The King's Speech

The much-praised film The King’s Speech is directed by Tom Hooper (who’s other work includes The Damned United a film about Brian Clough’s short tenure as manager of Leeds United).

Hooper’s current film tells the story of the stammering monarch George VI, father of the current Queen who had to take over the throne after his older brother Edward VIII abdicated. The film is apparently historically inaccurate at several points, in terms of the attitudes and actions of some of the leading politicians portrayed in it. Some of the things I found a little strange were the fact that, while George was shown as a bullied victim, his character was never presented as other than his disability. Thus the main narrative thrust of the film concerned his attempts to overcome his stammer so as to be able to speak at public gatherings or over the radio to the nation and empire at large.

Having said that I must admit this did prove compelling enough as the process was shown and advanced through the King’s relationship with his Australian (male) speech therapist. There is humour and pathos in the clash between royalty and commoner, deference and service, heredity and democracy.

Colin Firth as George and Geoffrey Rush as Logue the speech therapist excel. The evolving relationship between the two men is the key one of the film. It moves from initial hostility through various hiccups to what we are led to believe becomes a true friendship. Helena Bonham Carter is also excellent as the king’s wife. There is of course a stellar cast giving cameo performances as the various political, religious and royal grandees surrounding the reluctant king. There are also one or two oddities – a lack of servants surrounding the royal couple, the fact that they appear to be able to travel alone and unrecognised by cab throughout London and – indeed – at one point George angrily walks off alone from a London park to return presumably to his palace.

The climax of the film is George’s address to the nation as war is declared on Germany. The speech is stirringly delivered over the Allegretto of Beethoven’s 7^th Symphony and is cut to the rhythm of the music. It is an excellent illustration of the use of music to influence emotion. I’m not sure though how intentional the irony of using German music to underscore the speech of an essentially German royal family declaring war on a fascist Germany is, though.

In the final analysis it’s a skilful and intriguing film with plenty in it to stimulate debate.

Review of 2010 - what was missed out: July

The Beauty Queen of Leenane

by Martin McDonagh

The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a black comedy by Martin McDonagh. In the past I’ve greatly enjoyed his play Pillowman and film In Bruges. Tonight’s play is one of his earlier works. It has a single set and takes place in the Irish mountains.

A forty-year-old single woman is looking after her aged housebound mother. The latter is monstrously demanding and at first our sympathies are with the daughter. As the action progresses we slowly realise the two of them are in a mutually abusive yet dependent relationship.

The daughter’s attempts to find late-flowering love with a visiting neighbour prove to be doomed. There is much black comedy and overturning of expectation. There is even murder and a cruel denouement. Altogether excellent drama, well performed and staged.

Young Vic

Danton’s Death

By Georg Buchner in a version by Howard Brenton

Georg Buchner’s play deals with some events of the French Revolution and the ideological clash between Georges Danton and Robespierre. It is presented in a new version by Howard Brenton which makes for a shorter and – some might argue – more comprehensible evening.

It’s simply staged on two levels – there’s a bare lower area with numerous doors entering on to the performance space. There’s also a balcony above with giant shuttered windows.

The play is discursive, the performance of Toby Stephens as Danton could be seen as irritatingly mannered. The guillotine scene at the play’s climax is effective, though. The debate about how far revolution should go is sort of ok but fails to engage or involve. Overall it was a slightly disappointing production.

Olivier

Shakespeare The Man From Stratford

By Jonathan Bate

Simon Callow performs a one man show based on Jonathan Bate’s book about Shakespeare. It’s an impressive and crowd-pleasing synthesis of Shakespearean anecdote interspersed with quotations from the plays. The form follows the seven ages of man.

Callow gives a bravura performance: and the show is a combination of entertainment and information. The entertainment is undeniable; the information is academically unexciting but theatrically good. Simply staged this is an effective and enjoyable evening’s entertainment.

Richmond Theatre

Review of 2010 - what was missed out: June

Sucker Punch

by Roy Williams.

Set in the late 1980s Sucker Punch concerns two young black men who turn to boxing as a means of coping with a racist society. It is a complex work that shows ideological divisions within the black community and how both white and black entrepreneurs can exploit these divisions. It also provides a multi-generational perspective – albeit almost exclusively from a male viewpoint – which gives it an added resonance.

The Royal Court is reconfigured for this production. The stage is a boxing ring, with seating at the frontand back; mirrors on each of the sidewalls give an impression of added depth and crowd numbers.

Two school friends, Troy and Leon, are working at a gym run by a former boxer. He is also training a young white hope, who he knows will eventually leave him for better economic prospects. The two friends present different aspects of the black experience and also how the black community regards its successful members.

The central performance of Leon carries the whole play and in Daniel Kaluuya‘s portrayal is full of extraordinary vigour and sensitivity.

Royal Court

Welcome To Thebes

By Moira Buffini

Moira Buffini’s play takes its story from Greek mythology. The action revolves round the troubled city-state of Thebes and it deals with the supernatural interventions of the gods in the already complicated lives of humanity.

In Buffini’s re-telling some of the male protagonists (for example Creon) have been replaced by their female counterparts (Eurydice) and autocracy replaced by democracy. However this is all filtered through the troubled history of post-colonial Africa and the real politick of ‘benign’ aid from an Athens (the so-called cradle of ‘democracy’) that is a metaphor for the 21^st century USA.

This multi-layered approach allows Buffini to explore areas such as male vs female politics, imperialism, the levels of democracy in different states in different parts of the world and the complex role of global economic interests when it comes to the trial and punishment of the perpetrators of war crimes.

There is a lot of deep and disturbing material here; but also a lightness of touch, political insight and – perhaps surprisingly - big laughs. The large Olivier space with a single set is well used. Scenes overlap in a chamber style but there are also grand set pieces. For once in this space flashy technology is not used to cover up imaginative gaps in a production. The biggest stage effect involves the arrival of a helicopter. This happens only in sound and air disturbance – the aircraft lands off stage and out of sight.

The play is clearly directed by Richard Eyre and the large cast is uniformly excellent. Leads David Harewood as Theseus and Nikki Amuka Bird as Eurydice are outstanding, while Chuk Iwuji.s opportunistic Prince Tydeus also deserves mention.

Olivier

Review of 2010 - what was missed out: May

Salome

By Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s Salome is produced by Rupert Goold’s company Headlong – but not directed by him. Nevertheless it has the usual show pony tricks I associate with his work. Visually it’s a very striking production. The stage is high above the stalls and features trapdoors mud and water.

In essence Salome is all about beheading John the Baptist, the dance of the 7 veils and women destroying (male controlled) religion. It’s set in a time when there are many competing religions and Christianity is just another crazy sect vying for public recognition. However, there’s something about the Christian prophet incarcerated in Herod’s gaol that sets Salome off.

The play is transgressive on many levels: the fact that Herod has married his dead brother’s wife, that he lusts after his step-daughter Salome as well as – in this production and presumably in deference to Wilde’s sexuality – engaging sexually with his (male) entourage – much to their disgust. Royalty is presented as corrupt and venal, childish and vindictive – a suitable comment on those in power in any age perhaps. There’s a strong cast with Con O’Neil’s Herod and Jaye Griffith’s Herodias outstanding. Zawe Ashton excels as an erotically charged spoilt wild child in the role of Salome.

Richmond Theatre

Review of 2010 - what was missed out: April

Enron

by Lucy Prebble

Directed by Rupert Goold, Prebble’s play deals with the infamous collapse of the US energy company Enron at the start of the century. It also explains the curious accounting methods and slack auditing that allowed the firm’s gigantic fraud to take place.

The play’s tone is satiric and there are also musical numbers. The set is high tech but also strangely dark at times. Everything is well drilled and performed and there are entertaining moments.

However, I’m not sure I found it that satisfying. It certainly poked fun but generally lacked the anger that only briefly surfaced towards the end of the play when two ‘ordinary’ people who had lost everything in the fraud confronted one of the main players in the drama. It actually felt at odds with the rest of the play, which was far too jaunty in tone. Indeed Sam West’s final speech as the unrepentant Jeffrey Skilling almost comes across an aspirational endorsement of the free market.

Noel Coward Theatre

The Empire

By D.C. Moore

The Empire is set in Afghanistan in the present day. We look down on a wrecked room in a damaged building. Outside it is very hot. A British soldier, together with a member of the Afghanistan army is guarding a prisoner.

The play deals with the interaction of the three as they try to understand what has just happened, what is happening now and what should be done about it. It is a play about four bearded men and one clean-shaven man. The bearded men are the problem. The backgrounds of each character and his prejudices are skilfully sketched in.

Our opinion of and response to each of the characters changes during the course of the play in the light of what they say or do. For instance, the officer at first seems a clichéd fool, but isn’t. The soldier appears decent but is flawed and easily slips into mindless brutality. The prisoner is plausibly sympathetic at first but there is always a nagging doubt about him, which may just be the result of our own prejudice. But in this instance the prisoner eventually reveals himself to be the terrorist the other characters think he is.

The play deals well with the ambiguities of perception and prejudice; how the behaviour of those who are supposed to bring peace and order can slip into disorder and brutality. It also shows how the voice of the ordinary citizen of a disputed country can be overlooked in the heat of conflict. Staged and performed with conviction, the play teases out prejudice and confronts stereotypes in a dramatically satisfying way.

Royal Court Theatre Upstairs

Enjoy

By Alan Bennett

We go to Milton Keynes Theatre – which is a vast hanger of a space. The play is Alan Bennett’s Enjoy. It’s an early work, which tells the story of a strangely dysfunctional family. At times it has echoes of Pinter and, indeed, Joe Orton.

The set is dwarfed by the vast stage and the show lacks a little of intimacy the play actually demands. Despite this the production does manage to be both amusing and entertaining.

Milton Keynes Theatre

Posh

By Laura Wade

Laura Wade’s latest play is about an Oxbridge drinking club along the lines of the notorious Bullingdon club, which counts numerous high-ranking Tories among its members. The play is book ended by a Tory ‘godfather’ in a gentleman’s club talking to his godson.

The members of this Riot club meet up for an evening of eating, drinking and – they hope – debauchery at a country pub. They hire a private room for their festivities, and their intention is to destroy it at the end of the evening.

The first half of the play shows us the group’s attitudes, their sense of ritual and history; it sketches in their relationships with each other, their competitiveness and individualism, yet their dependence on peer group approval. So far much like any other group of young people – or in this case young men – in our society. However, Wade compellingly portrays these objectively repellent young men in a rounded way. She conveys their complex mixture of intelligence, stupidity and nauseating sense of entitlement brilliantly – and yet we also see their vulnerabilities. There are numerous moments in the first half where genuine friendship and feeling are destroyed -before they can flourish - by bullying and aggression.

In the second half the ‘fun’ spirals out of control. The Riot club start talking politics and the views they express are charmless and reactionary. Their sexual politics are demonstrated by their treatment of the ‘escort’ one of them has hired to pleasure the group and the way they treat the pub landlord’s daughter who is their waitress. They think everything is for sale and everyone can be bought off.

In the end they beat up the pub’s owner and collude to lay the whole blame on just one of their number. His reward for taking on their collective guilt will be to go on to be recruited into the political establishment.

This is a true ensemble work. There are ten people on stage for most of the evening and the choreography of their movements and interactions is impeccable. There is singing as well – which is both funny and shows how disconnected as a class these people are.

Laura Wade’s previous plays have been good – but Posh is a major achievement: an exceptional dissection of a particular element of the British ruling class. And becomes even more poignant as our nation is now ruled by a caucus of public school educated multi-millionaires who graduated through such dining clubs and who, more pertinently, don’t actually have a mandate for their destruction of civil society.

Royal Court

Women Beware Women

By Thomas Middleton

This production of Women Beware Women is rather disappointing. The action – particularly in the first half – seems dwarfed by the size of the Olivier stage – especially as most of the scenes are small scale and intimate. This seems to be a perennial problem with modern stagings of Jacobean theatre – frequently the material demands intimacy and claustrophobic settings but seems diminished when open out in a larger space.

The essence of the play is an examination of greed and corruption, which, of course, ends in disaster and multiple deaths. The set is a giant revolve – grandiose on one side, small-scale back stairs on the other. The music which director Marianne Elliot had described as jazzy and bluesy in a pre-performance platform talk is in fact more Latin to my ears and rather unmemorable.

There is some good acting however: Harriet Walter as Livia, Samuel Barnett as Leantio and Lauren O’Neill as Bianca. The much-hyped Vanessa Kirby in the role of Isabella is rather poor – her vocal skill is far less impressive than the rest of the cast. Towards the end there is a ‘masque’ scene, which leads up to the deaths of the main characters. While reasonably striking it is over-long. Altogether Women Beware Women is OK but not great.

Olivier