Tag Archives: Theatre Royal Brighton

The Bargain – April 2007

8/10

By: Ian Curteis

Directed by: James Roose-Evans

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Monday 16th April 2007

This was an amazing play. Inspired by actual meetings between Robert Maxwell and Mother Theresa, it explored some possible areas they might have discussed, and the sort of negotiations that might have gone on between them. As nobody witnessed their meetings, we can’t know for certain what went on, but this play fills in the gaps very entertainingly, and shows some good insights into their characters and situations at the time.

The action is condensed into two meetings and set almost entirely in Robert Maxwell’s riverside flat in London. We see Maxwell and his assistant, called Sidekick, trying to set up the meeting. Maxwell is planning to print an encyclopaedia of world religion, and wants Mother Theresa to provide an introduction. He actually wants a number of other people’s endorsements, but can’t persuade them, so Mother Theresa will have to do.

They finally persuade her to come and visit them, after Margaret Thatcher has turned down Mother Theresa’s request for funding – apparently the homeless and destitute had perfectly adequate provision under the welfare state. They spend a few minutes tidying the place up, removing the booze to pretend Maxwell doesn’t drink, setting up Gregorian chant on the CD player, etc. Sadly, they overlook a large bottle of brandy sitting on the floor by the corner of the sofa.

The first to turn up is Sister, the nun who’s assisting Mother Theresa, and played by Susan Hampshire. Maxwell is down on one knee showing respect when she comes in, real crawler. She explains that Mother Theresa has stopped to give comfort to an old man, as she often does. When Mother Theresa does turn up, Maxwell’s more relaxed and behaving more naturally, so Mother Theresa gets to see him with his guard down.

Mother Theresa is played by Anna Calder-Marshall, a brilliant performance. She’s short, anyway, and stoops, and really gets across the idea of an old woman with strength and determination. She has that spiritual ability to focus on what she wants, and see clearly what’s going on. She’s not fooled or shocked by Maxwell or his past, and she’s prepared to sup with the devil if it will get her what she wants. A number of times, she says she has a price for helping him with the encyclopaedia, but doesn’t get round to explaining what it is till the end of the play. Meanwhile, Sister has been driving a very shrewd bargain herself for Mother Theresa’s involvement. Sister trained as a doctor for a few years, before switching to accountancy before becoming a nun. Although she radiates simplicity, and is obviously devoted to Mother Theresa, she also sees what’s going on quite clearly, and works out what Maxwell’s scam is. He’s arranged for banned items to be sent behind the Iron Curtain, and wants to get the money back out. By getting the encyclopaedia printed in Estonia, for example, he can cover up the movement of money via the banking facilities he himself provides to the Communist printers.

He, in turn, has got his journos sleuthing round about Mother Theresa, and has dug up all the allegations that have been made about her and her work over the years. He’s threatening to do a big splash in the Mirror, either about how he and she are starting a campaign to raise money for hostels in the UK, or exposing all her dubious practices. The two of them have negotiated their way round all these points, but still she hasn’t told him her price.

She’s established clearly that he’s feeling guilty about surviving the concentration camps during WWII. She tells him about how she sent four nuns to Russia after Chernobyl, to help in any way they could. They had to be sneaked in, as religious orders weren’t allowed in Russia at that time. They helped the locals as much as they could, and took on anyone rejected by the official support agencies. This meant the young and the old, especially the poor, and many of these were Jews. The locals accepted them, grateful for the work they were doing, and no one reported them to the police. Eventually, the local mayor dropped off an old prefab building with a decent roof to replace the damp cellar they were using. Mother Theresa sent more nuns to help, and now she wants Maxwell to use the goodwill he’s built up with the Communist regimes over the years, to persuade Gorbachev to acknowledge them as the first religious house permitted in the USSR. A huge step. Maxwell agrees, and a handshake seals the deal.

For the final scene, the walls lift up and away, and Maxwell walks Mother Theresa along by the river as she heads off for her plane. (Incidentally, Maxwell had ordered Sidekick to tell all sorts of porkies to get her plane delayed, as they were just getting down to the nitty-gritty. Mother Theresa just said “Tell them Mother Theresa wants it.” She may be humble, but she knows she has clout.) At the end, as she tells Maxwell he will sleep better now, and that he must go back to the village where he was born and find some of the old folk and talk with them, she starts to shoo away the birds on the Embankment, just as she did when she was a girl. And the final image is of her standing in front of lots of birds, rising up into the sky – an image she’d described to Maxwell earlier.

The last words belong to Sidekick, however, as he tells us all that Robert Maxwell died three years later, and when his financial dealings were investigated, the only funds he hadn’t plundered were those raised for Mother Theresa’s hostels.

I found this play fascinating. The two main characters were so large, and had such influence in their lifetimes, that even though this was fiction, it still felt very powerful. The key for me was Anna Calder-Marshall’s performance as Mother Theresa. She was so believable, and so centred as a character that it was hard to take my eyes off her when she was on stage. Michael Pennington did a perfectly fine job as Maxwell, but his character, although interesting, didn’t have the same power as Mother Theresa. He even admits at the end that she’s tougher than he is!

The support from Susan Hampshire and Jonathan Coy was excellent, and set up a lot of the humour. But Mother Theresa’s dry humour was wonderful to see. At one point, she and Maxwell are having a pissing contest over who had the more terrible childhood. He informs her that President Kennedy said his was the saddest story he’d ever heard. She said that the Queen had told her much the same about hers. He upped the stakes by mentioning the Pope, at which point she asked “which Pope?”. “The fat one”, was his reply, and she took the wind even more out of his sails by saying that the three Popes she had known had all found her story the saddest they’d ever heard. At this point he realises she’s teasing him, but by now he’s more relaxed with her, and knows he’s not going to impress her with his suffering.

A good play, a good production, and a decent audience made this a much better evening than last week.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The New Statesman – April 2007

2/10

By: Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran

Directed by: Jennie Darnell

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Thursday 12th April 2007

Well, this doesn’t happen to us often. We actually left the show at the interval! I’d considered leaving even earlier and waiting for Steve outside, but I managed to hold on.

The problem was only partly with the material on stage. These jokes were pretty old, and although there were topical references, the usual stale punch lines were dragged out again for another trot round the circus ring. In many ways, this humour reminded me of Bernard Manning – much despised by the alternative comedians, but tonight his jokes wouldn’t have seemed out of place. We got the impression that at least half the audience were laughing with B’Stard, rather than at him – a works outing from the BNP, perhaps? And as Rik Mayall milked every slight mistake for all it was worth, redoing them as often as possible, it became more an evening of one man’s extempore comedic business than a political satire piece.

There were some decent laughs to be had, such as the comment by Condoleza Rice about plan B, but not enough to keep us there, given that the couple next to me were excessively twitchy all through the first half.  The prospect of another hour beside them was too appalling to contemplate, and as Steve wasn’t that keen either, we headed off early.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Hay Fever – March 2007

6/10

By: Noel Coward

Directed by: Peter Hall, revival by Joe Harmston

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Monday 12th March 2007

Whoops! We were five minutes late for this one, the first time that’s happened for many years. As a result, we saw the first act from the rear stalls – still a good view and we were able to hear very well.

One of the problems I have with this play is how dated it is. There’s still a lot of fun to be had, but the characters and situation aren’t as relevant now compared to, say, Present Laughter, which hasn’t dated nearly as much. The sight of a bunch of people sitting, embarrassed, because their hosts haven’t handed round the teacups is frankly passé as comedy. The other problem is that I have to spend a couple of hours (mercifully short) in the company of some very unpleasant people, whom I wouldn’t want to meet in real life. Given these drawbacks, I didn’t have high hopes for tonight’s performance, which is often the best way to approach any production. This was definitely better than expected, though not enough for me to put the play on my “most wanted” list.

Stephanie Beacham was excellent as Judith Bliss, the aging actress who still wants to attract men, and whose need for constant drama led to most of the fun. Her expressions as she manoeuvred everyone to her satisfaction were very enjoyable. She got across very well that this was just pretence.

Christopher Timothy played her writer husband and partner in chaos. I really liked the way he turned the tables on Myra Arundel (the floozy who’s trying to seduce him) by being totally up for it, and making her back off. He obviously appreciates his wife’s talents, especially in the final part of Act Two, when she’s reprising her role in a favourite play (can’t remember the name now). The children were good, too; suitably obnoxious and immature, but with enough charm to believably attract their share of the weekend’s victims.

I always feel sorry for the poor people who’ve agreed to visit this household for the weekend – they obviously don’t know what they’re letting themselves in for. The way each family member pairs up with the wrong guest is always entertaining, and this group of actors were well matched – all the relationships worked.

The costumes were very good, the set was pretty, and overall it was an enjoyable experience.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Letter – January 2007

5/10

By: Somerset Maugham

Directed by: Alan Strachan

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Tuesday 16th January 2007

This was a play adapted by the author from his own story. Set in Malaya, it’s an account of the trial of a woman for murder, following her shooting of a man who, she claims, tried to rape her. But is it that clear cut? Well, the title’s a bit of a giveaway, as you know there’s going to be a letter involved somewhere along the line, which will have a crucial bearing on guilt or innocence. And the plot doesn’t have many more twists than a willow wand, but the performances were good enough (although I couldn’t make out Jenny Seagrove too well in the early stages) and the story was watchable enough to make it an enjoyable evening. At least Maugham gets some good humour into the writing, and the characterisations have more detail than average, although we’re so used to his style now that there are few surprises. The set was rampant colonial, with bamboo screens being moved hither, thither and yon during scene changes, and the theatre was so stuffy I found myself nodding off a bit during the first half (that, and a very late night yesterday). Still, a decent play and very watchable, especially for the Chinese lawyer milking the letter situation for all it’s worth.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Steptoe And Son – October 2006

Experience: 4/10

By Ray Galton and John Antrobus

Directed by Roger Smith

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date : Monday 23rd October 2006

          This was an entertaining romp through some of the much-loved set pieces of the old Steptoe and Son series, together with some linking material and a context. It was enjoyable, though it never reached the heights, or depths, of the original. The performances were fantastic, both actors looked sufficiently like their counterparts to satisfy most ardent fans, and they had the mannerism and accents down pat.

The set-up was current day, with the National Trust having taken over their old rag-and-bone yard, keeping it intact as an example of a particular era and trade. The comedy here was in the attention to detail – when the manager tidies up he puts more dust on the table instead of cleaning it off! Harold has returned after 40 years of living abroad, on the run after murdering his father with an assegai. (Accidentally, as it turns out.) He wants to have one last look at the old place. This was one of the few quibbles I had about the casting – although Harold should be even older than his father was at the time of the murder, he still looks about 35 – 40. I was happy enough, though, as it made the flashbacks more credible – Harold’s age ranges from 8 upwards.

Naturally, Albert’s ghost is also haunting the place, and when Harold chances to get locked in for the night, his father’s ghost accosts him with a request for Harold to sign his official form so he stops being earthbound and can go to heaven. They argue, of course, and Harold starts retelling the story of their lives together from his childhood, hence the flashbacks. We see many of the plots resurface that we know and love so well, often reworked slightly, and with some new material, or at any rate, material I didn’t remember. It was good fun, fairly predictable, but still enjoyable. We saw Harold being killed off so he couldn’t go back toHarrow, being locked in the basement so he wouldn’t have to fight in WWII, and when he finds the love of his life, the daughter of a rival rag-and-bone man, Albert drives them apart by telling them he is actually the girl’s father. All lies, of course.

Eventually, Harold agrees to sign the old man’s paper, and then he discovers another of the ways Albert’s cheated him. He gets so angry, he has a heart attack, and after the lights are temporarily dimmed, we see him, resurrected as a ghost, standing next to Albert, while his body still lies on the floor. Spooky! After a couple of final revelations, they head off to heaven on the horse and cart, cunningly concealed behind the door.

Good fun, but it could probably do with some rewriting to tighten it up in places. The performances were better than the rating I’ve given the production as a whole – only the writing let it down a bit.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Amy’s View – October 2006

Experience: 6/10

By David Hare

Directed by Peter Hall

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Monday 16th October 2006

This was a little disappointing, though that may have been partly my attitude – I was pretty tired and couldn’t raise a lot of enthusiasm for going out.

The play concerns a mother and daughter who fall out over the daughter’s choice of partner. The disagreement isn’t helped by the daughter being pregnant. The events take place between 1979 and 1995, so we see quite a lot of development over the years. The daughter (Amy) and her partner have children, and eventually marry, while the mother (Esme), a widow, takes financial advice from a friendly neighbour, who, it turns out, is a commissioning agent for Lloyds of London. She ends up not only broke but owing bucketloads of money, and has to continue working to try to pay off some of her debts. Interestingly enough, she’s one of those who don’t agree with suing the agents who got people into those syndicates – her point of view is that she was happy enough when the money kept rolling in, so now she just has to swallow her medicine.

She’s an actress, mainly on the stage, and that’s one area of contention with Amy’s partner – he’s a bit of a prig, and thinks the stage is dead. Film and TV are the only media that matter. At the start, when he still seemed quite a nice bloke, he admits to wanting to make movies, then he ends up savagely sneering at them on TV, finally graduating to movie production. Amy seems to spend her time looking after the children, and although we don’t learn the details, we find out in the final act that she’s died. Her ex-partner, now married to another woman after running off with her, attempts a rapprochement with Esme, but is rebuffed. There’s also Esme’s elderly mother-in-law, who goes increasingly gaga, and, supposedly, the ghost of her long-dead husband, a well-known painter in his day. Personally, apart from a few references and lots of painting on the walls, I didn’t get much sense of his presence.

The strength of this production for me was the relationship between the two women. Both had made their choices, and were sticking to them. The mother wasn’t happy that her daughter had chosen a intellectual who wasn’t prepared to have a proper relationship with her daughter, while the daughter, naturally enough, wanted to be left alone to make her own decisions. Funnily enough, the mother then goes and makes a disastrous choice in her next male companion, so both women seem pretty well matched to me. Apart from this, there was some fun here and there, especially with the pompousness of Amy’s partner and his attitudes to art. And the opening of the third act, where Esme has had a hard time carrying out an operation while filming in the studio, was good fun too. But time and again I find myself asking what these plays are for. It’s interesting to be reminded of the precarious nature of the financial boom in the eighties, and the acting was fine all the way through, but I’m not sure I got a lot out of it that will stay with me, or provoke new ideas and fresh attitudes. As I say, it may just have been how I felt that night, but I suspect from past experience it’s a deeper problem than just one play.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Heroes – October 2006

Experience: 6/10

By Gerard Sibleyras, translated by Tom Stoppard

Directed by Claire Lovett

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Monday 9th October 2006

This was a French piece, similar to Art in that it’s about the relationships amongst three men. The three are WWI veterans, living out their days in a military hospital. They talk and grumble amongst themselves, and plan a daring escape, only to be foiled by the reality of their debilities.

It’s a short piece – only one and a half hours long, though not even that tonight. There were a good few laughs, and I would have enjoyed it more if it hadn’t been for the unfortunate woman on my left who turned out to be a serious fidgeter. Unfortunately, she showed no signs of fidgeting before the off; it was only when the lights went down that she began her activity – getting her glasses out of her handbag, folding her programme and putting in her bag (at the fifth attempt!), getting her bag back on the floor, getting her glasses on, and then, sadly, continuing to twitch and move around for most of the rest of the performance. Very distracting. I missed the first few minutes almost completely.

Once I got into the play, I found it entertaining but a bit insubstantial. The three characters are all well drawn. Gustave, the hard-bitten cynic, is terrified of going out of the hospital grounds, Henri is lame but still gets around and seems to have accepted his situation more than the others, and Phillipe has a piece of shrapnel lodged somewhere which causes him to pass out frequently. When he comes to, he’s always calling out “Take them from behind, Captain, take them from behind”, which we assume to be a military reference, until he lets us know that “Captain” was what a lover of his liked to be called.

Overall, it was more like a series of sketches than a play. Some of the situations were pretty funny. There’s a stone statue of a dog that Phillipe thinks he can see moving. Gustave plays along with this, but Henri thinks it’s a load of nonsense. Phillipe also believes that one of the nurses, Sister Madeleine, is bumping off inmates who share the same birthday, so as not to have two parties on the same day. He gets worried when another veteran arrives who shares his birthday, as he thinks he’s going to be the next on her list. This is one reason why they decide to head off together, to make a break for freedom. Sadly, Phillipe and Gustave want to take the dog with them, and this proves too much for Henri, who flounces off.

They have a scene where they practise roping themselves together which has a few laughs, and I felt that the final scene, when Gustave tells Phillipe that his sister’s died, could have been funnier. (Phillipe has been giving Gustave his letters from home, to which Gustave has been replying, so Phillipe has no idea what’s happened in his family. Apparently the funeral went very well.) I would like to see another production of this play sometime, to get a better chance of appreciating it without so much distraction.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Habeus Corpus – September 2006

Experience: 3/10

By Alan Bennett

Directed by Peter Hall

Company: Peter Hall Company

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Tuesday 19th September 2006

I found this disappointing; Alan Bennett doing Joe Orton, not really my cup of tea. The performances were excellent, as usual, and it was weird to see several actors whom we’d seen last week in Measure for Measure at the Courtyard in Stratford, appear again tonight. I hadn’t realised that the Peter Hall Company was touring two plays, so we got to see both within a week of each other.

There were some laughs, and as I say the performances were fine, but much of the writing was very dated, and some of the jokes were telegraphed minutes before they arrived. This piece could do with a good rewrite to bring it more up-to-date, or else be left in a drawer somewhere till it’s old enough to be a classic.

Good points – Barry Stanton without a beard (and I haven’t seen that before!) playing a charlady with an uncanny knack for knowing everything that’s going to happen or has happened – has she read the script? Edward Bennett was superb as Canon Throbbing, desperate to get laid, and Paul Bentall, recently the Provost inVienna, was enjoyable as a travelling artificial breast fitter who mistakes a real pair (Annette Badland’s ample bosom) for his company’s work.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Strangers On A Train – June 2006

Experience: 6/10

By Craig Warner, based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith

Directed by Robin Herford

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Wednesday 28th June 2006

          Interesting production, this. I haven’t read the book, but this play must be closer to the novel than the movie version. Same start – two strangers meeting on a train, leading to murder and mayhem. Much more psychological than the Hitchcock, and in some ways much darker, less sensational.

Obviously, this had to work on the stage, so forget seeing the funfair. A lot had to be reported rather than shown. And there were lots of pauses while the sets were trundled on and off stage. Even so, this was pretty tightly scripted – a study of insanity and how it could entrap and almost destroy a relatively normal human being. In the end, Guy Haines, the architect who is drawn into Charles Bruno’s deadly plan, is saved by the love of a morally ambiguous woman. She tells him she doesn’t love him for his goodness, which begs the question what does she love him for then? At one point, it seemed the easiest thing would be for Guy and his new bride (Charlie boy bumped off the original) to murder Charlie as he hides under their roof, and dispose of the body, but we had a bit further to go, and in the end Charlie tops himself with Guy’s gun, the one used to kill Charlie’s father and which was discarded in the woods. A relief in many ways, especially as the investigator, one Arthur Gerard (played by Colin Baker), had decided to let the matter drop, even though he pretty much knew the whole story.

The emotional and mental journey was an interesting one, with lots of moral ambiguity to challenge the audience’s beliefs. Did good triumph in the end? And what of the lives of Guy and Anne afterwards – he’d been so stricken with guilt before he’d killed Charlie’s dad, how would he carry on now? Lots to think about.

Good performances all round, especially the two leads – Alex Ferns as Charles Bruno, nicely psychotic, suave and assured at the start, disintegrating into twitchy insanity by the end, and Will Thorp as Guy Haines, a straightforward guy who gets caught up in a nightmare he can’t handle until he finally tells all (in print) to his new wife.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me