Tag Archives: Nicholas Hytner

England People Very Nice – March 2009

8/10

By Richard Bean

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Tuesday 3rd March 2009

Set: dominating the stage at the start is a big rectangular block of boards. Actually, it’s a double-decker set of doors, with six across the top, and the two on the right hand side of the bottom row turned horizontal. I expected something like the top one opening up to become a stall or some such, and I wasn’t far off. In front of these doors there’s a bigger raised area of floorboards. To the right of that and round the front are the wide black floorboards, while on the left the stage seems to be bare – I could see the line of the revolve quite clearly.

Behind the doors, many of which are open at the start, a mesh fence spreads across the stage from wing to wing, with two openings, one on each side. Through the fence and the open doors we can see rails of clothes, presumably costumes, and possibly some of the props. A set of stairs runs up behind the doors. There’s a drum kit to the right of the doors and some other musical instruments in that corner, and a red plastic chair, standard issue, centre stage. The whole effect is stripped down, as if the production is laying something bare.

Before the start, the cast gradually drift onto the rear of the stage, though one chap does come and sit on the red plastic chair. He’s working on his laptop and then he puts it aside and looks at some papers – photos perhaps, or artwork. Then there’s an announcement, telling the cast to assemble on stage, and we’re into the action for real.

Or not, as it happens. The play uses a framing device; all these people are at a detention centre, either working there or potential immigrants. They’ve been devising a play about the English response to successive waves of immigrants since the Romans, and they’re just about to give us their dress rehearsal. First though, the director, Philippa, gives some notes, and this gives us a chance to meet some of the “real” characters, as well as prepping us very nicely for some of the jokes, particularly the “fucking _____” gag, which worked particularly well, and the “wagon” joke, which only worked because it didn’t.

The director’s priceless pearls are regularly interrupted by an annoying man who turns out to be a Palestinian, Taher. He’s unpopular with everyone, and is banned from mentioning Israel – I sensed the backstory involved a lot of aggravation during the rehearsal process. Despite the interruptions, and the shock discovery that the “Imam” has shaved off his beard the night before the performance (he stuck it all back together to make a fake one), the dress rehearsal goes ahead as planned.

It’s at this point that the multimedia aspect of the production becomes apparent. We’ve been told that Elmar, the chap with the laptop, has done some animations for their play (he regularly won a silver something-or-other in Azerbaijan), and these are projected onto the block of doors and the back wall throughout the play to add to the story. The first section deals with the original Brits, living their primitive lives, and being taken over by the Romans, who kill the man and ravish the woman (they didn’t have a lot of original Brits to work with). Then the Roman soldiers are killed by the Angles and Saxons, and it’s all much the same thing. This is all done to a jolly song, while the animation shows these successive invaders running up behind the previous lot, and then the next lot of actors come on to hew and slash, before shagging the woman. As the dead bodies mount up, the animation shows them filling the screen. We both liked this use of multimedia from the word go, as it didn’t distract from the performance at all, just gave it a more immediate effect as well as adding to the humour.

This quick series of invaders slows right down when a town crier announces from the upper storey that the French king has kicked the Protestants out of his kingdom, so there will be a lot of “frogs” coming London’s way. As the Huguenots are skilled cloth manufacturers, the local weavers are soon up in arms about the detrimental effect they’re having on local workers, while the French build themselves a church, and plan to civilise the English. This church, and the subsequent synagogue and mosque, are drawn in animation, with the appropriate symbol appearing physically above the roof. There’s the beginning of an eternal love story which echoes through the ages when Norfolk Danny, a silk weaver in Spitalfields, is persuaded to give shelter to a Frenchwoman, Camille, and her brother, also a weaver. The situation gets ugly when the weavers guild find this out, and when they interrupt Danny’s coitus to smash his loom, he stabs one of the men who attacks Camille, leading to his eventual hanging (and the “wagon” joke). This was shown on the screens behind, a good use of the film media.

Meanwhile, another set of characters have been introduced to us who will also echo down the years. The lower horizontal door slid forwards and becomes a bar, a table and chairs are brought on to the left of the stage, and we’re in the generic pub, with Fred Ridgeway as the landlord Laurie, Sophie Stanton as the barmaid Ida, and Trevor Laird as the pub regular Rennie, latterly from Barbados. Ida is the source of the “fucking ______” jokes, with the blank being filled with “frogs”, “Micks”, “yids” and a few other derogatory terms. The humour was in Sophie’s delivery of the lines (excellent), especially in the second half, when she holds a long pause after the “fucking”, gets the laugh anyway, and then compounds it by adding “yanks”. If we hadn’t guessed before, we knew at that point that we were up to the Second World War.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. This first time it’s the “frogs” she’s upset about. Rennie tells us a number of French folk have moved in above him, and provides the insider’s view of life with the French (too unsavoury to repeat here). He’s an unlucky fellow, because the same thing happens when the Irish turn up (keep pigs), the Jews, and the Asians. (The Irish don’t build their own church, by the way; they have to worship in secret at “art appreciation classes”.)

Anyway, things come to a head when war breaks out between Britain and France. The leader of the French community changes his accent and starts talking colloquial English, and then I think they all move to Redbridge(?), leaving room for the new incomers, the Irish (but I might have got that wrong).

When the Irish arrive, Ida is now the granddaughter of a French immigrant, and we get to see how these groups have assimilated themselves, and laugh at the funny side. Later on, this same point is made about the other groups, but I think it came across most strongly this first time, possibly because that early tranche of immigrants was too long ago for anyone to get upset about now, unlike some of the later groups. The cycles repeat themselves, with the previous set of immigrants complaining about the new lot, and the only variation I could see was that the English Jews were equally as unhappy about the Jewish incomers as the non-Jewish residents.

The final group are the Muslims, and here the tension rises a bit as some of the Muslim community become militant, and start aggressively attacking the parts of British culture they don’t like (most of it, from what I could see). The play does show that not all Muslims take this hard-line stance; there are clear references to the Wahibi sect as the cause of the problem, and the Imam who arrives to take over from his more tolerant predecessor has two hooks for hands. This is the final wave of immigration they can show, and brings us up-to-date, with a pair of twins being born to a Pakistani man and a British woman from an adulterous relationship. The idea of the children, especially the boy, being our hope for the future was floated, but couldn’t be resolved within the scope of this piece.

The overall idea of the play within the play was that love conquers all, and can bring disparate and even warring communities together. Despite this happy ending, the context play ends with the guard handing out letters to the immigrants to tell them if they’ve made it into Britain. Some do, some don’t, and some don’t get a letter. This had a sobering effect, and I found myself, in the final moment, recognising that the director can walk out of the “detention centre” and go wherever she likes, while even those who have been accepted by Immigration will be limited in what they can do to begin with. Those turned down have few, if any, choices.

I didn’t find the play particularly racist, but then I don’t have the sensibilities of some people or groups, nor a readiness to take offence. I don’t know how I would have reacted to jokes about the Scots or Welsh, mind you. I do think this play had a specific scope – to show the effects of immigration on English culture and society over a long period, using a particular area, Spitalfields, to focus the drama, and then widening the focus to show us the reality of today. I appreciated the humour, and I suspect some of the critics were taking it (and themselves?) too seriously, as some folk did with Till Death Do Us Part, thinking that Alf Garnett was speaking up for the racists when he was actually a figure of fun. I’m certainly happier that plays like this can be staged, especially at such a high-profile venue, and I only wish more writers with different experiences and points of view would take up the challenge of showing us these subjects from another perspective. We can only hope.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Rafta, Rafta – June 2007

6/10

By: Ayub Khan-Din, based on All In Good Time by Bill Naughton

Directed by: Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Tuesday 6th June 2007

This was based on an English play from quite a while ago, and has been really well adapted. I was mildly concerned that so many attitudes that we consider old-fashioned in mainstream British culture seem to be easily expressed by transferring them to modern-day Asian communities. I also noted the unusual number of Asians in the audience, and it seemed a pity that it takes a production like this to get them coming to the theatre, especially as the whole point of this play seems to be how much ground we have in common. However.

A young couple have to live with his parents after their marriage, until they can get a place of their own. As they don’t have a honeymoon, their attempts to consummate their relationship are hampered by the close proximity of the rest of the family, especially the father (Harish Patel). He’s a larger-than life character, who came to Britain many years ago, and worked hard to establish himself and bring his wife over as well. He’s the domineering sort, always having to be right, but with a good heart and a lot of kindness, when it can be brought out of him. His wife (Meera Syal), is more sympathetic, and appreciates the difficulties the couple are having, but even she doesn’t realise how long it’s taking them to get down to it. It takes some strong confrontations and a row to get them into bed and shagging, and there are lots of comedy opportunities along the way, together with some not-too-surprising revelations.

The set was interesting. At the beginning, as we sat down, there was a screen across the front of the stage, showing a view of a terraced street. As the play started, a couple of lads walked onto the street, and into one of the doors. Behind the screen, the set then began to revolve, as the front door turned towards the right, and the sitting room and kitchen came into view. The screen then rose, and we had an unimpeded view of the house, including the two bedrooms upstairs which would see most of the inaction. I liked this very much.

The performances were excellent, again. It took a while to sort out which character is which, and who’s married to whom, and I also took some time to get used to the accents. Some of the characters spoke with Indian accents, some with Lancashire accents, and some flip-flopped between, as often happens within multi-lingual groups. There was a great sense of family life, of the difficulties any young couple can feel in establishing themselves, and I enjoyed it enormously. I would certainly be interested in anything else this chap writes.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Rose Tattoo – May 2007

8/10

By: Tennessee Williams

Directed by: Steven Pimlott and Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Tuesday 15th May 2007

Steve and I had seen this play many years ago, with a good cast, and a good director, but just hadn’t got it at all. Neither of us could remember much about it, apart from this sense of bewilderment. We’re both Williams fans though, so we wanted to give it another try. And we’re very glad we did.

As this was in the Olivier, the set design was basically the small house that Serafina lives in (minus a few of the rooms) on the revolve, so scene changes could be pretty brisk. The entire set was based on roses – a pattern of roses was etched onto the flooring underneath the house, and rose patterns appeared on many of the costumes (not just Serafina’s), and in much of the fabric. There was even a goat (no roses to be seen there) which was led round the front of the set a couple of times.

The fairly realistic setting certainly helped, but this production was much better than the one we’d seen before. I lost a fair bit of the dialogue at the start, as it took me a while to tune into the accents. The older generation are Italian immigrants, while the younger generation speak the southern way, except when speaking Italian. There was much more humour than I expected, although Tennessee isn’t the dourest writer by any means.

The story concerns an Italian woman, very prideful of her marriage to an Italian Baron, and even more prideful of his faithfulness, who eventually learns, years after her husband’s death during an intercepted drug delivery, that he hasn’t been faithful at all. She’s already spent those years mourning his death excessively, and this discovery threatens to tip her over the edge. Amazingly enough, this is the very day on which her daughter graduates from High School; she’s met a young man to whom she’s attracted, and this causes a bout of over-protectiveness from her mother. Serafina also meets a replacement man, another truck driver, who arranges to have a rose tattoo put on his chest to help him woo the lady. Everything seems to work out OK, though it’s a bumpy ride.

Having read the notes in the program, this was intended to be a more optimistic play than his usual, and it certainly comes across that way. Instead of a picture of domestic entanglements which are driving everyone crazy (or crazier), we get a greater sense of progression with this one, partly because of the long time gap between the husband’s death and the rest of the action, but also because the relationships are more open. The outside world is more involved through the female “chorus” of her Italian neighbours and their children, plus a few others, including the priest.

I was clear about who these people were this time, and the difficulties in the relationship between mother and daughter were both moving and entertaining. I could see how Serafina is driven by her passion, and I just enjoyed watching the events unfold. Nice one.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Man Of Mode – April 2007

9/10

By: George Etherege

Directed by: Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Thursday 19th April 2007

I almost didn’t go to this performance today, as I wasn’t feeling so good when I got up. But a spot of breakfast got my system going, and I realised I wanted to see this production, so off we went. It was a good choice: this is one of the best productions of a Restoration piece that I’ve seen.

The style was totally up-to-date, high-tech, and very flashy. Messages were sent via text and email, and instead of the Mall or the park, we see the characters promenading in a modern art gallery. Between scenes, to cover the set changes, there were extra cast members, often dancers, entertaining us with some sort of mime activity – people meeting in the street, posing for photographers, and when it came to the art gallery, dancing like a piece of performance art sculpture – very funny. We both thought this sort of thing might become tedious, but they fitted it to the action of the play, and varied it so well that it worked brilliantly, and added to our enjoyment.

The opening scene had a short prologue added, whereby Dorimant, freshly risen, is waited on by a couple of glamour models and a photographer with his crew. He’s wearing a long periwig, a mask, and leather trousers, and poses with the models as for a celebrity photo shoot, stripping off as he goes. Nice body – shame about the tattoos. It’s only at the end of this photo shoot, as he’s giving one of the models his number, that the play proper gets going. His servant informs him that the flower-seller has arrived (changed from orange-seller in the play). She’s brought him a fresh display for his flat – red tulips to replace the roses (from yesterday, presumably) – and offers him information about a young heiress who’s come to town with her mother, and who was seen eyeing him up the previous day. We then get more information from Medley, his friend, and the many strands of the piece start to unfold (or should that be unweave?). Dorimant is tired of Loveit (he sends her a billet doux from his laptop), is in love with Bellinda and plans to bed her that night, having first sent her off to Loveit to fuel her jealousy, as he’s fond of creating a row to enable him to flounce out as if the other was in the wrong. He also plans to meet this new heiress, and see if he fancies her. Meanwhile, he’s been helping a young man, Bellair, who’s in love with Emilia but is worried his father won’t allow them to marry. They arrange to meet at Mrs Townley’s, here converted to a fashionable club, where a lot of the action takes place. Complicated, isn’t it?

There’s an extra complication in that Bellair’s father, Old Bellair, has taken to Emilia himself. Although he criticises her in public, he flirts dreadfully with her in private, lecherous old bugger. Once all these strands are introduced, we can relax and get on with the fun of seeing the plots develop. Needless to say, it all ends happily, for the most part.

Loveit’s place is a fashionable underwear boutique (if they’re still called that), where her assistant gets some of the best business and lines. Bellinda’s arrival goads Loveit into reaching below the counter for a ready supply of white wine, which leads her assistant to tap her watch, pointing out how early it is. Loveit goes for the wine on at least one other occasion, notably to give her time to replace her stocking after Dorimant’s interrupted attempt to give her a good tongue-lashing (of the sexual variety). As I recall, it was during this re-seduction of Loveit that Dorimant turned to the audience (the side we were on), and, acknowledging our reaction to his breathtaking cheek, he finally mouthed “shut up” at us, so he could carry on undisturbed. Of course, we laughed even more, but nothing much could throw that rake off his stride.

There’s a wonderful scene where Sir Fopling Flutter (the play’s fop, in case you hadn’t guessed) gives an excruciatingly embarrassing performance on the piano of a love song that he’s written. This is in Dorimant’s flat, and the others present (Dorimant, Medley, and the servant) are all busy filming it on their mobiles, to send on to their friends. Sir Fopling is played by Rory Kinnear, who’s very convincing as a young man desperate to become one of the “men about town”. His costumes were suitably outrageous, but still worked in the modern context. [Winner of an Olivier Award in 2008 for this performance]

The only other point to mention is that the casting makes the Bellair/Emilia families Asian, thereby making plausible the idea of arranged marriages, which would otherwise be difficult to portray sensibly in a modern context.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Alchemist – October 2006

Experience: 9/10

By Ben Jonson

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Wednesday 11th October 2006

          What fun! The programme notes were very interesting, and I got a huge amount out of this production. Lovely to see not only Simon Russell Beale but also Alex Jennings, whom I haven’t seen for a long time on stage.

The set was another lovely revolve, with two sides of a large room, and masses of doors. A staircase ran up one side of the semi-building, with a door at the top. The style was more Victorian than early 1600s, and the costumes were circa 1950? All these elements worked very well together – the production was clear, and stylish, without being cluttered. A good job too, as the action becomes pretty frantic as the play reaches its climax.

The two male leads are busy arguing at the start of the play. Alex Jennings’ character, Subtle, considers he is the sole provider for the team of con men, while Simon Russell Beale’s character, Face, is pointing out how much work both he and Doll Common do to bring in the dosh. She acts as peacekeeper between them (this involves partly strangling Subtle, so not trained by the UN, then), and gets them to hug and make up, though you can see that rivalry and tension still lurks beneath the surface.

Once they’re into their cons, though, everything starts to go more smoothly. This first scene reminded me of The Tempest, strangely enough, with the quarrelling between Prospero and Caliban. I also noticed that Doll Common emphasises that all their goods are to be held in common, which was something the Anabaptists believed in – perhaps a deliberate reference?

The cons are good fun. A young clerk wants to win at gaming, and believes that the Docto’ will be able to give him a fairy to help him win all the time. (There’s one born every 10 seconds in thisLondon!) An Asian shopkeeper wants advice on the best way to set up his store to maximise profits, and also wants help to snare a young, rich widow. The widow wants her fortune told to find out whom she’ll marry, while her brother, a young Hooray Henry up from the country, wants to be taught how to quarrel. Given the modern dress, this allows for much business with attempted African-American culture. Or Ali G, depending on preference. Very funny.

There’s also a wealthy knight with itchy palms, who wants the philosopher’s stone, so he can turn just about everything into gold and rule the universe, at least for starters. And since he’s given the Doctor loads of pewter and tin plate, the con men also arrange to sell the stuff to some overly serious Puritans. And that’s just in the first half! Face has to switch between the Captain, a suave man about town, who pulls in the marks, and a foreign servant, somewhat resembling Ygor from most Frankenstein movies, shuffling around in a leather apron, looking sinister. Subtle basically just plays the Doctor, an alchemist and fortune-teller, but he has different personas to sell his character to the different marks. So for most people he puts on an American drawl, wearing a headband, sunglasses and beads round his neck, hippy-style. For the Puritans, though, he adopts a different approach, with tweed suit, proper glasses, and a serious demeanour coupled with a Scottish accent. Face also uses a Scottish accent when the Puritans are around. Doll’s main character is a widow, sister of a Lord somebody-or-other (fictitious, I think). She is very intelligent but has a mania. She can’t bear to hear any talk of the Talmud, or Moses, or anything Jewish. Apart from that, she’s fine. And, given her looks, there’s many a man would overlook the odd flaw. They’re lining her up to be taken by the knight, thereby ruining his chance of getting the philosopher’s stone – any naughty business in the house will cause the delicate process of creating the stone to go awry – so they can filch all his money and get away with it. The stone’s demise is accompanied by an almighty explosion, flames, and smoke. Poor Face is covered in soot, especially his face, and it’s a wonderfully funny scene.

There’s one potential hitch. A character called Surly, a friend of the knight, is being lined up for a con, but fails to appear. Instead, he’s setting the con men up by pretending to be a rich Spanish nobleman, in need of sex. This is Surly in disguise. By the time he gets to the house, there are so many other cons under way, that Doll isn’t available, so they decide to set him up with the young widow, telling her that her destiny is to marry a Spanish nobleman. So far, so good. However, Surly explains all to her, and while he’s so taken with her that he wants to marry her, he still confronts the con artists and threatens to expose them publicly. Despite this, the various marks running around the place come to their aid, and chase Surly off. The shopkeeper wants the widow himself, and so on. The character switches the con men are having to do get faster and furiouser, and eventually, all the marks have been seen off (or have they?), and the money safely gathered in.

The clerk who wanted a fairy, and was expecting to see the fairy queen, (his aunt, apparently) was shoved into the privy while some other scam was dealt with, and finally chews his way through the gingerbread gag. At this point, the con artists are packing up as they’ve seen the house’s real owner arriving. Face is looking after the house for his master, and while he’s away fromLondonto avoid the plague, the others have been using the house to ply their trade. As they pack up, Face dons his usual suit, and appears on a balcony to rubbish the neighbours’ reports of lots of people going in and out of the house at all hours. The house has been locked up all this while, he claims, and might just get away with it, but for noises from the privy and the knight and Surly arriving, with the police, ready to break the door down. They enter, but can’t find any evidence of the people the knight and Surly have reported, so go away empty-handed. Meantime, Face comes clean about the whole shenanigans, and sets his master up with the young widow. While they’re off getting married, the three tricksters put all their money into the one box, and lock it, giving Face the key – bad move. He then announces that his master knows all, and sends the other two packing – no honour amongst thieves here. It turns out Face sent for his boss deliberately, and for his reward, he’s given a small (very small) token of gratitude. As the other marks turn up, demanding whatever goods they think they’re entitled to, the master of the house rebuffs them all. He’s got the pewter and tin plate, all the money, and a new wife to boot, and is very pleased with himself. But I’d be careful – Face knows a trick or two, and I wouldn’t put it past him to swindle his master before long.

There’s a huge amount of plot in this, and a lot of background information in the programme as well, about tobacco, alchemy and Puritans. The language is very dense, and I still didn’t get much more than half of it, but what I did get I thoroughly enjoyed. Some of it may have been updated – I would need to check with the text – but it all worked brilliantly. It was the first time Alex Jennings and Simon Russell Beale had worked together, and it was superb casting. They’re both strong enough to play these parts to the hilt, and I’m not sure I’ll see a funnier production than this. All the other actors were great, too. Special mention to Julian Curry, who stepped in to play Lovewit, the owner of the house. He gave a lovely performance, and didn’t let on that he was in on the plot. Also Tristan Beint was excellent as the quarrelsome young man.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me