Monthly Round-Up: April 2012

In a first, I have actually got a month written up before I've started going to the next month's theatre. This is because May is, frankly, scary and I'm going to need the time to write it up as I go along. Anyway, April looked like...




2 - In Basildon - Royal Court Downstairs (32/37/37)***
4 - Filumena - Almeida (33/38/38) ***
13 - Mercury Fur - Old Red Lion Theatre (34/39/39) *****
21 - She Stoops To Conquer - National Theatre  (34/39/40) ****
22 - Sonnet Sunday - The Globe (35/40/41) ****
* 24 - Much Ado About Nothing - BFI
26 - Making Noise Quietly - Donmar Warehouse (36/41/42) **
28 - Richard III in Mandarin - Shakespeare's Globe (37/42/43) ****
28 - One Man Two Guvnors - Theatre Royal Haymarket (37/43/44) **




I kicked off April with a last minute booking to see In Basildon at the Royal Court, an excellent decision, as the plays great word of mouth was well deserved. Eldridge has created a fantastic, clearly observed and deeply realistic view of an Essex family and the ins and outs of family politics. Both funny and moving. It also had an excellent foray into wider politics and whilst I'm firmly socialist myself (I come from a mining family after all), I think it was important to have those beliefs challenged in what often feels like a fundamentally liberal medium - particularly as it was handled so effectively.

April also contained my first return trip of the year (of plays I originally saw this year anyhow) to catch the final night of She Stoops To Conquer at the National Theatre. I wrote about my first trip here and I don't have much to add to what I said then, but it was fantastic to get a chance to see such a joyous, lively production again. And it was particularly moving to see how emotional the cast were, many of them crying during the curtain call. A beautiful night.

I can rarely resist the Globe at the best of times and when they're offering a day of free entertainment - Sonnet Sunday - wind, rain and hangovers won't keep me away (no matter how hard they try). So after an evening of wine, cheese and song, we headed down to the Globe to see them enacting Shakespeare’s sonnets in a fantastically wide variety of languages. Everything from Welsh to Latin, Romanian to Kuwaiti Arabic, Scots to Finnish and Twi to Noongar was represented. There was also a fantastic range of performance styles from the deeply emotional to the entertainingly comic and though I'd originally planned to drop in and out of the event, I found myself gripped from the moment we arrived to the very end. Though I sometimes wished the sonnets were a little longer so I could get a stronger sense of the language, the quick change style certainly worked to keep our interest hooked. The whole event was masterfully compered by Woody Murray, who won himself many a fan on the day, and by the end had convinced me to book all the Globe 2 Globe tickets, ALL OF THEM! Well... all of them I can fit into my schedule anyway. It was a fantastic taster to what looks set to be a fantastic festival and built an amazing sense of spirit and community amongst those who had gathered. 

One of the first of Globe 2 Globe tickets I snapped up following Sonnet Sunday was the National Theatre of China's Richard III. I must admit to having had reservations about the project, which sees 37 international companies performing Shakespeare's plays in 37 languages. Whilst obviously impressed by its ambition and the sheer hard work and will power displayed by everyone involved - having personally struggled with Shakespeare in other languages before, I wasn't sure if this would manage to maintain my interest. Simply - I was wrong. Go and see as many of the plays as you can, if they're anywhere near as good as Richard III you won't regret it. Despite the incessant rain and the fact that the productions props and costumes were still floating somewhere between China and England - the production was never short of entrancing. With the Globe's help they had cobbled together some simple Chinese robes, mostly in plain black - and though I missed the spectacle, I actually thought it allowed the performances to stand out more clearly. As did the decision for the surtitle boards to only display short scene descriptions, rather than translate line for line the dialogue - though perhaps more care was needed in matching the description to the scene being played. Either way the performances shone - particularly that of Zhang Dongyu in the title role, one of the best Richard's I've yet seen - with the audience entirely on his side throughout due to his beautifully nuanced and engaging portrayal. And watching him kiss the stage during the curtain call is a memory I'll treasure.

I also caught a screening of the 1967 Much Ado About Nothing starring Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens as a truly delightful Beatrice and Benedict and a memorably Paul McCartney-esque Derek Jacobi as Don Pedro; which was showing as part of the World Shakespeare Festival at the BFI. It was excellent, a highly stylised production owing elements to circus, silent movies and commedia dell'arte, with the occasional jigging statue thrown in for good measure, and Ronald Pickup proving a scene stealing Don John. Now all I need is for somebody to invite Maggie Smith to play Beatrice again (come on, she'd be amazing opposite Michael Gambon). 

I would have liked to have loved Filumena at the Almeida more than I did, it was brimming with potential, but the text never seemed to dig deeply enough. Though perhaps that was because I was more interested in Filumena's (Samantha Spiro) relationship with her sons than with her partner Domenico (Clive Wood). The latter taking plot precedence, whilst the former was portrayed with a light-hearted forgiveness, that I felt failed to explore the complicated issues at its heart. Plus it was hard difficult to enjoy the ending fived Domenico’s appalling behaviour through much of the action and the ‘blackmail’ involved in the resolution. Despite that complaint, it was a warm, enjoyable, entertaining production with strong performances and a truly beautiful set.

So far I'm yet to see a satisfying production of a triptych of plays (Three Farces non-withstanding, though I'm not sure that entirely counts), possibly this has just been poor luck on my behalf - the links always seem too tenuous, none of the scenes alter how you see the others enough, and generally it's all build-up with no conclusions. Unfortunately Making Noise Quietly at the Donmar had all these difficulties in spades, with the added complication that the first of the three plays was easily the best - with Jordan Dawes and Matthew Tennyson carefully creating a compelling power play between the characters - in fact, the biggest disappointment is that their story is left hanging and enlightened no further by the other plays. The writing in the second piece felt tired, stale and self-indulgent; never quite managing to make me care about any of the characters involved and not revealing anything that hasn't been expressed better before. And whilst the third play had its moments, it carried on far too long, with no real sense of progression - neither in the individual plays story or the wider context of the triptych. We start out with the proposition that on a personal (as well as global) level, that war is a bit shit for everyone involved - and by the end we're left with exactly the same message.  Despite the fact that here the production itself was elegant and warmly atmospheric, directors perhaps need to take a more distinctive approach to presenting trilogies and possibly move away from having each play separate and clearly delineated. Mostly I can’t shake the feeling they should go and read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell to see how a master creates stories that reflect on each other to provide beauty, depth and new meaning.

Given that I was one of about four people who didn't like One Man, Two Guvnors when I saw it last year, I was a little horrified to find myself in the day queue outside the Theatre Royal Haymarket. But everything deserves a second chance, and I was tempted back by one of my favourite actors, Daniel Ings taking the role of Alan Dangle. Daniel Rigby's Dangle was one of the best parts of the original production for me and he definitely remained a highlight, with Ings capturing the pretentious dramatics joyously (and honestly, I'd willingly pay £25 just to see him play his bare chest again). In fact, the majority of the replacement cast were excellent, though Owain Arthur suffered by having to repeat the 'cleverly improvised' lines of Corden. Which is still for me one of the biggest problems with the play, the carefully maintained illusion of freshness and improvisation isn’t sustainable, it doesn't come with a knowing wink, the audience aren't invited into the joke and I personally found that exclusionary - the opposite result of the inclusive audience relationship of commedia dell'arte which it aims to mimic. On top of which, the long section of 'funny business' in the middle of the play comes at the expense of plot and character development, both of which are pretty thin on the ground. This problem is intensified by the fact that so much of the character motivation and comedy is based on the idea that these people are at the least exceptionally dim (one or, at a stretch, two stupid characters I can cope with, but this is extreme). Which overall left the comic elements and storytelling I did like and the superb work of The Craze providing the music, floundering and deeply unsatisfying. Oh well, things can't be for everyone.

Finally to end on a high - Mercury Fur at the Old Red Lion. Anyone who has been forced to spend any time with me in the past few weeks will not be surprised to hear how much the play blew me away; I've been able to talk about little else since. It's rare that a play engrosses me so fully - mind and soul - but this is easily my favourite play of the year so far and has already taken a place in my top three of all time. It's hard to express clearly the deep impact it's had on me - the play itself is beautifully written, marrying a horrifying dystopian future with a tale of deep love, protectiveness and family - the worst of humanity placed right up against the best. The language is both coarse and lyrical in equal measures and I've spent the last few weeks picking apart the scripts many layers of meaning. The strength of the play was equally matched by the production which maintained a tight, intense atmosphere throughout but also allowed the comedy and joy to spill out. The small cast were routinely superb, though Ciarán Owens, who had proved a favourite in LAMDA's production of Arcadia last year, stood out as a highlight again in the role of Elliot. In fact the only complaint I have was the discomfort of the Old Red Lion and a certain amount of seat hogging by somebody on our bench leaving us crammed into a tiny space, though that certainly added to the intense atmosphere. The production is currently trying to raise money for a transfer to Trafalgar Studios, if you'd be interested in donating you can find them at: http://www.wefund.com/project/mercury-fur-west-end-transfer. Here's hoping they make it as I'd be first in line for tickets to see it again.

Next month expect lots of Shakespeare.... lots of Shakespeare in languages I don't understand... help!