Her Naked Skin – August 2008

7/10

By Rebecca Lenkiewicz

Directed by Howard Davies

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Wednesday 13th August 2008

This is not only a new play, but the first play by a living woman playwright to be produced on the Olivier stage. How apt that the play’s subject is the struggle for women to gain the right to vote. The set was a layered framework of hanging rectangular metal grids. Some of the grids were covered with metal mesh and some were open, creating an overall effect of a maze of bars and wires, which seems very appropriate for a play about suffragettes in prison. The grids at the front were in the shape of a cross – it didn’t seem to be significant in terms of the play but with such a complex set I doubt that it was unplanned. One spotlight hit a chair in front of this assemblage, a chair with a sash proclaiming ‘votes for women’ across it, also a jacket and hat. The rest of the set was lit in a blue gloom. I was impressed as soon as I saw it.

It got better. Each panel could move around, sliding up when needed, and some even moved from side to side. A large platform was moved forward after the second scene; this held the prison cells and was raised up enough for tables and chairs to be slid underneath on the revolve or just straight through. Occasionally the central platform was rotated so that we could focus on individual cells or to see the whole row from either side. At first I thought this might be distracting but actually it worked very well, adding extra movement and interest while characters were entering and leaving the cells.

The story had two strands which blended well together for the most part, but did stray apart for a while in the second half. The context for the play is the suffragette movement in the early 1900s, up to the beginnings of WWI. Within that story, two of the women who smash windows for the cause, and end up in prison as a result, form a sexual relationship and after the interval that relationship tends to take over from the broader story.

To deal with the suffragette part first; the play begins with a woman putting on the sash, jacket and hat that were on the chair and after a momentary pause, heading off stage. Then we see footage of the famous incident at the Derby, when Emily Davison threw herself in front of the horses as they were rounding Tattenham Corner, causing her own death a few days later from her injuries. It’s an emotional piece of film, and it was projected repeatedly on large screens behind the metal grids. So immediately we were confronted with the lengths that many of these women were prepared to go to in order for their sisters to be able to vote.

The next scene took us from the moving to the funny, as tables and chairs revolved onto the stage for a meeting of important people with a female secretary also in attendance. The men were discussing what issues would be raised in the House of Commons that day and they generally seemed to dislike all the fuss and bother that these silly women were creating with their suffragette nonsense. After one comment condemning the intelligence of women in general, they had to appease the secretary by saying ‘present company excepted, of course’ – trust me, gents, that doesn’t help. (And the secretary wasn’t impressed either.) Their main concern about the Derby incident, apart from the health of the horse (it survived) was whether Davison was going to die and become the first suffragette martyr. In the end, the men decided the Irish question would probably dominate that day’s business.

The next scene takes place on a bare stage, at least at the front, as a number of women are gathering in an apparently unconnected way, just milling about as you do. One of them checks the time with a newspaper seller – seven minutes to six. Another of the women is clearly nervous – turns out it’s her first time. She’s so pent up she takes out her hammer and smashes a window a few minutes ahead of schedule, so the rest of the women do the same. There’s lots of breaking glass sounds – none of the real thing, thank goodness – and the women run off, exhilarated.

The next scene is where the cells come forward and they pretty much dominate the stage from now on. As the women arrive in the prison, they’re treated to the routine of having their names checked, given their numbers, aprons and kit and I noticed they were each weighed. I presume this was part of monitoring their health for when some of them inevitably went on hunger strike.

There’s a fair bit of banter, not all of it friendly, between the women and the prison staff. Florence, a veteran of the cause, insists on her occupation being described as suffragette and is angry they’ve been allocated to the wrong accommodation. They’re political prisoners in her book, not common criminals, and she quotes the rules like she wrote them. The guard in charge, Potter, points out that they’re in for criminal damage, which is a fair point, so tough luck. Some of the women are regulars in the prison – did they keep their cells for them, I wonder? – and one, the lady who was asking for the time earlier, turns out to be Celia Cain. The nervous woman, the one who jumped the gun, is Eve Douglas. I’ll just mention here that finding out who the characters are takes quite a while. Also, I was unsure at the end which of these characters was meant to be fictional – I assume Celia and Eve are, but I don’t know – and which historical. There are real people in the play, such as Asquith and Keir Hardie, and real events, such as the Derby day incident and the Cat and Mouse Act, but this lack of clarity has left me feeling a little unsure about the level of dramatisation versus the level of historical fact, and in my view that weakens the impact of the play somewhat. Anyway, the women are shown to their cells and there’s a nice exchange between Celia and the main female warden, Briggs. Briggs is very sparing of her words, never using two when one will do, and Celia has a nice line about this just before her prison door clangs shut.

The next scene sets up the most unpleasant aspect of the play – the forcible feeding of the women on hunger strike. Through various scenes we learn that the legal basis for this only applies to lunatics in asylums, but the law is being ignored in a desperate attempt to prevent the women from killing themselves and becoming martyrs. All we get this time around is a brief explanation of the process and the risks to the women if the tube goes down the wrong way – they end up getting pleurisy and dying, as it’s always fatal. Fortunately that’s all for now, so it’s back to the prisoners as they work in the kitchens next morning. Eve and Celia manage to have a surreptitious chat and start to make a connection, but for now I’ll leave off their story until I’ve dealt with the rest.

There’s a brief glimpse of the sort of debate some MPs were trying to have in the Commons, but the Government keep diverting the subject away to something more innocuous or occasionally something quite important, such as the Irish question. There’s no love lost between Keir Hardie and Asquith at this stage.

Celia’s husband visits her in prison and this is the first glimpse we get of the way the suffragettes’ commitment and determination (or, as the men put it, stubbornness) is affecting their families. Her husband is a top lawyer and he does his best to support Celia in her work, but he’s obviously feeling the strain. They chat about various things – the political situation, Scott’s death at the South Pole, one of their sons wants to marry – and it’s clear that what she’s doing to gain the vote for women is more important to her than her family. Her husband wants her to see a psychiatrist when she gets out in the hope that if she’s declared mentally unfit she won’t be sent back to prison in the future, or at least she’ll be spared some of the worse aspects of their treatment inside. Given that forcible feeding was originally intended for crazy people, I wasn’t sure that was the best move, but I can sympathise with his concern and desire to protect her.

The next scene clearly takes place after the women have been released. Florence is on her soapbox in Hyde Park and some of the men are taking offence at her speech. One chap has a go at Celia for smoking and she quite happily mouths off right back at him, in much better language of course, as befits a well-educated woman. He eventually takes a swing at her and manages to jostle her to the ground before the men around them get him under control and see him off. She’s not bothered, but it shows the sort of response the women could get from time to time. It also shows that Celia is now smoking, which is relevant in terms of her relationship with Eve.

Then Eve is back in prison and takes matters into her own hands when she can’t get the light turned off. She takes her metal cup or jug and smashes it. She’s then dragged out of her cell. Immediately after this, Celia visits Dr Stein and they have a brisk and interesting conversation, somewhat guarded on Celia’s part. I wasn’t sure if there was any sexual frisson between them – the doctor seemed keen to see her once a week after her next stint in prison and I wasn’t sure it was an entirely professional interest – but Steve didn’t detect anything, so maybe it was my imagination.

The next scene has Florence and Celia doing some work with posters or leaflets. Celia hasn’t been focussing on her work and she and Florence argue over Eve’s commitment to the cause. They have quite an argument, though not past the bounds of friendship, and there’s some lovely lines. At the end of the scene, Celia makes some comment about Florence finding plenty of work in the Russian women’s army, and Florence replies with “The Battalion of Death? Sounds a bit soft to me”, beautifully delivered.

There’s a scene where Celia visits Eve in prison, and then we get another chance to see Celia’s home situation. Her husband wants her to give up the demonstrations and getting herself locked up, but she’s not remotely interested in backing off. They have a nasty squabble, showing deep cracks in the relationship, and he heads out to do some more drinking. We also become aware that their sex life is non-existent, so no wonder he’s unhappy. She does seem a cold type, this Celia, never giving herself fully to anything but the cause.

However after a short scene where Florence is dragged out of her cell, having attempted to barricade herself in, and is given a good hosing down by the guards, we see Celia and Eve together in bed, both in dressing gowns, and enjoying each other’s company in a very intimate manner. All seems well with them now, and after the interval, during a practice shoot for the women in Epping forest, they’re canoodling in as much secrecy as they can.

Celia’s husband William is at his club in the next scene and getting some stick from the other members. Some are supportive, at least to the extent of telling the more aggressive ones to shut up, but ultimately William punches the most belligerent chap to the ground. Then Florence is visited in her cell by the doctor and there’s a discussion of force feeding methods. He’s becoming disillusioned by the process and wants her to use her authority to get the other women off hunger strike. She refuses, but in their debate we learn a great deal about the suffering caused by the force feeding, the retribution the women take on the doctors who do it once they’re out, and that Florence’s imprisonments have meant her missing her sister’s final days and her funeral, a fact which makes even this strong woman show her emotions.

Celia and Eve spend some time in a park at night, then later Celia’s husband gives her an ultimatum; give up the hunger strike next time she’s in prison or he’ll disown her. She won’t be allowed back into his house. Their argument has some lovely touches of humour, such as when she points out that she’s borne him seven children and he comments that he had actually noticed that fact. He’s fed up being treated as if he were some savage who doesn’t understand and doesn’t have needs of his own, while she’s lost her love for him long ago and doesn’t know how to handle this change in their lives.

The next scene shows us bath time at the prison. Florence doesn’t pick up the towel Briggs throws at her and there’s a short scuffle of wills as Briggs insists on her picking it up, but eventually Briggs’ deeply buried kindness starts to peep out and she rescues the towel herself. Celia and Eve have a meeting in a tea-room, with Celia keen to avoid being seen by a lady she knows, then Celia is trying to have a fling with a chap called Charlie, in a bedroom at the Ritz where he works, and then Celia visits Eve again in prison.

Then comes the dreaded scene. We get to see Eve being force fed by the doctor. It’s a gruesome experience to watch, so God knows what it was like to endure for those who actually went through it. Although I’ll go into some detail here (those of a nervous disposition may wish to skip a paragraph or two) I must confess to covering my eyes up for the insertion of the feeding tube and for parts of the feeding. However, I got the gist, and the whole setup, with the reactions of all the people involved, was important.

We’d seen the chair being set up in an earlier scene where the regular doctor was explaining things to the new boy. A sheet was placed under the chair, with straps being laid ready on either arm and on the chair back. There was a large funnel with a long rubber tube and about half way along it there was a fist-sized bulge. There was also an enamel jug. This time around the new person was a nurse, and she was the one who had to do the pouring. Eve was tied to the chair and held down while the doctor chose to put the tube down her nose. This is the yucky bit. I know it wasn’t real, but I’m squeamish about anything medical. A lot of the tube ‘went down’ her nose – the doctor commented that you have to get about twenty inches down them so the food will reach the stomach – and then the doctor tells the nurse to pour. She has to tell him if it’s not going down so he can do something about it; in fact, although it is going down, he decides to hold Eve’s nose shut anyway. The mixture is eggs and brandy, and once it’s all gone there’s the tube to get out and then she’s helped back to her cell. Gruesome doesn’t begin to cover it, although I appreciate there’s worse things happening in the world right now. The nurse was obviously in shock after seeing what was being done to these women, and Briggs shows us another level of her kindness when she gently helps the nurse to get off the stool she’s been standing on, frozen with shock.

After a scene showing us Celia arriving home after her night on the tiles and having a bit of a row with her husband, we see Eve at her washbasin, slitting her forearms and holding them in the water until she collapses. I thought this was at the prison, but the text says at her lodgings. It’s confusing, because the next scene is back in the prison, and both Florence and Celia are visiting Eve who has her arms bandaged. Florence leaves first and then when Celia says her goodbyes and leaves, the prison recedes into the background, with Eve and the wardress spotlit. I got that this was the relationship fading into the past.

The final scene has Celia sitting in Florence’s house, waiting for William to come and pick her up. From her chat with Florence, it appears she’s decided to go back to live with him and from her chat with him it appears she’s been away for three months. Florence has mentioned meeting Eve while she was out – Eve’s going to be married, to a watch maker. There’s some chat about the upcoming war and the decision to drop the protests and be patriotic once it’s declared. When William arrives her bags are taken away, but Celia’s suddenly overcome with emotion and her husband realises she’s not going to be coming back to him. She makes some comment about a wolf they both saw in the forest when they were little – I have absolutely no idea what that was about – and he leaves. End of play.

The suffragette parts were very interesting, even though I saw more than I wanted to of the force feeding. The relationship between Eve and Celia was superbly well performed but looking back, and occasionally at the time, I wondered what the point of it was. I couldn’t see clearly the connection between getting votes for women and hopping into bed with one, especially as Celia did her best to destroy the relationship once it looked like it might amount to something.

From the early meetings at the window smashing protest and the prison stint, we see the connection develop quickly as indicated by Celia taking up smoking, which she never used to do apparently. Eve smokes a lot. They’re obviously enjoying each other physically, with the scene in bed and the stolen kisses in Epping Forest, but when they get to the park Celia suddenly introduces the fact that she’s had affairs before and Eve is taken aback by this. She seemed to think their relationship was special, something to build on for the future; now Celia is talking about the inevitable time when they’ll be bored with each other, indicating this is just another fling for her or at least that’s what she wants Eve to think. It’s certainly the end of the fun part of the relationship and despite Eve trying to persuade Celia to carry on, Celia is determined to stop the affair completely regardless of her own suffering. Hence the attempt to have a one-night fling with the man from the hotel. It’s clear her marriage is on the rocks and she loves Eve, but she won’t go the final mile and commit to anything. Why?

I have no answers to this, but I must also say that the performances were excellent, not just for these parts but for all of the characters. They kept me involved and entertained, so while my description of the storyline may seem bitty, the pace of the play meant I was never bored. There was more humour than I’ve indicated, although the subject matter meant there was also a lot of heavier, emotional content to deal with. Overall, it felt like a very good play, and with a bit more work and more correlation between the two aspects, it could be a great play. Steve felt that if the author had written this ten years down the line, with more experience, it would have achieved greatness. Still it’s a tremendous offering regardless, and I wish it every success in its run.

Afterlife – August 2008

Aug3

6/10

By Michael Frayn

Directed by Michael Blakemore

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Saturday 2nd August 2008

It was another hot afternoon, I was tired, and we were facing a long journey back to the house after a less enjoyable play than I’d hoped, so at the end of this performance I was ready to give it a 4/10 rating. But, after a good night’s sleep, and remembering the good bits of the play, which did have quite a few laughs after all, I’ve decided 6/10 is fair. But not by much.

The set was epic in scale. Marble steps the full width of the stage swept up from the front of the stage, which was lower than usual, to a brief platform, then continued upwards to the upper level, which at the start was empty. Massive arches were brought forward almost immediately, though, and these seemed to keep coming forever. They moved about a bit, but basically they were in place for most of the play, with windows, doors or just see-through as required. They certainly made the atmosphere very Germanic and imperial.

The play was about Max Reinhardt, a theatre impresario and also a Jew, who stages lavish spectaculars across the world, with casts of hundreds and even thousands, and that’s not counting the musicians! Despite attracting equally huge audiences, he appears to have been a drain on many purses, but still managed to live a life of opulence. He buys a palace in Salzburg, and through his enthusiasm and drive starts a festival there. He himself directs a production of Everyman, a morality play about God asking Death to pick someone, anyone (sounds like a card trick, this does), and bring him to God for judgement. Being a morality play, it’s written in rhyming couplets, and that’s how a lot of this play is written, too. In fact, it starts out in rhyming couplets, as Reinhardt and his friends attempt to persuade the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg to allow Reinhardt to stage the first performance of Everyman in the square in front of the cathedral. To do this, Reinhardt demonstrates the play himself – he knows all the parts – and so we get to see various chunks of the opening scenes.

By magic, the magic of theatre, we’re whisked away to the palace, where Reinhardt has the actors help him perform the banquet scene where Death comes to select Everyman. It seems for a bit as though Reinhardt himself is being chosen by a “real” Death, with his name being called, and no one else being able to hear it, but it finally resolves into part of the play, and they all have a good laugh about it. The Prince Archbishop agrees to the play being staged, and then we’re into rehearsals (Reinhardt takes obsessive-compulsive to new levels) and the performance (the Archbishop is in tears), and then we get to see Reinhardt’s home life, or rather his away-from-home life, as his secretary and mistress exchange comments on his progress across the planet (he sends lots of telegrams).

There’s one entertaining bit when Reinhardt is choreographing his servants to perform perfectly for a party, and they end up all doing a serving dance to music. He’s a total showman, and rather than enjoy his own party, he’s depressed that the guests don’t know how to behave properly. They’re just milling around – rank amateurs! He wants everything in his life to be theatrical, but reality keeps letting him down.

The dance ends the first half, and then we get more of his life and times from the start of the second half. The growth of the Nazi party is shown, and one chap in particular, Friedrich Muller, has taken a complete dislike to Reinhardt. Muller ends up running the local government once the Germans annexe Austria, and decides to live in Reinhardt’s recently re-appropriated palace which now belongs to the German people. He’s a nasty piece of work. Reinhardt manages to get away and spends time in America where he eventually dies, having spent all his money and being almost friendless.

The performances were all excellent, with Roger Allam being in really good form, and getting the maximum out of the lead role. David Burke as the Archbishop was looking frailer than I remember, but still carried his part off well, and I also liked Selina Griffiths as the long-suffering secretary Gusti Adler, and Peter Forbes as Rudolf Kommer, known as Katie, who managed Reinhardt’s financial affairs for many years, but eventually left him to go to New York ahead of the German invasion. He had a lot of the funny lines, as did Selina, and God knows we needed that, especially in the second half.

My main problem with this play was the lack of dramatic structure. Although it seemed to be leaning heavily on the morality play format, that’s not how it really worked out. Reinhardt fell on hard times, yes, but he wasn’t downhearted by them. He wasn’t taken off for judgement by Death – he simply died. Despite setting us up for some parallels between the Everyman story and Reinhardt’s, nothing came of it, at least not to me. Although Michael Frayn is a very intelligent man, he’s also an atheist, and so perhaps the choice of a religious morality play wasn’t the wisest one, as he doesn’t seem to have grasped what it’s about. We need to see the behind-the-scenes judgement or redemption, or there’s no point. It’s no good criticising the equivalent scenes in the Everyman he’s drawing on for inspiration, if he can’t do better himself (see program notes). And since he obviously doesn’t understand what these scenes are about, perhaps it would have been better to have left the whole concept alone.

Having said that, there are a number of good lines in the play, though it’s shorter on ideas than most of Frayn’s work. I liked the desperation of the poor actor who’s trying to get what Reinhardt wants for the opening lines “Draw near, good people all, I pray”. And the comments about Jews being more supportive of the Catholic church than the local Catholics were quite fun. And Reinhardt’s description at the start of how simple the staging of Everyman will be – complete with sound effects cut off at his command – that was good fun too. So there were a number of good bits like these throughout most of the play, but an awful lot of dreary bits as well. Overall, not a success, but not a complete waste of time either.

Never So Good – July 2008

Jul31

6/10

By Howard Brenton

Directed by Howard Davies

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Wednesday 30th July 2008

I found this a bit disappointing, given the good reviews it’s had. The queue for returns was certainly long enough. But even so, I did enjoy a lot of this performance. In fact it was the performances that made it for me – the writing seemed lacklustre at times, while the staging had a few high spots and a greater number of low ones. I was finding the heat difficult today, I must admit, but as I found the opening line funny, I don’t think my state of mind was the problem.

There were four acts, covering major periods of MacMillan’s life. The first took us up to his final wounding in WWI, and introduced us to his mother and the chap who was his best friend, until that friend decided to convert to Catholicism. This section may also have been meant to show us how MacMillan related to the sufferings of the working-class soldiers, but the writing was rather clunky in this area, and we get characters making comments about his attitude rather than letting us see it for ourselves. My main impressions from this section are that he’s a homosexual who never comes out of the closet, and who doesn’t really have any ambition for himself, so his incredibly pushy mother can mould him to suit her wishes. She wants a son who’s a big cheese in the political world, hence her insistence that Harold give up any idea of converting to Catholicism himself as it would make it impossible for him to hold high office.

Jeremy Irons is playing the older MacMillan throughout, but there’s a younger version we get to see a lot of, and in this early part, he’s doing most of the action while the older version dodders about the stage commenting on events. The younger version manages to survive the battle, despite lying in a foxhole for eight hours with no medical attention other than a shot of morphine. He’s psychologically damaged, however, and the exchange between the two MacMillans at this point makes it clear that his younger self is like a ghost haunting him, a conscience who keeps reminding him that he once had great ideals and has failed to achieve anything to justify them. Survivor’s guilt was mentioned in the program notes, and that’s clearly what’s being represented here. From this point on, the younger version wanders around, but doesn’t seem to get much dialogue, which made the character seem a bit redundant to me, and a waste of a good actor. (Having checked the playtext, the character seems to have more to say than I remember, so perhaps lines were cut, or perhaps they just didn’t register with me.)

The second act covered the run up to WWII, and a brief part of MacMillan’s wartime career when he was based in North Africa. While out there he met Eisenhower, and the two men got along well, which would be to MacMillan’s benefit in later years. At this point MacMillan gets the chance to save a young pilot’s life after his plane crashes, and there seemed to be some lessening of his survivor’s guilt, though I wasn’t absolutely sure about this. However, it does seem to be his turning point, when he becomes much tougher and determined to succeed.

Before this, the play covers the plotting that went on in the Conservative party after Chamberlain’s triumphant return from Germany with minimalist stationary supplies, and it was very entertaining. The opening scene shows MacMillan visiting his mother, who is constantly telling him off for his political choices, including becoming MP for a constituency north of Watford. It’s an absolutely hilarious scene, with several very funny lines, impeccably delivered. We also learn about his wife’s affair with another Tory MP, and one whom MacMillan will be involved with closely, as they’re both supporting Churchill in his attempts to retake power. He refuses to divorce his wife, though, as it would be another block to him holding high office. When the inevitable happens, Churchill takes over as leader of the country, and MacMillan finds himself in Africa talking to Eisenhower (see above).

There were warnings about pyrotechnic effects in the production as we went in, but nothing could have prepared us for the actual plane crash. I felt a serious blast of heat in my seat, and I don’t know how they stopped the flames from scorching the ceiling, never mind the actors. It was most impressive. Fortunately they now have the interval to clean everything up.

After the interval, we see the back room shenanigans involved in the Suez crisis. It’s quite good fun seeing the plotting and intrigue, the speculation about what will happen and, more importantly, how the intervention will look to everyone else. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s a ludicrous plan, but it does show how the last traces of the Empire attitude lingered after WWII. MacMillan’s also in good form, manoeuvring himself nicely into the top job as Eden nose-dives into oblivion. It’s in this scene that his younger self seems particularly quiet and superfluous.

The final act is a short one, and takes us from MacMillan’s appointment as PM to his retirement. We see him getting to grips with the requirements of the top job, including negotiations with the French and with Eisenhower. MacMillan attempts to get access to America’s nuclear secrets, only to be told fairly bluntly that the Americans think the British have been faking their atomic orgasms. The effect of the new generation of satirists is mentioned, and then the Profumo affair comes along, and it’s Supermac’s turn to leave the political merry-go-round. And with a final reference to Google, he bids us farewell and leaves the stage.

As I’ve already said, I enjoyed the performances more than the writing or staging. The problems with the staging were simple, but first I want to describe the set. It had an angled wall with tall doors to our left. The doors have glass panes, so at first I thought they were windows. To our right, there were three or four rows of storage shelves, filled with official-looking boxes; these were moved about in later scenes to create the setting for the Cabinet Room. Wooden chairs were placed in front of the pillars on either side. It was too gloomy at the start to see what the back wall was like, but it looked like industrial concrete. There was also a huge panel of windows that dropped down towards the front of the stage a couple of times, complemented with two chandeliers, and this usually represented a posh location – the Ritz ballroom perhaps. For the First World War, there were mounds and wire and suchlike to represent the battlefield – these were moved into place behind the panel of windows. A wall with greenery slid on about halfway back on the right, with a bench, and this was the setting for MacMillan’s country home. The plane crash in North Africa had lots of metal barrels standing around to hold the many flames, and for other scenes there were tables and chairs brought on as required.

Although we weren’t sitting that far to the side (about six seats in), I found I could see right through the shelving on our right, into the wings, and so whenever the stage crew were getting ready to move things around, these people who were clearly nothing to do with the performance on stage would come into my line of sight, distracting me for a moment from the play. It happened enough that it affected my enjoyment of the piece, and shows a sad lack of ability on the part of the designer, creating a set with such an annoying tendency to prevent audience members from enjoying the show! The amount of haulage was also a problem at times, and reminded me of Michael Attenborough’s comments about “theatre of burglary”, where the lights go down and people dressed in black come into your home and rearrange the furniture. The burglars were well active today, and obviously so, as this time the lights didn’t go down.

A number of the changes were covered by dances, usually between the acts. These did have the advantage of letting us know which time period we were in, but they went on for so long that the momentum of the performance was lost. Given that the writing was a bit lacking in interest, that’s not a good idea. Other than that, I liked the set and the flexibility it gave, but I wouldn’t willingly see this production again, despite the good performances.

Crown Matrimonial – July 2008

Jul16

5/10

By Royce Ryton

Directed by David Grindley

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Tuesday 15th July 2008

This play covers the events leading up to Edward VIII’s abdication from the family’s point of view, and finishes with a final scene set after WW2, when the Duke of Windsor was hoping to come home. The scenes are all set in Queen Mary’s sitting room, so a great deal of the dialogue is reportage. There’s also a fair bit of clunky exposition for those not so familiar with this story, so I found it took some time to get going.

I wasn’t immediately taken with Patricia Routledge as Queen Mary. She didn’t have quite enough authority for me, more of the middle class housewife done up with a load of bling. However, she grew on me as the performance went on. The other actors suffered from the clunky dialogue, cut-glass accents and lack of animation, which suited the characters but was dreadfully dull to watch. There was one good scene when the king turns up for dinner to find one more sister present than he expected. The awkward silence spoke volumes about how the situation was affecting the family, as well as emphasising why David feels the need for Wallis’ company. They could be a stuffy lot, these Windsors.

The scenes in the second half were better as a lot of explanation had already been done and the characters could get on with it more. I found the third scene very moving, where Bertie steps up to take on the role of king, and my eyes were very wet at times. I also enjoyed the earlier scene, where Elizabeth gets to speak her mind about David’s selfishness and how he’s affecting the rest of the family. It’s entertaining, and David does stand up for himself too, but it did go on a bit too long for my liking.

The debates between the characters were occasionally interesting, as they gave an insight into a time when Hitler and Mussolini hadn’t convinced everyone that they were bad news. David came across as an innovator, determined to bring his country and his church into the twentieth century, and even to build up the armed forces to make the country stronger. The opposite perspective is well represented by the Queen Mother and her daughter Mary, who are staunchly in the ‘no change’ camp, and who won’t even meet, or ‘receive’, Wallis Simpson because she’s divorced. Admittedly, her first divorce looks like misfortune, while her second, underway as the characters speak, looks like carelessness. And opportunism. We may never know.

This play was much more charged when it was first produced, as some of the characters were still living. Now that none of them are alive and we’ve had so many documentaries about this issue, it seems a bit stale, not helped by the lack of action and frequently stilted dialogue. There are some good laughs, and the performances were as good as the text would allow them to be, but it may be wise to leave it in mothballs for a good many years to give it more historical interest. Still, it was a good production, and I enjoyed my evening.

Troilus And Cressida – May 2008

May31

2/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Declan Donnellan

Company: Cheek By Jowl

Venue: Barbican Theatre

Date: Saturday 31st May 2008

The set was the same basic layout as for Boris Godunov, with five strips of some marbled spongy fabric laid lengthways down the stage. (I checked this in the interval – it felt like textured paper, like heavy wallpaper, but from the way it hung, I’m not sure exactly what it was. The black stuff underneath seemed to be the spongy bit.) To our right, the outer four strips curved up to the ceiling, while the fifth appeared to be cut off and lifted up to create a canopy over the entrance formed by the gap. To our left, the central three strips formed right angles and rose vertically, but were staggered to create gaps. Colour wise, they were a marbled cream. Four grey stools/tables placed in what might loosely be called the corners of the stage completed the layout at the beginning. As it turned out, these larger stools were made up from four individual stools, and these were moved around, turned over, and even cleaned (by Thersites) as required.

Now I should mention here that I can only report on the first half of this production, and then only on the parts that I was actually awake for. It’s a play with difficult language to get across, the afternoon was humid, and the Barbican facilities and management not up to the standard of old, although the temporary seating was much more comfortable than I remember (which doesn’t actually help with the snoozing option, of course). For that matter, the production itself wasn’t up to much, with just a few interesting points which I will record below, and with me being well into my menopausal phase, a little thing like being told I couldn’t take our ice creams into the auditorium was enough to put me off the second half. I decided I could snooze just as well in the foyer as in my seat (I hadn’t realised that drum practice was on the agenda), but I insisted that Steve sit through the rest of it and report back (see below).

So, what was the production actually like? Helen herself gave us the prologue, although as I didn’t know it was her at the time I can’t tell if that had any significance. She walked down the stage, from left to right as we saw it, before speaking. She looked gorgeous in a white strapless gown, fitted to just below the hips with flounces to the floor. Long white gloves completed the outfit, and it was clear we were in for modern dress. The prologue goes into some detail on place names that didn’t mean much to me, and there were a number of soldiers who arrived on stage around whom she was delivering her speech – I don’t remember who they were, presumably generic soldiers, although they may have been meant to represent actual characters. I suspect not, though, as later on they took the trouble to bring characters on to the stage when they were being talked about, so we would know who was who; if they were meant to be doing that during the prologue it needs some work.

The opening discussion between Troilus and Pandarus was a bit dull. The characters’ motivations weren’t at all clear to me. We did get to see Cressida during this, and as Troilus and Pandarus talked, she and another actor mimed her father’s leaving, which did make her situation painfully clear. After Troilus leaves, Cressida then talks with Pandarus. He tries to persuade her to fancy Troilus, while she focuses all her attention on Hector. Both of these actors come on stage, Hector first, and they do some sword practice while the other two talk. Then there’s the parade of Trojan nobility, which Pandarus hopes will turn Cressida’s head. Various people come onto the stage from our left and, in the case of smartly dressed Paris and the beautiful Helen, accept the crowd’s enthusiastic applause like any pair of self-regarding vacuous celebrities (boy that menopause is really kicking in now). I was distracted during this bit as someone had been let in late (despite emails being sent out warning that this wouldn’t be allowed, so be here on time or miss out!), and he was having a discussion with the people right behind us about where his seat was. After a ridiculously long time, he moved to a vacant seat in row B, and we were finally able to focus back on the play.

Pandarus was on the steps to our left, Cressida on the steps far right, so they had their private chat talking loudly across the stage at each other. This was fine, as it meant I could hear perfectly, not always easy with this sort of layout. The soldiers who entered not only accepted the cheers from the crowd, they stood on the stools to give the masses a chance to properly admire them. Troilus in particular came across as quite wimpish in this company, but still managed to snaffle a stool ahead of Hector. One point to note here was that I wouldn’t have known from this scene that Cressida was actually dead keen on Troilus herself, and was only pretending to prefer Hector to wind Pandarus up. I mean that both in terms of her behaviour while talking with Pandarus, and from the little speech she has at the end of the scene, telling all to the audience. Good job I know the play.

The next scene was presumably cut to the bone. It’s often very tedious, and this version wasn’t the best nor the worst. Various Greek warlords strut their stuff, then Aeneas arrives with a challenge from Hector aimed at luring Achilles into single combat. There’s potential to show a lot about the relationships between the Greek leaders, but either this was lacking, or I missed it because the width of the stage meant that too many actors were effectively out of sight for large parts of the scene.

Achilles was being played more like a bureaucrat than anything else. He handed out papers to support his argument about the divided nature of the Greek forces, and was remarkably diffident about making his points. Apparently he thought his silver tongue wasn’t as effective as a spreadsheet with accompanying footnotes. He also laid out a couple of photos of Ulysses and Patroclus in compromising intimacy (they were too small to get any detail, sorry), but given the Greek attitudes to man on man action, I doubt that it’s the indecency that would figure in his argument so much as the waste of valuable fighting time (as recorded on the timesheets which this Ulysses has no doubt filed away meticulously in his tent).

One nice touch with this portrayal was the way Ulysses took the written challenge and started tinkering with it, reading it carefully and considering how to spin it to their advantage, i.e. to get Achilles out of bed and killing Trojans. The idea of Ulysses as a subtle Greek spin doctor has its attractions. Sadly the rest of his performance undermined the benefits, and the rest of the Greeks were unremarkable.

Now we get Thersites and the Greeks. At first I thought they’d cast a woman as Thersites, but once ‘she’ spoke I realised this is a tranny Thersites, all the more impressive because he/she’s done up in a blue boiler suit and wears rubber gloves. Admittedly the makeup and long plait help the female persona, but the voice is still too butch to mistake him for her. Imagine a bitter and rancorous Lily Savage dressing down as a caretaker, and if you haven’t fainted from shock you’ll have a pretty good idea of the character.

Ajax, that well-known cleaning fluid, would seem like an ideal companion for Thersites in this mode, but they just don’t get along. ‘She’ even spits in his coffee. Mind you, it took me a while to penetrate the thick, and somewhat variable accent that Ajax was hiding his lines in – good job this was a captioned performance. Turns out he’s Scottish! And Lily Thersites is Scouse. I wasn’t aware of any other specific accents, so why these choices? Just another baffling point that got in the way of enjoying the play.

They were doing the usual trick of bringing the next scene’s characters on just before the previous scene finishes, which you would have thought would have shortened the running time from the three hours twenty it’s currently at. However, this time they bring on Priam, on his sick bed, for the debate on How Do You Solve A Problem Like Helen? Paris gets a good slap from Priam, which was the best bit of the scene, and Cassandra has a good rant, showing off her knickers to all and sundry as various brothers try to haul her off. Not a great scene, but at least I stayed awake through it.

Now it’s back to the Greeks, with Thersites showing he’s not biased, because he rants at Patroclus as well, while the latter is doing his tai chi practice. The Greek generals arrive, and talk for quite a while, trying to get Achilles to get his act together, but no luck, and no entertainment value either. Then Pandarus has his chat with Helen and Paris. These two came on with the entourage for a photo shoot, and posed for several minutes while lackeys did their hair and makeup, positioned their frocks, etc. Frankly, although this was very entertaining, I confess I can’t remember anything else about this scene – what the characters discussed, why Pandarus wanted to talk to them in the first place, nothing. As such, this scene effectively represents the whole of the production, at least as much as I saw of it, and from Steve’s comments later, the rest of it as well.

Given the lack of anything remotely interesting happening on stage, it’s no surprise that the next scene, where Troilus and Cressida meet for the first time, was where I started to lose the will to stay awake. I did my best, but the stuffiness, the unintelligible delivery of the lines, and the bland acting all conspired to lull me away to dreamland – a much more profitable experience, trust me.

Steve’s views on the second half were not much different. The characters were not coming across clearly as different people, and he wouldn’t have rated the performance much higher than I did, if at all. Thersites’ Lily Savage resemblance was emphasised in the second half, as ‘she’ dressed up for the party between the Greeks and Trojans (don’t they know there’s a war on?) in Helen’s flouncy frock, and wore a large blond wig.

For a sell-out, there were quite a few seats empty at the start, and even more after the interval, with an almost embarrassing lack of applause at the end. Troilus and Cressida were coming back on for another set of bows when the clapping had all but stopped. Still, some of the critics liked it, so that’s all right then.

The Pitmen Painters – May 2008

May23

8/10

By Lee Hall, inspired by a book by William Feaver

Directed by Max Roberts

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Thursday 22nd May 2008

I was bowled over by the first half of this production. The humour, the characters and the painting were all magnificent. I felt the second half lost it a little bit, especially during the last scene, but the overall impression was of a really good play superbly performed. I cried, I laughed, I marvelled at the talent for painting. What more could anyone want from an afternoon at the theatre? Well, a male life model would have been nice, I suppose, but then he would have stuck out like a sore thumb in this play.

The story is a simple one, but I’ve always found this sort of thing tremendously moving. Not that there was a scrap of sentimentality on show – these were all straight-talking northerners, none of that fancy emotional stuff for them. Instead of help and support from the rest of the painting group, the members could expect only fierce criticism and downright hostility, with the odd bit of grudging praise thrown in from time to time – don’t blink or you’d miss it.

The play follows the group from their start as an art appreciation class in 1933, through their experiments with making art themselves, and finishes at the end of WW2, with socialism and the Allies both triumphant and looking eagerly forward to a better future. The stage was a large shed, with folding chairs and not much else in the way of comforts. Three screens above the stage showed us the art works in question, and my first sight of their work almost took my breath away. Oliver Kilburn’s linotype of a miner hewing coal underground was strong, dynamic and well composed. Other works were equally amazing, for folk with no training at all. They clearly had great talent within the group, although they kept it all on an amateur footing.

Their tutor for these sessions, Robert Lyon, was a posh university type, who started off by showing slides of Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo. These overblown pictures need some training to appreciate, and they certainly didn’t grab the miners’ attention. Despite concerns that the rules didn’t allow the working folk taking these classes to do anything that might be considered ‘useful’, Lyon persuaded the powers that be to allow an experiment for this class – the students were only making art as a way of understanding the processes that the ‘proper’ artists went through. The results were indeed phenomenal, and Lyon did very well out of the group, getting a proper professorship, as well as writing and lecturing on the experiment, and basking in the reflected glory of their achievements.

All of these aspects were covered in the play, as well as the fickleness of the art collectors who are always looking for the next new thing. The character of Helen Sutherland, an art collector, turns up at the first class where Lyon has booked a life model, and her comments are generally supportive. The men’s attitudes to her are ambivalent, while they’re completely divided on the subject of life modelling. George Brown wants the young lady to keep her clothes on – shop steward type, devoted to his rule book – while the others seem either OK with it or really keen. The first half ends with the model throwing off her robe and posing for a brief second before the lights go out.

During the second half we see the group’s interest in art, and their keen eye, develop. They’re not afraid to speak their minds, whether the art they see is fashionable or not, and their direct relationship with the pictures, old or modern, gave me some of the best insights I’ve ever had into modern art, or at least the art that was modern in their day. Oliver Kilburn’s description of what the artist was trying to achieve with a piece which was basically a grey circle inside a grey square, was enlightening, although the fact that I couldn’t make out what medium was used was rather frustrating. Was it a painting? Was it a sculpture? Either way, his perspective was very illuminating, and I’m grateful for that, and for the affirmation that we don’t have to know a lot to be able to enjoy art. The other fun part was during the students’ trip to London, where they visited an exhibition of Chinese art, which has very strong traditions and rules. Lyon was dismissive of the work on view, but the group were able to express clearly what this type of art is about, showing individual expression in subtle ways, where each tiny difference from the long tradition of the past is a major leap forward for the artist. I like Chinese art anyway, but it was good to hear it championed so effectively.

Not all of the group were miners. One, Harry Wilson, was a dental technician, having been invalided out of WWI, and another was a young lad who was related to George Brown, and ended up going off to fight when the war started. I wasn’t clear what this character was meant to be doing in the group, although there was some good comedy around his participation. He didn’t get involved in the painting – we never saw any of his work – and his death appeared to have had very little effect on the other characters. He just seemed to tail off. Still, the rest of the characters more than made up for it. One of my favourite lines was in response to Robert Lyon’s suggestion that the group could vote on some matter that was dividing them. “This is a democracy – we don’t take votes” was George Brown’s emphatic conclusion.

The issues discussed throughout the play covered an amazing range. The effect of supporting artists financially is explored through a meeting between Ben Nicholson and Oliver Kilburn, whom Helen Sutherland has offered to support via a stipend so he can paint full time. Nicholson paints a different picture, one where the paid artist has to work according to his patron’s wishes, and his frustration at being stifled was clear to see. Later on, the way Helen drops the group once they’re ‘in’, as she goes in pursuit of the next unknown, is a clear warning of the dangers faced by anyone relying on her financial support.

There’s also the question of ‘good’ art, and who gets to decide this – that runs throughout the play – and the ticklish question of whether anyone could do what these men had done, or whether they were just exceptionally gifted. Lyon’s point of view was that, given the chance, all people could produce art to this standard, while the group felt that was rubbish, they just happened to be bloody good at it! I took Robert Lyon’s point – there is a lot of talent that even now isn’t being discovered or nurtured fully, but perhaps not so many people would come up with such powerful work as this group did without some sort of training, so they definitely were exceptional.

This is such a rich piece that I can’t put down everything that happened, but the warmth and enjoyment will stay with me for a long time. A superb production, and a great play.

Boris Godunov – May 2008

May18

8/10

By Alexander Pushkin

Directed by Declan Donnellan

Company: Cheek By Jowl

Venue: Barbican Theatre

Date: Saturday 17th May 2008

I knew nothing about this play except for its name, and that it was Russian. It was also being done by Russian actors, in Russian. Given my experiences during the RSC’s Complete Works festival, it’s surprising I chose to go to this, but we do like Cheek by Jowl’s work – the Twelfth Night had been exceptionally good. So here I was, knowing nothing of what was to come, but looking forward to a new experience.

Our seats were on the Barbican stage. Actually, the temporary seating ran down both sides of the stage, the former auditorium was screened off, and the acting space was a long narrow platform sandwiched between the two. Still, I can always claim I’ve been on stage at the Barbican, if I ever feel the need.

As we came in, there was a church service in progress at the far end of the platform, to our left as we sat down. Russian Orthodox – lots of beards, incense and chanting. To our right, a man sat at a table, tapping away on a battered old typewriter. I took this to be Pushkin, writing the masterpiece we were about to see, but that wasn’t quite it. The chanting continued for some time, and then the lights dimmed as two characters began the play. Dressed in modern suits, they were talking about Boris Godunov having killed the heir to the throne, Dmitry, and how the people would want Boris to become their next ruler. For those familiar with Shakespeare, this was home ground. I was a little confused by the way one of the characters, a prince, was also interacting with Boris as he told the other chap what he’d seen of the heir’s murder. He and Boris played some game with their hands over the crown, which sat on a small throne between the church area and the table. Then Boris removed the crown, and sat on the throne himself. After that, he became colder towards the prince, but I don’t know whether this was based on the prince’s own description of events or a parallel piece of action. Anyway, it was clear that these two characters, both members of the royal family, consider themselves to have better claims to the throne than ambitious Boris. However, the people love him, so it’s Boris’s crown.

After the church stuff is all cleared away, the man at the typewriter starts to talk. Apparently he’s a monk who’s lived through Ivan the Terrible’s reign, as well as his son Feodor’s, and he’s been writing a history of the events so that the Russian people will know about their past. There’s a young lad with him. He came to the monastery as a boy and looks after the older man, despite having one arm shorter than the other – he holds his left arm awkwardly. When the monk gives him the history, telling him to carry on the work, he decides to run away, and possibly plans to become Czar himself – both Steve and I were a bit unsure on this point. The surtitles were very useful, but it was easy to miss a line or two when we were caught up in the action. Anyway, the young man ends up at the Russian/Lithuanian border, and is nearly caught by the officers of the law, who have a written description of the man they’re looking for. Being able to read, he lies about the description to try and throw suspicion on someone else as the runaway, but this other chap remembers enough of his learning to give an alternative version of the officer’s orders, and the young man has to fight to escape. It’s not exactly clear what happens. He seemed to give the officer a jab in the neck, so that he could hardly talk, but then the action shifted to the next scene.

From here the play really began to hook me. The young man pretends to be Dmitry, the deceased heir, and for all sorts of reasons, people believe him. Most importantly, the kings of neighbouring countries choose to support him, and are prepared to provide troops to help him regain ‘his’ throne. Disaffected Russians also flock to him, and there’s a lovely scene where he greets the representatives of various groups who’ve come to offer him their support. It was clearly done in public, and done to make the most of the tributes – a photo-op.

To seal the deal, a Polish nobleman offers to marry his beautiful daughter to ‘Dmitry’. He’s pretty keen, she’s definitely keen, already seeing herself as Czarina, and they have an intimate scene beside a pool that’s appeared in the middle of the stage. He’s torn by doubt – should he tell her the truth or not? Will she love him as he is, or does she only love him because she thinks he’s the heir to the Russian throne? Eventually he decides to confess, and she’s horrified. She has no intention of marrying a peasant! However, she’s also politically astute, and comes to realise that he may be a fake, but he’s a powerful fake, with a good chance of becoming the real Czar, so she better get on board before the train leaves the station. I remember them ending up in the pool, getting very wet, though I’m not sure now how all that related to the dialogue. By this time I was finding it hard to keep an eye on the surtitles as there was so much happening on stage.

The final scenes covered the fighting over the throne, and were back to being confusing. From what I could understand, the fake Dmitry’s forces are defeated and he’s killed, though whether this is after he’d successfully claimed the throne or not, I couldn’t tell. The program notes inform us that he did actually rule for a short time before being ousted, so I assume that’s what the play was telling us.

These Russian actors certainly know how to make the most of their curtain calls. There were a number of bouquets handed over, and not just to the ladies. Evgeny Mironov who played the pretender received several of them, and the whole cast took their time to revel in the applause, which was pretty strong.

I enjoyed this performance much more than I thought I would, and I may be more willing to check out foreign productions in future (but don’t bet on it).

Fram – May 2008

May2

5/10

By Tony Harrison

Directed by Tony Harrison and Bob Crowley

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Thursday 1st May 2008

This was an interesting play, at least for the first half. The subject matter was relatively unknown to me, and the choice of characters seemed really weird until they all came together for the final scene before the interval. Perhaps I should mention here that Sian Phillips’s speech as Sybil Thorndike in that scene nearly put me off my ice cream! (I said nearly.)

The play starts in Westminster Cathedral. There’s a pillar with a marble decorated ledge, two large stained glass windows, one suspended at the front of the stage, the other at the back, and lots of echoing darkness. The stained glass windows were actually projections, which made them easy to remove and replace. The floor was covered with black cloth, also easily removed to reveal the arctic ice. Film projection was used quite a bit, both at the back and on a screen lowered towards the front of the stage. There was also a proscenium arch set with two side boxes, a drawing room type scenario (where Sybil gives her stomach-churning speech), and some good interpretations of snowy wastes. The first of these consisted of a central area with some jagged ice blocks sticking up at an angle, and lots of flat floes around it. The temporary hut was set up beside these blocks. Later, when Nansen and Johansen return to the Arctic, their ship, Fram (means “forward” in Norwegian), rises up majestically out of the floor, as the central part rotates. It was reasonably impressive, but I noticed that the ship’s masts were at right angles to the stage, although the ship itself was angled as if it were a submarine rising from the depths, and at speed. Very peculiar.

The play opens with the sounds of locks being turned, doors creaking open, and footsteps echoing along stone floors – slightly reminiscent of Tales of Old Dartmoor, a Goon classic. Eventually we get to see a character, Gilbert Murray, a dead professor who not only translated ancient Greek dramas into English verse, he also speaks the stuff, and at considerable length. He’s a little miffed that his translation of the Oresteia wasn’t used for the National’s production some years ago (funnily enough, they used Tony Harrison’s instead), but exceedingly miffed to find he’s buried only a short distance from T S Eliot, a man he obviously detested (and who didn’t speak highly of him). Fortunately he gets another character to explain things to, and this is Sybil Thorndike. He tells her he’s writing a play, in verse, about Fridtjof Nansen, a man they both knew, and there’s a part for her in it. Nothing gets an actress’s attention quicker than that, and despite the total lack of a script, set, costumes, rehearsal time etc, she’s persuaded to join in this ‘improv’ piece. She’s none too happy when she finds her dress is the wrong colour and she’s only in one scene, but those come later. And given the amount of time she does spend on stage (and screen) it’s hardly a bit part.

Anyway, they head off to the National, and the screens at the back show us their progress, including their arrival at the entrance to the auditorium. It’s no surprise when they come down the side aisles, Sybil to our right, Gilbert to our left, although from the audience reaction, you’d have thought this was the first time it had ever been done.

I should mention that canned applause was used frequently throughout the production, and it’s a good job too, as this audience seemed reluctant to play the part of the audience within the play. With one notable exception, we restrained ourselves from laughing, clapping, oohing and ahhing as much as possible – I suspect I would have enjoyed the play more if the audience had been a bit more giving. In fact, there were noticeable gaps amongst us for the second half, and I don’t usually see so many folk leave during the applause at the end. From the first scene, I felt there were jokes that didn’t get a suitable response, and Steve and I reckon those who came just weren’t expecting so much humour. Ah well.

Once Gilbert and Sybil were on stage (again), there was some faffing about with a Greek tragedy mask before we get to meet the subject of the play, Fridtjof Nansen. The screen comes down, and we see a slide projected onto it – Nansen is giving a talk about his Arctic experiences. He gives us a reasonably long opening spiel, introduces us to his colleague from the ice, Johansen, then repeats the opening bit twice more, as slides for his talks in Newcastle and Aberdeen appear on either side of the London one. At least the audience was warming up a bit by this time, so we got a chance to laugh at the humour of the repetition.

The screen at the front also covered up the set changes behind, so when Nansen moves from slide show to dramatic reconstruction, all that’s needed is for the screen to lift, and for the black cloth to be surreptitiously whisked off to the wings, like some dead body being dragged away by an alien creature on Doctor Who.

Nansen and Johansen showed us their ‘roomy’ hut (it was tiny), their bear fur sleeping bag which they planned to split in two now they had the luxury of separate sides of the hut, and their complete inability to communicate with each other. They were described as each other’s opposite, with Johansen being the dark side of Nansen’s soul. Personally I wouldn’t have wanted to spend much time with either of them by choice, but I can see how extreme need makes for stranger bedfellows than ordinary necessity. Nansen believed that, as the seas were cooling, the planet would end up covered in ice and snow – everywhere would be like the Arctic. It’s a chilling prospect, though shot through with irony given current concerns about the climate, and it made him a less than comfortable companion. Johansen puts the blame for his own suicide squarely on Nansen’s shoulders; he claims it was the depressing effect of Nansen’s beliefs that led to his drinking and terminal despair. I can see the man’s point. However, being dead means nothing in this play, where ghosts have a remarkably physical presence, so Johansen isn’t gone. Oh no, he becomes Nansen’s conscience and biggest critic, and probably gets more lines in that role than he did when he was (supposedly) alive.

Nansen’s successful trip meant he was welcomed back to Norway as a great hero. His achievement (he reached furthest north) was surpassed a few years later, so he also faced the challenge of despair and discouragement. However, he avoided the bullet, and chose instead to focus his energies on helping the rest of humanity in any way he could. This leads to the scene in a open-plan drawing room, which was using the very slow revolve to subtly change the perspective. It took me some time to spot, and I find that sort of thing helpful in what are otherwise quite static scenes. Various characters were present, all deeply involved in the relief effort for Russian famine victims. There’s some debate about the best way forward – film, radio, newspapers, acting – and the scorn heaped on the influence of the actors is so great that Sybil has to show them what she’s made of. Her moving speech as a starving Russian woman and mother was a little too long, but was also tremendously powerful, and even stomach-churning. The descriptions of eating cooked human flesh have stayed with me longer than I would like, and her wrecking of the buffet was entirely appropriate, if somewhat messy. Delivered as it was by a well-nourished, well-dressed woman, this speech ably demonstrated the power of performance to move people, and Sian Thomas got the loudest round of applause for her superb acting when Sybil made her triumphant exit.

The second half showed us Nansen’s tour to raise awareness and funds to help with the famine relief effort. He was using the slide show again, only this time the pictures were horrific and sadly not unknown today. He left, and Johansen’s ghost harangued us for a while, exhorting us to look at the pictures in case one of the dead bodies moved. He also stomped off, leaving us with the picture of two dead bodies, supposedly a brother and sister. After a very long pause, there was indeed some movement, which was startling, but I have no idea what any of that was supposed to convey to the audience.

From there, Gilbert and Sybil returned to Westminster Abbey, and after reviling T S Eliot some more, they were interrupted by a Kurdish poet with his mouth sewn up (don’t ask me). He struggled to express himself, and that was that. For a final scene, we get to see Nansen and Johansen on the ice again, this time on Fram, as it rose up from the depths. God knows what that bit was about. Nansen meets a couple of African kids, who’ve apparently been frozen to death because they stowed away in the undercarriage recess on a plane, and were taken too high to survive. The idea of these two being explorers of the frozen air appeals to Nansen; didn’t do it for me, though.

There was also a ballet during the first half, an actual ballet, inspired by Nansen’s drawings of the aurora borealis. It went on too long for me, as ballet has never been my thing, although I’m sure the dancer did a great job.

The ooh moment came during Nansen’s second slide show. To soften us up, he commented that when he showed his pictures of the animals on his arctic expeditions, it was only in England that people went… and the audience this time obliged with an “ahh” (a particularly lovely husky was on the screen at that point).

The performances were all fine, given the tedious nature of some of the dialogue, and the confusing jumble of symbolism and realistic, biography and fantasy. The constant use of rhyming couplets can jar after a while, especially when the rhymes are emphasised, as they often were here. There were a lot of in jokes, mainly to do with the Olivier itself, and although we got most of them, it did take the emphasis completely away from the subject matter, assuming the subject matter was something to do with Nansen and his career. The time spent on the ice was less than I’d expected from the pre-publicity, especially as almost all the photos used that part of the set. It was spectacular enough, although not the only good aspect of the set design.

Overall, it was a disappointing play with some good scenes, which could do with some serious editing if it wants a life beyond the Olivier stage.

Richard III – February 2008

Feb23

10/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Michael Boyd

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Friday 22nd February 2008

This could take some time. When we saw this play previously, just over a year ago, it was at the end of a long Saturday seeing three plays, having caught Henry VI part 1 the night before. I was tired, it took ages to catch up on my notes, and although I enjoyed it, I only gave it six stars. A year later, and with the cast having re-rehearsed all the plays only last month, it’s almost a different production. I’ll put in as much as I can of the staging, but first I have to say this was just about the best Richard III I’ve seen – it ranks up there with the ESC’s Wars of the Roses and Andrew Jarvis’s performance, and probably tops it in some areas.

To start, the lights go down, and I could see at least one character walk past us on the walkway for the opening. When the lights went up, there was Richard himself, standing roughly in the middle of the stage, as he was at the end of Henry VI Part 3, cradling what appears to be a baby in his arms. To our left, on the walkway, stands a boy, dressed in the white of the “good” characters, presumably the young Prince Edward. This is clarified when Richard indicates the young man as “this son of York”. It’s a nice touch, especially when the young lad comes over to his uncle, who puts his arm round him. Richard’s lines are spoken jocularly to the prince, and after “the lascivious pleasing of a lute”, the youngster runs off stage, and Richard can get down to the business of being a villain, which he does so well.

The cloth he had been holding at the start was bundled up to look like a baby, and right at the beginning he flicks it out, as if throwing the child away. He then tucks the extra large napkin into his collar, as if about to have a meal. While talking to the prince, he’s all smiles and charm and playfulness. Once the prince leaves, the darker side comes out, and there’s an element of temper in his railing about his deformities. Yet he’s also a thinker, and a layer of plots, as we soon see. Clarence arrives, and the ubiquitous Antony Bunsee as Keeper-of-all-things (in this case, Brakenbury) appears at the balcony to take Clarence into his keeping at the Tower. I should mention that this production is predominately modern dress, but the keeper character is wearing much the same red outfit as before, only with trousers. There are one or two other variations, but I’ll deal with them as I go.

Richard and Clarence mainly talk at the front of the stage, and Richard is loud enough to be easily overheard. He seems straightforward enough – concerned for his brother, and convinced the queen is behind Clarence’s arrest. Brakenbury’s intervention is delivered in an unemotional way, almost flat, but Richard gets as much humour as he can from the word play. Richard’s little asides after Clarence is taken off are starting to show the playfulness of Richard’s villainy, and after greeting Hastings on his release (and giving him a gun), he continues in this vein. The lines “What, though I kill’d her husband ….husband and her father” got a good laugh. One nice touch – when Hastings steps out of the Tower, he’s holding a clear plastic bag with his belongings.

Henry’s corpse arrives, carried on a stretcher by a couple of bearers, and with other men holding up Henry’s picture to the audience as they go. Ann appears (on the balcony, I think), and tells the men to set the body down so that she can deliver her speech to it. She makes the customary mistake of uttering some curses, and those of us familiar with the play know that she’ll be the one to suffer for it.

When Richard arrives, he has several armed men with him, and forces the bearers to put the body down. They withdraw pretty sharpish to the back of the stage, leaving Ann, down now from the balcony, to confront Richard. I don’t remember if these men leave now or later. She lifts the sheet off Henry’s face and chest, exposing the wounds, still bloody, and getting bloodier by the minute, as Richard’s presence makes them gush again.

The wooing scene was very good. Ann is obviously swayed by Richard’s flattery, for all the insults she hurls at him. Mind you, he does a good job, always putting her beauty at the centre of his argument. Even so, I noticed he had to do some rapid deflections of her attempts to stab him with his own knife, otherwise the play would have been over sooner than expected. She’s not completely won over at the end, but not far off, and I was thinking how a system of arranged marriages amongst the nobility probably makes this kind of thing more believable. After all, she probably didn’t really love her husband, the Lancastrian Prince Edward, and a lot of her grieving could just be a formal display of respect. In those circumstances, it might be easier to move on to another husband, although she has gone for the worst possible choice. Richard has his men take Henry’s body to a different place than Ann had planned – his men put the stretcher down, turn around, and pick it up facing the other way – and then we’re left alone with him to enjoy his reaction to his success. This was really good, and showed how much this portrayal has come on. Jonathan Slinger worked this speech much more with the audience, and brought out all the character’s thoughts and his own amazement at how well he’s done. He can appreciate how outrageous her conversion is, far more than the woman herself. Of course, he knows he’s lying, and she isn’t sure, but even so.

At the palace, the queen and her family are discussing the situation. The queen is troubled by Edward’s ill health, and despite their attempts to comfort her with thoughts of her son being Edward’s heir, she’s smart enough to realise the danger she’s in. Richard arrives, complaining about being slandered because he’s such a straightforward chap who “cannot flatter and speak fair”, which we’ve just seen him do, and do very well, with Ann. His bare-faced cheek, obvious to the audience, is very entertaining. He manages to get everyone in a tizzy, and provokes the queen to wish herself “ a country servantmaid” rather than put up with these attacks. The previous queen, Margaret, sneaks on to the balcony at this point – the rest are down below – and comments on the brawling.

Richard lets rip with all his resentments. He’s helped the king get his crown by fighting, risking his own life for his family, and now the queen and her family, supporters of Lancaster, are reaping the rewards. They respond in kind, though not with kindness, and eventually Margaret steps forward to have her say. Katy Stephens played this part magnificently. From her start in Henry VI part 1 as a drop-dead gorgeous starlet in a stunning red dress, through the battling queen in armour of the next two plays, to this greying woman, dressed all in black, and wearing a large bundle wrapped round her torso, she’s conveyed a tremendous emotional journey. OK, the woman’s another villain in a sense, killing just as happily as this Richard, but she’s always had the total conviction of her right to rule. It just so happens that in this culture she needs a king for a husband to be able to do that; nowadays she’d just sleep her way to the top of some big corporation, getting rid of her opponents on the way. Or perhaps she’d marry an aspiring politician? Anyway, it’s a great performance, and the emotional truth came across every second she was on stage.

For her cursing of those present, she drops her bundle, and lets the rotted skeleton of (I presume) her son Edward, fall out onto the stage. There’s a predictable reaction from the other characters – they step well back, and cover their noses. It’s an ugly sight, but shows Margaret’s craziness and obsession beautifully. She lays her shawl out on the ground, and as she curses, places another part of the skeleton in place. The ease with which she finds the relevant bones suggested to me that Margaret’s done this many times before, and that in itself is chilling.

She’s really rattled when Richard interrupts her final curse, but still manages to snap back at the others when they snipe at her – Richard’s intervention has given them back their confidence. When Buckingham comes over to her, trying to persuade her to shut up, she’s friendly, as she hasn’t been hurt by him or his family in the past. She kisses his hand, and as a friendly gesture, warns Buckingham to beware of Richard. He rebuffs her by responding, to Richard’s enquiry, that he doesn’t respect her. With no friends at all in the palace, she leaves, after a final prophesy that Buckingham will regret his choice. At least she stopped them bickering among themselves, but how long will that last?

Catesby enters to summon them all to the king, and all leave except Richard, who gives us a rundown of his technique for causing trouble. At the front of the stage, two men arrive, coming up the centre aisle. They’re in suits (brownish or grey?), and wearing glasses. They look like contract killers, and they turn out to be the two men whom Richard has hired to bump off Clarence. Their lack of compassion pleases Richard, and his “I like you, lads” was very funny. When one asks for the warrant they need in order to get at Clarence, Richard realises he’d forgotten it, and pulls a bit of paper out of his right hand pocket. As he walks forward to give it to them, he remembers it’s the wrong one, and gets the paper from his left pocket instead. We’ll understand the significance of that later.

As they leave, and the keeper brings on the bed and a stool for the prison cell, I realised that this play links thought and action very closely in time. Richard plans, and almost immediately he does. In other versions, I’ve been more aware of the long journey he needs to make to get the crown. Here it seems really quick, as the pace is so fast.

Clarence is in bed, asleep, with Brakenbury sitting on the stool beside him. Clarence makes some noises, then wakes up, drenched in sweat. He recounts his dream to Brakenbury, and as he does so, I found myself wondering if Will had come across a story of a near death experience and decided to dramatise it. What also comes across is that Clarence feels the weight of his sins lying heavily on him. He goes back to sleep, and now the two murderers turn up, looking menacing. Brakenbury clearly knows there’s something unpleasant about to happen, but there’s nothing he can do about it, so he takes himself off. The two murderers go through their preparations, and as usual, there are a lot of laughs to be had from their struggles with their consciences. The first murderer reminding the second of the money they’ll get for the murder soon sorts him out, and gets the expected laugh. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed the company of murderers and villains so much in a long time – this was the funniest version of this section that I’ve seen.

Unfortunately, they’ve taken so long chatting that Clarence wakes up, and does his best to talk them out of killing him. It doesn’t work, of course, although it does slow them down, but finally the first murderer slashes him in the stomach, and dumps him on the bed, which by now has been thrust to the back of the stage. Clarence lies there, clutching his stomach and struggling to stay alive, while the second murderer tenders his resignation, leaving the first murderer to wheel the body off.

Back at the palace, Edward appears on the balcony, drip in arm, with an attendant holding what looked like a flask. The rest of the nobility, except Richard, are below, and carry out a series of reconciliations that a blind person would have seen as hollow and false. Still, they satisfy the king, at least until Richard arrives. He naturally outdoes everyone else in desiring to be reconciled to everyone present. He goes to each noble in turn, and when he gets to the Marquis of Dorset, he gives him all three of his titles, adding “Lord Woodville, and Lord Scales” which got a good laugh. All seems well, until the queen, thinking to take advantage of the good nature on show, asks the king to release Clarence. Richard immediately flares up into a temper, and in the process tells everyone that Clarence is dead. The king is appalled, and this is where the second bit of paper is relevant. In explaining that the countermand to the first order came too late, Richard pulls the paper out of his pocket and says “some tardy cripple bore the countermand”, doing a bit of limping and jokingly hitting himself on the head, as if to say, silly me! With nerves and emotions at breaking point, Stanley enters to plead for the life of one of his servants. Edward has a moving rant about how no one pleaded for Clarence, and yet everyone expects the king to grant their suits for this and that. It would, of course, be more moving if Edward hadn’t sent Clarence to the Tower in the first place, nor sent that first order to have him killed, but he’s ill, and upset, so I can certainly sympathise. He grants Stanley’s request, and staggers off, followed by the queen and all except Richard and Buckingham, who eventually leave after Richard’s put the blame on the queen for Clarence’s death.

Now I know Richard, Duke of York (Richard III’s father) was without a title for a while, so he’d probably fallen on hard times, but I did think it a bit much that his widow is still charring at her age. Maureen Beattie, as the Duchess of York, mother to the current king (the female parts in this play can get very confusing), comes onto stage carrying a bucket, and proceeds to mop a patch of floor to our right. Above her, on the balcony, stand two children, a son and daughter of Clarence. It’s a slightly confusing scene, and one that’s often cut, I suspect, as I don’t recall it from previous productions. Basically the Duchess is telling the children that their father isn’t dead (porky) and that she’s grieving for her son, Edward, being so ill. They know full well their father’s dead, and have been told by Richard that the queen arranged it. The Duchess is appalled at this deceit, and yet the children still believe it.

The queen now enters, with a couple of her family, to tell us all that the king is dead. The women go into the competitive mourning that’s so typical of the histories, and a few of the other plays. The queen has had her losses, but the Duchess contends that at least she has her sons left to comfort her. The Duchess is left with only one son, Richard, and she doesn’t see much prospect of him filling her heart with gladness any time soon. The men try to chip in with practical advice (have they learned nothing about handling an emotional woman?) and just then Richard and the rest of the court arrive to organise bringing the new king to London. As they head off past us to arrange who will go to accompany the prince, Richard and Buckingham are at the rear, and before leaving, Buckingham, standing behind Richard, advises him to make sure they’re both in the escort. He promises to deal with the queen’s relatives, and Richard is almost ecstatic at having such a co-conspirator.

The next scene simply concerns a group of citizens in the text; here Michael Boyd has taken advantage of the existing characters to the full. One of the citizens is the second murderer, looking like he’s leaving the country and doesn’t want to be noticed. Another is an attractive woman, while the third is Catesby, looking menacing in his black suit, sunglasses and carrying a coffee. Another man in black is there, adding to the menace – I don’t remember now if that was the first murderer or someone else, although the first murderer does come on as one of Richard’s enforcers later. There’s a general air of menace in this scene, suggesting the police state is developing nicely. Nicely for Richard, that is. It’s clear that speaking one’s mind is not going to be welcome or indeed advisable from now on.

After they leave, we head back to the palace, where the queen is waiting for news of her son’s arrival from Ludlow. Her other son, the young Duke of York, is with her, and when she comments on how he’s growing so fast he’ll have outgrown his older brother, he cheekily passes on Richard’s comment that “Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace.” The Duchess disputes that, given Richard’s own life, and the boy blabs about Richard being born with teeth. It’s a nice little scene, introducing us to the young Duke, and giving us some more information about Richard that we’ll need to know later. I don’t know which of the young actors was playing the young Duke tonight, but he did a very good job. A messenger brings them the news that Rivers and Grey have been taken to Pomfret, and the queen takes her son with her to claim sanctuary.

The prince arrives on stage with Buckingham, and then his uncle, Richard, arrives, laden with presents – several boxes and a space hopper – which he has to put down before greeting him properly. There’s the usual concern over getting the prince’s brother out of sanctuary, and Buckingham is oily enough to fire a power station in explaining away the difficulties. While they wait, the prince is full of wise snippets and ideas, and Richard has some funny asides – “So wise so young, they say, do never live long”. Young York arrives, and after greeting his brother, turns to a battle of words with Richard, who is now sitting on the space hopper. It’s more barbed than I remember from previous productions, and it’s clear that Richard is getting the worst of it, though that’s partly because he’s keeping up the façade of being a kindly uncle. Buckingham smoothes things over with his evil charm, and the princes head off to the Tower. Richard and Buckingham then discuss with Catesby whether Hastings can be persuaded to join in a plot to put Richard on the throne. Catesby reckons he won’t hear of it, and Lord Stanley will follow whichever line Hastings takes. They send him off to test this out, and then consider briefly what to do if Hastings isn’t willing to join in. Richard’s “Chop off his head” was said so swiftly, it got a laugh. He also promises Buckingham the earldom of Hereford once he, Richard, becomes king.

A messenger rouses Hastings at his home, and he comes on stage, dressing. He’s obviously spent an enjoyable night, as his companion is the attractive lady we saw in an earlier scene, and whom we later find out is Mistress Shore. She’s dressed in just a shirt and a pair of shoes, showing off her long legs to good advantage, and helps Hastings to dress in a very affectionate way. It may even have distracted me from the lines a little, but I got the gist – Hastings is being warned to stay away from the court, as Stanley has had a dream that the boar (Richard) will kill him. Hastings is confident that he’s in no danger, and tells Stanley’s messenger so. Then Catesby arrives, coffee in hand, and broaches the subject of making Richard king. Hastings is clearly against the idea, but is glad to hear that the queen’s kin are to die at Pomfret. Catesby keeps making comments that could be taken as warnings – “’Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord, When men are unprepar’d and look not for it.” – but Hastings is a perfect example of pride heading for a fall. Stanley turns up, and reinforces his earlier concern, pointing out that the Lords at Pomfret probably felt secure until they were condemned, but Hastings still refuses to see the obvious. Another couple of people turn up, including Buckingham, and then they’re off to the Tower.

Just to show us some actual deaths – the Elizabethans liked their violence, remember, and so far only Clarence has been killed on stage – we get to see Rivers, Grey and another chap getting killed at Pomfret. They’re brought on blindfolded and tied up, and get a few minutes to stand there, giving us their last words. Naturally, they’re pretty unhappy with the situation, and then they’re shot. They did this very well, with something approaching the right recoil from the impact of the bullets. All three then get up and head off for the underworld.

Now the stage is set up for the council meeting. Clear plastic chairs are brought on, and a group of officials are present, including Hastings, Stanley, Buckingham and the Bishop of Ely. They start discussing when to have the coronation, and Buckingham disingenuously asks if anyone knows what Richard, now Lord Protector, thinks. He’s quick to disclaim knowing Richard intimately (porkies, again), and sets up Hastings as the expert on Richard’s inner thoughts. Hastings, the fool, takes the bait, and is about to speak on behalf of Richard when the man himself turns up.

At first, Richard seems happy with the situation, and commends Hastings. He asks the bishop to send for some of the strawberries that he saw growing in his garden, and then waits, pointedly looking at the bishop, until he leaves to send for them. Richard then takes Buckingham to one side for a quiet chat, leaving the rest to talk amongst themselves, which they do. They resume the discussion about the coronation date, and Hastings comments on how cheerful Richard looks, expressing the view that Richard is the least deceitful man he knows. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, and Shakespeare builds this guy up to be the biggest chump ever.

When Richard re-appears, he’s in a temper, and he’s accompanied by some of the men in suits, and also Mistress Shore. Hastings presumably realises he’s in trouble now, but still speaks up, and Richard commands that Hastings’ head be cut off. Richard then leaves, telling the rest to come along if they love him, and leaving them in no doubt what will happen if they don’t. Stanley takes the longest time to go, looking pleadingly at Hastings, who acknowledges that he has no other choice. Richard’s henchmen take Hastings away, after he gets to say some last bitter words, and then the stage is set up for the scene where Richard persuades the Mayor of London that Hastings’ death was necessary.

Now last time, the setup was different, and I remember Richard and Buckingham taking cover behind a table, presumably the one that had been on stage for the meeting. This time, while the chairs are being removed, Catesby brings on a car door and dumps it on the stage to our right. He also brings on some tyres and other debris, while Richard and Buckingham reappear in battle gear, doing themselves up with camouflage makeup, and we hear the instructions for the special effects clearly over the speakers. It’s quite a production – no wonder the Mayor looks terrified when he shows up. There’s explosions, the sound of a helicopter, and gunfire. There may also have been armed men descending on ropes; it’s happened so much in these productions I may be remembering another occasion. When Hastings’ head is brought on, in a plastic bag, they explain his treachery, and the Mayor is only too happy to speak as if he’d heard the confession directly from Hastings himself. As the Mayor leaves to spread the word, and one of Richard’s men is putting police tape round the stage (the audience are holding it in place), Richard instructs Buckingham to put out a lot of spin discrediting King Edward and his children, even going as far as to imply Edward himself was a bastard. Buckingham heads off to do this, and Richard lays some more plans, and then he’s off. I thought this would be the interval, but no. Geoffrey Freshwater, as the scrivener, comes on with a huge bundle of papers, both newspapers and white sheets. He spells out the length of time it’s taken him to write the indictment of Hastings, and yet Hastings’ crime was apparently only discovered hours after he’d started writing. He dumps the papers on the ground in disgust – he obviously recognises there were no WMD. And then, the interval.

Richard is clearly keen to know how the general population took Buckingham’s stories, and fortunately, there’s a large chunk of the general population on hand, sitting comfortably around him, to refer to during this scene. We were indeed mute, apart from the occasional laugh, and it’s not surprising. Buckingham describes the speech he gave, and there’s a good bit of humour when he refers to Richard’s lineaments being more like his father’s than Edward’s were. With the Mayor about to turn up, Buckingham preps Richard for his next scene, telling him not to accept the crown too easily, and the trap is set.

In front of the Mayor and us, the assembled throng, Buckingham and Richard perform their little play. At first, Catesby comes out to say that Richard isn’t available – he’s meditating. When Catesby goes back to re-invite Richard to come out, Buckingham uses the time to spin to the crowd what a noble character Richard has, compared to the previous king. Again Catesby enters to say that Richard fears why such a huge number of people have come to speak to him. Then Catesby’s given another message and sent back, and this time Richard appears on the balcony, with the Bishop of Ely and another churchman beside him.

This next bit is a great piece of theatre, and this production does it very well. It’s hugely enjoyable to sit back and watch two masters of deception spin their web. If I didn’t know better, I might have believed them myself, but as it is it’s good fun to listen to some fairly long speeches which we know to be completely false. Richard’s expressions of humility, and protests that he isn’t fit to be king, and that there are two other princes who come before him, were beautifully done. When Buckingham leaves, he gets a fair distance away before Richard can get him back, and then Richard reluctantly accepts the crown. When Buckingham says “Then I salute you with this royal title: Long live King Richard, England’s worthy king!” we, the audience, are encouraged to join in with the second part, which I happily did. We obviously created enough noise, as Buckingham gave us the thumbs-up afterwards.

Now the queen, the Duchess and various family members, those that are still alive, meet up at the tower. Brakenbury tells them that they can’t see the princes, and lets slip that it’s on the king’s orders. He amends it to the Lord Protector, but the seeds of doubt are sown, only to be confirmed a few moments later, when Stanley arrives to instruct Ann to go to Westminster, to be crowned Richard’s queen. The ex-queen advises the Marquis of Dorset to flee to Richmond (that’s the character, not the place), and Stanley supports this, adding that he will give him letters to take to his, Stanley’s, son. The women do a bit more grieving, and Ann recognises she’s the victim of her own curse.

The coronation was a significant piece of staging. Before a single line has been spoken, the court assembles, and Richard walks down the aisle to the front of the stage, dressed in a golden robe, highly reminiscent of the first entrance of Richard II. Ann is wearing what appears to be virtually the same costume she wore as Richard II’s wife, and as these are the only old-fashioned clothes, they really stand out. In fact, it was at this point that I realised that the same actress was playing both Richards’ wives. The cross-casting may take some time to figure out, but it’s worth it in the end.

As Richard stands at the front of the stage, the doors open, and backlit figures emerge. They’re the ghosts that Richard has killed or in some way upset – Henry VI, Warwick, Clarence, and I think Edward. No one else seems to notice them, but Richard gets a bad case of the jitters. The ghosts confront him and then leave, and then the steps from Richard II are wheeled on at the back. Above them on the balcony stands daddy – the original Duke of York – holding the crown. Richard practically gallops up those steps to receive his prize, and then he and the steps are wheeled forward to the centre of the stage for the scene proper to start.

While Richard and Buckingham talk, the others are walking around the stage, taking drinks from trays, silently. Richard is definitely pumped up, and finds Buckingham relaxed, and ready to enjoy the glories he and Richard have won at a leisurely pace. He’s not keen on killing the princes, and goes off to consider his options. But Richard can’t wait, and Catesby (I think) provides a suitable candidate, Tyrell. News comes that the Marquis of Dorset has fled to Richmond, and suddenly Richard instructs Catesby to spread the word that Ann, the new-crowned queen, is sick and will probably die. Tired of her already. Actually, Richard knows he needs to consolidate his position, and intends to marry his brother’s daughter, i.e. his niece, to make his claim secure. I found myself wondering about the relative ages and how much time had elapsed between plays, but I couldn’t manage that when so much was happening on stage.

Tyrell arrives, and agrees to kill the princes without any noticeable hesitation. Off he goes, and Buckingham returns, ready at last to discuss the princes, only for Richard to fob him off. He fobs him off from his reward as well. As Buckingham asks for those things Richard promised him several scenes ago, Richard muses on the prophesy that Richmond would be king, uttered by Henry VI himself. There’s a number of lines cut in this production, so no references to clocks, but Richard is still pretty snappy with Buckingham, who realises he’s somehow fallen out of favour, and decides to make a run for it.

With everyone off the stage, Tyrell comes back on, and reports to us the story of the killing of the two princes, as told to him by the actual murderers. When Richard comes on, eating, Tyrell gives him the news, and answers his questions in full, giving him a digital camera so he can see the pictures taken of the dead princes. After Tyrell leaves, Richard informs us that Ann is dead, and when news comes that Buckingham has raised an army, Richard has to rush to prepare for a fight.

Margaret reappears, happy to see how her enemies are going to rack and ruin, and many to an early death. She backs off to the shadows when the ex-queen and the Duchess come along to have a communal moaning session. Margaret joins in, giving them a lesson in how to do obsessive grieving, and for once this scene wasn’t too boring. I suspect lines were cut, but it all came across pretty clearly, and didn’t go on too long. After Margaret leaves, Richard arrives with his troops, though we don’t see them. The Duchess and the ex-queen start to have a go at him, but he tells the musicians to start playing, and they’re nearly drowned out. Richard just stands there, bouncing along to the music. He stops it briefly when his mother seems to have run out of steam, but then she starts up again, and so does the music. It’s a great compliment to Maureen Beattie’s vocal powers that I could still hear her, just, over the loud music. Eventually he heads off stage, but she has one last word. Well, lots of words, actually, because she tells him this will be the last time she speaks to him. He listens to her curse him, and then she leaves, so that only Richard and the ex-queen are left on stage.

Now Richard has to woo another woman he’s wronged, but this time he’s wooing the queen so he can marry her daughter. She gives back as good as she gets, and it’s a long scene, cut of course, but still lengthy. This time, she’s not persuaded by any of Richard’s arguments about the good he intends to do for her family, but she does see the political necessity, and agrees to talk with her daughter. Catesby and Ratcliff turn up with news that Richmond himself is now invading, and Richard sends them on various errands. At first, he gets angry with Catesby for not going as soon as he tells him to go, and I think he hits him, but as Catesby points out, Richard hasn’t yet given him the message he’s to deliver, and Richard relents, patting him on the head.

It all gets a bit frantic now, with lots of messengers flying to and fro, and both sides striding on and off the stage in rapid succession. There’s a battle to fight, they can’t hang about! Richard gets even more stroppy, hitting people who bring him bad news, except that sometimes it’s good news, and he has to give them some money to make up for it. Buckingham is captured, and executed, after the usual comments about how it was all prophesied, and Stanley gets word to Richmond that he can’t be too obviously on his side, as Richard holds his son as hostage.

Both sides arrive near Bosworth, and prepare for battle the next day. Richmond speaks with Stanley, and then settles down to sleep for a while. He’s at the front of the stage, and before lying down, kneels with his sword like a cross in front of him. He prays, and I was reminded of Henry V praying, possibly in exactly the same position, before the battle of Agincourt. He lies down to sleep, and then the doors open, and we see Richard lying, asleep, at the back. He’s only wearing his top and knickers, so his legs are bare. He wakes suddenly, and gets up, and all his blemishes are gone. He can walk straight, he has no hump, his arm is fine, and his Gorbachev has disappeared. He’s ecstatic, but sadly, it’s only a dream. As the ghosts appear, starting with his wife, Ann, they give him back his deformities. She holds his arm, and then it’s shrivelled again. Another, possibly Rivers, shoots him in the leg, and he’s hobbling. Hastings (or possibly Buckingham) slapped the birthmark back on his head, and Edward (the king as was) takes a picture. This time, the ghost of the Duke of York is on the balcony with his two murdered sons, and he’s not a happy bunny. The ghosts on stage all stop to give Richmond their support, then they clear off, and Richard is left to consider his position. It’s not good, morally speaking, and finally he seems to recognise that. He’s not in a good frame of mind for the battle, but the show must go on, and he leaves with Ratcliff, determined to find out if any of his supporters are disloyal.

Richmond, on the other hand, has had a very good night’s sleep, and gives a pretty good speech to his men. Again, it recalls some of Henry V’s words, especially when he claims that he won’t be ransomed. Richard’s speech to his men must have been cut, or else my memory’s much worse than I thought. It certainly has its problems, as I don’t remember the details of the fighting. In fact I think it was pretty sparse, as all that’s needed is for Richard to get killed, which Richmond does pretty quickly, and then we have his final speech. During this, he brings to a close the Wars of the Roses, and when he mentions the son killing the father, and the father the son, he exchanges looks with Stanley, as these two have represented father and son throughout the cycle – Percy and Hotspur, Talbot and John Talbot, Father who kills his son and Son who kills his father. It was a moving moment, to have these two characters suggest the echoes of their previous incarnations, and it’s a lovely end to a great performance.

Henry VI part 3 – February 2008

Feb22

10/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Michael Boyd

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Thursday 21st February 2008

Originally: The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York, and the Death of Good King Henry the Sixth, with the whole Contention between the two houses Lancaster and York.

The original title for this play is quite a mouthful, and this is quite a production. We enjoyed these plays well enough first time around but that was last February, and they, and the ensemble, have grown a great deal since then. We also saw them over one evening and one day last time; this week we’re giving them more time, so that we can appreciate them more fully.

I don’t know how long it’s going to take to note up all the points I noticed tonight, but the sooner I start the sooner I’ll catch as much as I can of such a fleeting experience. The opening carries on from the ending of Henry VI part 2; York and his supporters, including his sons, burst onto the stage through the doors at the back looking for their opponents, but too late. York’s sons show the blood (on their hands) and name those they have killed. Typically, Richard (junior) goes one better than his brothers and wears the face of the noble he killed. (I didn’t catch the name tonight, but the text informs me it was Somerset.) It’s a gruesome image and predicts how the evening will go – the gore fest has begun. I could imagine the producers of Will’s first play (part 2) coming to him afterwards and saying something like, “OK Will, that was pretty good, but you’ve got to give them more blood, more violence. Look at how they lapped up John Cade and all the fighting at the end of your first play. Give us more of that.” And, trust me, Will obliged. There’s still plenty of good language to enjoy, if anything it’s better than part 2, but he’s gone from Stoppard to Tarantino in one play. Nice work, Will.

Warwick encourages Richard to sit on the throne and as he does so, King Henry and his supporters arrive, also entering through the doors. It’s an awkward moment. At first Henry debates the situation with his men – they want to fight, he recognises they don’t have the balance of power yet. He intends to fight with words, and so they do, slagging each other off like kids in the playground. After a bit Henry, despite sounding ready to fight to a standstill, recognises that his title’s weak and offers a compromise. If he can reign for his lifetime, he’ll appoint York his heir. It’s an attempt to stop the bloodshed but it’s about as much use as putting a sticking plaster on a severed neck. Henry’s supporters aren’t happy at Henry disinheriting his own son Edward, while even York’s supporters look less than ecstatic. Warwick in particular looks like he prefers to sort things out by fighting rather than negotiating a peace. And it’s not long before York’s sons are causing mischief. But for now the deal is signed, Henry’s followers leave in disgust, and Henry holds out the crown to York as they swear to abide by the agreement. This echoes the stance taken by Richard II and Henry IV, and briefly by Henry IV and Henry V. Then York and his followers disperse leaving Henry to face his queen (oops) who has apparently learned the bad news off stage and arrives with her son to give Henry a serious ear-bashing. She’s the opposite of the king – all fire and courage – and she determines to raise the troops to restore her son to his rightful place as heir to his father. By this time, the whole idea of any of these people having any right to anything seemed absurd. The death toll is mounting, both sides have committed terrible acts of slaughter and worse is to come – who can tell which lot had right on their side by this time? Frankly, England will be better off when they’ve killed so many of the nobility that there’s nothing left to fight about, though it’s not really a solution to be desired.

The next scene opens with Rutland and his tutor singing a song to York. It’s pretty enough, with York showing his love and affection for the boy. (And it’s not in my text.) Then we see York’s three older sons put pressure on their father to take the crown now, instead of waiting for Henry to die. (My text has the Marquis of Montague instead of George, but I remember it as the three sons.) It’s clear that Richard is a significant influence on his father. York favoured him in the opening scene, and now it’s Richard who explains away York breaking his oath to Henry. It’s not just his arguments but his passion to see his father crowned that sways York. He agrees to go ahead in secret but then news comes of the queen’s army which is advancing on them. Although outnumbered they’re ready to fight and I reckoned York was pleased by this turn of events – it gets him off the hook, as he can claim he kept his part of the bargain and the queen was the one causing trouble. He’s confident despite the odds. He fought battles against greater numbers in France and won, so what’s the problem here? I thought, but that was against the French, this is against his own countrymen so maybe he’s being over-confident.

With the battle underway, the next thing we see is Rutland and his tutor entering through the doors and hiding in the underground bunker. Clifford and two others enter, prowling round the stage to find their prey. Clifford spots the trapdoors and signals his men to open them up. The tutor is spared because he’s a clergyman and he’s dragged off despite his protests that he wants to stay with Rutland. Then Clifford closes the doors, keeping Rutland with him and prepares to kill the boy. In the previous play this act was set up by Clifford’s speech over his father’s dead body, declaring that that was such a brutal act that he would forgo pity from then on, and if he came across the most innocent child of the York line he would kill it without compunction. Now he gets to do exactly that.

He’s very meticulous with this act of murder. He walked towards us (we were right beside the walkway) taking off his coat and folding it carefully before placing it over one of the rungs of the ladder. He also took off his sword and placed it on the ground, leaving him only his knife to kill Rutland. One of the advantages of the ensemble is having sufficient actors to cover the children’s parts and so these roles come across much more strongly. This was the case with Rutland, played by Alexia Healy. His pleading for his life was relatively clear and helped to strengthen both Clifford’s performance and the horror of the situation. Once dead, Rutland is the first one in this play to get up and walk off. Actually, most of the ghosts seem disoriented at first, stumbling a bit as they get up and taking a few seconds to figure out where they’re to go. Antony Bunsee plays the heavenly (or devilish?) gatekeeper who assists the newly deceased on their path. It’s a good way to keep the stage clear and allows the dead to come back on at a later time.

There’s another motif within this cycle, and used most frequently in this play, which is that a dead character passing through the doors of death is seen by another character coming onto the stage from the front. The live character walks towards the dead one but just fails to catch them before the doors close, leaving them stranded at the back of the stage. This happens with Rutland and York, and joins the two scenes together. York has been badly injured and is unable to flee when the queen and her party enter. They take full advantage, and soon York has been set upon a molehill (purely imaginary) for the queen to talk at with as much scorn as she can manage (and she can manage a fair bit). She taunts York with his missing sons, doing a funny imitation of Richard as she mentions him, but that’s just the intro. Now she moves on to Rutland, and does her best to wound York with her words about Rutland’s death, as Clifford did with his knife on the boy himself. She really wants to see York suffer, and for as long as possible he refuses to give her the satisfaction. She puts the paper crown on his head that Clifford took from the place of Rutland’s death (the boy had been wearing it) and rails some more at York, then takes off the crown and orders that his head be removed as well, only to halt the act so she can hear what he has to say. This is the famous bit, the “tiger’s heart” speech, and was done very well. York’s suffering is clear, and now he breaks down as the grief of losing his young son takes hold. It’s noticeable that so many of these ruthless power-hungry nobles feel grief only for their own losses, not for another’s. Sadly, this is why so many people are killed without compassion, as revenge piles up the dead bodies past comprehension.

While York is having his turn, the queen isn’t a statue either. She nods her head slightly as he’s pointing out that women should be soft, cuddly creatures (Shakespeare puts it better, but that’s the gist) then moves to the centre front of the stage and hunkers down, fixing her eyes on York as he expresses his deepest woes, drinking in her victory with an unnerving intensity. To remind us just how moving York’s story is, Northumberland voices his feelings of pity only to be rebuked by the queen. They performed this scene particularly well, as it’s very wordy and it can be difficult to keep the emotional energy going, but this time each syllable cut like a knife, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the queen and York.

After the queen and company leave, with York’s dead body lying on the ground, we have another segue. This time York’s body rises, and with a few staggers heads off the stage. Meanwhile Richard has come on at the front of the stage and he follows his father, arriving at the doors just as they close. He stands there, back to us, head down, looking like he’s grieving, while Edward comes on to say the opening lines of Act 2. Clarence is with him, and this is the point where they see three suns which merge into one. The messenger who arrives to tell them of their father’s death is none other than Rutland’s tutor (Julius D’Silva) who’s really having a bad day. He sees young Rutland killed, then he witnesses York’s death; no wonder he takes to drink. Initially it’s just a little hip flask he sneaks out of his pocket, but later it’s a whole bottle.

I seem to remember George saying some lines in this scene, but if he did they must have been invented or pinched from Edward, as he’s silent in my text. Both Edward and George grieve for their father – Richard is all anger and a desire for revenge. At this point Warwick arrives and gives a lengthy account of what’s happened since York’s death, which Warwick had heard about ten days before. Basically he tells them about the battle of St. Albans where the queen’s forces won, with Warwick and his army running off. This is unusual enough for Richard to comment on, but then they make plans for another fight as the queen and her troops are on their way.

I think the ghost of York may have come on to the balcony before the end of the last scene, but either way York now appears, bloody napkin hanging from his mouth, and settles into a position where he can rest his head on the edge of the balcony. The queen arrives with Henry, Clifford, Northumberland and the young prince Edward, and Henry makes it clear that York’s death wasn’t his fault. The lines spoken by Clifford in my text may have been given to the queen; I seem to remember her chastising Henry for giving away his son’s birthright. Henry knights his son, and then Edward and his men arrive. Henry insists on staying despite Clifford’s comment that they do a lot better when he’s absent, and then we get the usual argy-bargy about who kneels to whom as king. Henry’s side are lined up with their backs to the doors, while Edward’s crew are ranged across the front of the stage. The sight of Clifford so enrages Richard that he has to be restrained by a couple of nobles from dashing over and attacking him, not once but twice. They hurl insults back and forth and Henry tries to speak to sort things out, but given his disastrous track record on that score just about everyone tries to shut him up, starting with his own side. Lots more insults later (I think there may have been some pruning here) both sides flounce off to resume the fighting, and York’s head takes itself off as well.

Next Warwick dashes back on, tired and weary. He’s taking a quick breather and sounds almost astonished that such a fantastic warrior as himself actually needs a rest now and again. Patrice Naiambana has great presence as Warwick. He uses a lot of large, dramatic movements to convey Warwick’s arrogance and authority, all at a measured pace that could be dull if it wasn’t for the way he expresses restrained energy. He’s a hothead, but a clever hothead, and he doesn’t desire to be king because he regards himself as more powerful than any king. As events have proved. Still even he feels the need for a break occasionally, and as the others arrive and discuss their options – running away seems to be the preferred one – it’s down to Richard yet again to inspire them all to fight on. And so they do, but not after speaking at length about how hard they’re going to fight. Lord, these men can talk. (Or rather, Will can write speeches but not battles. Yet.)

Richard and Clifford get together for a tussle on the battlefield, but with Warwick and others arriving Clifford runs off. Richard claims Clifford as his own target and Warwick looks slightly frustrated at having to let a potential corpse go. Lots of dashing around; I think there may have been soldiers arriving down ropes at some point – that’s a favourite of Michael Boyd’s. In all this tumult, Henry walks on stage during a brief quiet spell, and comments on the even nature of the battle, where neither side seems to be getting the upper hand. Instead of joining in (the queen probably told him to piss off and stop bothering her while she’s busy) he sits down on a molehill and muses on the easy life of “a homely swain”. He seems to think they have an idyllic time, full of simple pleasures and with no real cares, not like over-worked, over-stressed kings – himself, for example. Now, I love the language, and I sympathise to a certain extent with Henry’s situation but come on, working folk have their troubles too. As is about to be proved.

Young Lex Shrapnel drags a body onto stage, and on closer inspection his character finds it’s the body of his own father whom he has just killed. Naturally he’s upset, and collapses on top of the body. The body then rises up, they turn over and hey presto, Keith Bartlett is now playing a father who is looking at the body of his own son whom he has just killed. It’s a sad scene, as Henry recognise,s and a reminder of the effect these wars have on ordinary people. The father and son then exit and the queen with her followers rushes on. The battle has not gone well for them and they need to leave, quickly. Henry takes his time but still goes with them.

Clifford might have done better to run off earlier as well, as he’s been badly wounded and staggers on to the stage to speak a few last words before fainting in a heap at the front. Edward and his merry band arrive, celebrating their victory, and when Clifford dies, letting out a sigh, Edward rashly promises that whoever it was they would be looked after. Immediately Richard finds it’s Clifford, and they use a couple of the ropes to stand his body up so they can abuse it. As Clifford is already dead they don’t spend too long on that bit, and then Warwick proposes to sail to France and ask for the hand of Lady Bona, the French king’s sister, for Edward. Edward agrees to everything, claiming that he’ll always respect Warwick’s advice. He gives his brothers titles too; to Richard he gives the dukedom of Gloucester, and to George that of Clarence. Richard wants to change them over – he finds Gloucester too ominous – but Edward won’t have it.

Up in the north of England, two men appear on the balcony with crossbows, planning to hunt deer. They’re about to settle down for a cosy chat while they wait for the deer to turn up when Henry arrives below, and they lurk about to hear what he’ll say. He’s busy moaning about his problems again, poor lad, though he does bring us up to date with the plot. Margaret has gone to France to seek help from the French king, so with Warwick there as well it should be an interesting scene. The keepers challenge him, and there’s an exchange between them about loyalty where the king eventually loses out, although it’s a tricky subject at the best of times. I can’t help thinking that the reason Will’s histories were so well received is that the Elizabethan audience knew just what it was like to have divided loyalties and to get confused as to which system they were supposed to be using that day. Seeing that conflict played out (safely!) on the stage must have been important to them in ways we probably can’t imagine. (And I hope we never can.)

Back in London, Edward’s about to take advice from his dick, and this time I don’t mean his brother Richard. Following his successful coronation he’s dealing with the business of state, and a lady petitioner arrives to ask for her husband’s lands to be restored to her. She’s attractive, he’s possibly not had sex for days, and his wife won’t be coming over from France for ages….. His brothers see the way things are going, and withdraw so they can comment on the action from above, while we get to see the action below.

Lady Grey does a good job of dealing with the king. She rebuffs his suggestion of a quickie in return for her lands, and this makes him so keen to have her that he offers her a crown instead. (Now where have we heard that one before? The name Henry springs to mind…) She’s still not all that keen, but Edward simply tells her she’s marrying him and that’s that.

News of Henry’s capture comes along, and the king, his fiancée and all except Richard, leave. He then treats us to his first soliloquy on his desire to be king. It’s an impressive speech, and covers a lot of ground also dealt with in Richard III. I think this was where Jonathan Slinger did a lot of work with the audience, especially when he comments on his unlovely appearance. He certainly gets across Richard’s ambition and readiness to deceive others, as well as his humour, and left me keen to see how he takes it forward to the next play.

Over in France, Margaret pleads with the French king, Lewis, to lend her soldiers to take back Henry’s kingdom from Edward. While she’s still pleading, Warwick arrives and soon he and the queen and also Oxford, one of the queen’s supporters, start to argue about the respective merits of their “kings”. At length Lewis intervenes, but is influenced enough by the bickering that he checks with Warwick that Edward has indeed a good title to the throne. Lady Bona also speaks up, and seems happy to marry Edward. The contract seems to be sealed, much to Margaret’s dismay, when news arrives of Edward’s marriage to Lady Grey.

Up to now I haven’t mentioned the picture frame. When Warwick arrives, it descends from above to show us Edward. When news of his marriage comes, his new wife steps forward to join him and Edward’s expression looked distinctly smug. The news has been delivered by letters, one to each of Margaret, Lewis and Warwick, and their reactions are all different. Margaret’s is difficult to read but she’s obviously nervous, as taught as a bow. Warwick is infuriated as his honour has been trashed by this, and Lewis isn’t too pleased either. Margaret does get in an “I told you so” to Lewis before Warwick has a good long rant, at the end of which he promises to help Margaret restore her husband’s kingdom. Will she accept his offer of help? She can hardly get her words of acceptance out quickly enough! If there were a speed-speaking event in the Olympics, Katy Stephens would have it sewn up – gold for Britain. It was one of the funniest things in tonight’s performance, and there were plenty of contenders. She not only got the lines “Warwick, these words have turned my hate to love; And I forgive and quite forget old faults” out in less than two seconds (you try it!) every word was as clear as a bell. This woman is no fool; she’ll take any help to get her (and her husband) back into power. I also liked the fact that Lady Bona gets to speak at this point. So often the jilted women are voiceless, but she encourages Lewis to support Warwick and Margaret with fighting men. I felt before that it must have been a double blow to her, losing one husband and then seeing another potential match disappear when Warwick agrees to marry his daughter to the young Prince Edward, but tonight it seemed fair enough, especially as she’d expressed a liking for the other Edward.

In London Edward is showing his new queen off to the nobles. Clarence is a bit huffy, and the king challenges him about it. The arguments for and against Lady Grey becoming queen are produced, a messenger reports the response of the French king and the others to the news of the marriage, and ultimately Clarence is so unhappy with the situation that he heads off to join Warwick and to marry his other daughter. Edward checks out the loyalty of his remaining peers and then prepares for war.

Warwick meets up with the Lancastrian supporters, and greets Clarence especially warmly. He plans to sneak up on Edward and capture him as he’s not heavily guarded at the moment. The guards themselves comment on this, before being overwhelmed by Warwick’s men. Edward is taken prisoner and they head off to London, where they set Henry free. I must say, Henry didn’t look too happy at being freed. He clearly enjoyed being a prisoner, with no royal duties to worry about. So much so that he gives command of his realm over to Warwick, while he keeps only the title of king. Warwick, while commending the king’s wisdom in not trying to rule by himself, is surprisingly ready to suggest that Clarence be the one to run the country. Clarence also does the “no, after you” bit, and eventually Henry has to make them both co-regents. We also get to meet the young duke of Richmond at this point, and Henry does his famous prophecy about Richmond becoming king which Richard will refer to in the next play. Lex Shrapnel does his best to look like a young lad, but artistic licence was stretched a bit (the beard didn’t help). Anyway, news of Edward’s escape is brought and they gear up for another battle, sending Richmond away to safety in France.

Edward and his troops arrive at York and are joined by a knight, Sir John Montgomery, who vows to fight for Edward. When he hears that Edward is only claiming his Dukedom at present, he makes to head off, as he’s only interested in fighting for the rightful king (shades of Henry IV here). This, and other arguments, persuade Edward to claim the throne and so they also prepare for battle.

Henry is captured while his troops are elsewhere, Warwick is still ordering his troops about, and then we get a big confrontation between the Yorkists and Lancastrians. Warwick is on the balcony, Edward’s men are on the stage, and then Clarence and the rest come down on the grid at the front of the stage. This is where Clarence changes his mind again and rejoins his brother, without giving any real reason for the change that I can make out. Still, it looks effective as he steps down from the grid, and it obviously changes the balance of power as Warwick’s no longer keen to stay and fight. He runs, but not far, as he’s soon wounded by Edward and left on the stage to comment on his own death. Somerset arrives and tells him that his brother Montague is also dead. This confused me at first, as I could clearly see Montague (Matt Costain) standing there, but then I realised that this was another ghost, and sure enough, he waits till Warwick dies and then the two of them head off into the afterlife beyond the doors.

There’s some to-ing and fro-ing now, as the sides keep fighting, and then Margaret and her son are captured and Edward and his brothers stab the young prince to death with Margaret watching. Richard’s all for killing Margaret too but Edward stops him, so he decides to head off to London instead to take care of some unfinished business.

Henry, in the Tower, has not got long to live but makes the most of his remaining minutes by chiding Richard. It’s been a great performance from Chuk Iwuji. The previous incarnation of these productions had Henry as a naïve pious young man, never really getting to grips with the realities of life. While Chuk started off in similar vein, over the last few nights he’s shown us how much his portrayal has come on. His Henry started as an excited youngster in part 1 and clearly learned a lot through all the ups and downs of his reign. He doesn’t become bitter or twisted, but he does lose his illusions and realises better than anyone except Richard II near his end just how superficial all this kingship is. He’s never managed to play the game well but he does at least see it for what it is, and it’s this sense of awareness that comes across during this final encounter with murderous Richard. Chuk’s expressions conveyed both Henry’s dislike of Richard’s evil nature, and his own piety and nobility. He dies as usual, stabbed several times and gushing blood on to the stage, though nothing like as much as before. (Is Kensington Gore in short supply?) Jonathan Slinger grabs hold of a leg and an arm, and drags Henry’s body off as his was dragged off way back when Richard II was killed, leaving a curved smear of blood across the stage. I think red and white feathers have also been dropped onto the stage at an earlier point, so there’s lots of debris to contend with.

For the end of the final scene, instead of having the rest of the court partying at the back of the stage there’s just Richard in the middle and Edward bringing on the new born prince. Richard takes the baby and stands there, rocking back and forth. He utters the one word, “Now”, and then the lights go out. Massive applause, and lots of people standing, including me.

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Category Archives: Historical

Her Naked Skin – August 2008

Afterlife – August 2008

Never So Good – July 2008

Crown Matrimonial – July 2008

Troilus And Cressida – May 2008

The Pitmen Painters – May 2008

Boris Godunov – May 2008

Fram – May 2008

Richard III – February 2008

Henry VI part 3 – February 2008