much more than the costuming that convinces us of Charlie’s plight. Hensley captures the essence of a man who is as desperate for human company as he is for the very air he breathes. He fights to move, to breathe – even picking up his cell phone is beyond him without the help of a littler-picker’s extended claw such is his immobility. In a role that sees him actively onstage for virtually the entire production, Hensley’s heartbreakingly perceptive interpretation of a living nightmare is a tour de force.

Hunter’s narrative introduces us to Charlie’s daughter Ellie, his friend and unpaid carer Liz, along with his ex-wife Mary. Intriguingly, there’s a strong Mormon theme to the story too, Idaho being a state where that faith’s influence is pervasive and strong. Oscar Batterham puts in a well-constructed turn as Elder Thomas, but this is no musical-comedy Book Of Mormon. Avoiding spoilers, the final act quite simply crucifies the central tenets of the Mormon’s interpretation of Christian values.

The cast’s women are all excellent in the parts they play in Charlie’s tragedy. Ruth Gemmell’s Liz showing an almost unconditional love for Charlie and despairing at the inexorable, inevitable path he is choosing towards his own demise. Teresa Banham is Mary, a woman who is everything that Charlie isn’t: tanned, coiffed, assured – and also present in Ellie’s life. Hers is a no-nonsense ex-spouse, who in experiencing the end of her marriage some 15 years earlier when Charlie revealed his homosexuality, has grown the carapace of a woman who has seen, and lived through, it all.

But perhaps some of the most scorching supporting work on stage comes from Rosie Sheehy as Ellie. Savvy, whip-sharp and disaffected – we learn that her online postings are vitriolic - she returns to her estranged father for help with the essays that she is flunking at school and is persuaded to remain in contact with him in the expectation of inheriting his bank balance of $100,000. King Lear famously said “how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child” and when Ellie says to Charlie that “just being around you is disgusting”, our hearts break for her father. Late in the narrative however, there is a moment when Charlie discerns through Ellie’s actions that rather than being hateful, she has in fact bestowed a deep kindness upon the troubled Elder Thomas. Hensley and Hunter create an instant that is achingly perceptive in its understanding of Charlie’s love for his daughter.

There’s a lot to process in The Whale, sometimes too much, and a half-way respite for a gin and tonic would be appreciated (even Arthur Miller gave his plays an interval). But make no mistake – this is masterful modern drama. The UK Theatre Awards need to head to Bath pronto, for Shuler Hensley giving what is likely to be the most outstanding performance to be seen in this country this year.

Runs until 2nd June

Photo credit: Simon Annand

Educating Rita - Review

Richmond Theatre, London

*****

Written by: Willy Russell

Director: Tamara Harvey

June 25 2012

Matthew Kelly and Claire Sweeney

Educating Rita, produced by the Chocolate Factory and Theatre Royal Bath, is a delightful re-working of Willy Russell’s clever study of character and emotion, liberally sprinkled with humour and delicious irony.

Claire Sweeney plays the title role of the married hairdresser who at 31 and already familiar with the poetry of Roger McGough, is hungry to broaden her cultural horizons via the Open University.  Matthew Kelly plays Frank, a one time poet and now a local university tutor, assigned to supervise Rita’s studies.  

Like fine wine, this play has improved with age. When first produced in 1980, the Thatcher era was established and the gap between rich and poor, acknowledged as a backdrop in much of Russell’s writing, was distinct. It is a sad reflection that many of today’s newspaper headlines echo similar themes, and that the play’s social comment is as relevant now as when it premiered .  The original production and subsequent film, drew attention to the hitherto broadly unknown Julie Walters who had cut her acting teeth at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre and who brimming with scouse grit, gave a performance as Rita that set the bar very high.

Claire Sweeney approaches the role from a distinctly different career path. Having already achieved numerous starring roles on television and stage Sweeney’s Rita, is an outstanding performance defining her as an actress with a depth of talent that reaches beyond musical theatre. Her broad Liverpool accent, not only authentic but deliciously emphasized, allows her to take Russell’s creation of the 80’s and subtly re-imagine the hairdresser to reflect our current early years of the 21^st century. Rita’s arc sees her character grow not only in literary criticism, but also in self confidence. Sweeney’s performance ( amidst numerous immaculately timed costume changes ) charts this development in Rita with sensitivity and pinpoint perception.

Matthew Kelly provides a worthy foil to Sweeney’s comparatively youthful impetuousness.  In his tutorial sessions with Rita he discovers that the protective layers of his alcoholic character’s crusty and cantankerous protective shell are first penetrated and then, almost onion-like,  stripped away by this mature student’s directness of purpose and irresistibly innocent charm to reveal a vulnerable and lonely man. Without meaning to, Rita steals his heart, and when, in Act 2, we see his jealousy of her newly acquired freedom, Kelly’s performance tugs at the heartstrings without being mawkish. In a similar vein, his portrayal of Frank’s sometime drunkenness is also delivered free of cliché.  It is interesting to note that Kelly and Sweeney briefly performed together earlier this year, albeit not as a duet, in the tour of Legally Blonde. The pair have an onstage chemistry that clearly works, and it will be intriguing to see if this professional pairing is exploited in productions of the future.

The creative team has excelled throughout in this touring production. Tim Shortall’s set, with numerous bookcases, many of which conceal bottles of scotch is delightfully detailed, whilst Davy Ogilvy’s sound design, ensured that clarity of speech was maintained, even in the rear stalls.

This show is a delightful two hours long, spent watching an actor and actress who are both clearly at the top of their game.

This review was originally written for The Public Reviews