Tag: Christopher Haydon

The Lovely Bones at the Rose Theatre Kingston review *****

The Lovely Bones

Rose Theatre Kingston, 26th October 2019

The Lovely Bones, co-produced by Birmingham Rep, Royal and Derngate, Northern Stage and Liverpool Everyman, is just to wrap up its tour in Chichester. If you saw it good on you. If you didn’t then make sure you sign up for what ever director Melly Still does next. After triumphs such as My Brilliant Friend, which you can catch at the NT as we speak, Captain Corelli’s Mandarin, her RSC Cymbeline, and further back her NT Coram’s Boy, it is plain she is the Queen of physical theatre adaptation. What with her role as Associate at the Rose, and with Christopher Haydon about to arrive as the new Artistic Director, and better seating, things are really looking up for the Tourist’s local theatre.

Now some might recoil from Ms Still’s insistence on the primacy of visual spectacle alongside the text. Not me. And not, based on a spot of vox-popping of neighbours post performance, the audiences. Or it must be said most critics. To which we must give many thanks to adapter Bryony Lavery. Ms Lavery is set for a busy 2020. Her 1997 original play Last Easter will have its London premiere at the Orange Tree, she is adapting Philip Pullman’s La Belle Sauvage for the Bridge Theatre, her adaptation of Oliver Twist with Ramps on the Moon will tour, her adaptation of Oscar and the Pink Lady will take the stage in Sheffield and Theatre Royal Stratford East have chosen her musical version of Red Riding Hood for its Xmas 2020 panto. Not bad for a pensioner.

It is pretty easy to see why collaborators keep returning to her as an adapter of broad appeal theatre. Of course the subject and structure of The Lovely Bones, which is narrated by the now dead Susie Salmon, raped and murdered by a neighbour aged 14, may not quite fall into the category broad appeal. But Alice Sebbold’s 2002 debut book was a best seller and the 2009 film directed by Peter Jackson, whilst generating a mixed critical response, grossed around US$100mn. So safe to say it has “brand recognition”. And, whilst the subject matter is initially, and self evidently, unsettling, the way the story develops, with Susie torn between willing her family and friends to nail her killer and watching them get on with their lives and get over her death, is more compelling. In someone ways it is an unsentimental story told, deliberately, in a sentimental way. There is a Heaven but not that of Christian dogma, her family is broken by her death, but it still celebrates American family and community, it does operate like a slickly paced, artfully plotted thriller, but that was not the real point of its writing, there is some supernatural mumbo-jumbo but, obviously given the initial formal liberty the reader will take it in her stride, and the baddie does get his comeuppance in a melodramatic twist.

So there is enough in the way of event and character to justify a theatrical interpretation. And the mechanism by which Ms Laverty and Ms Still realise this is disarmingly straightforward, In the book Susie narrates whilst looking down on family, friends and the killer from her Heaven. Here Susie walks among them, although of course they cannot see or sense her. Until, of course, they can. Heaven, with its host of other victims, led by Franny (Avita Jay) who becomes Susie’s mentor, appears and disappears at the drop of a jump light, but mostly we are in the world of the living with the brilliant Charlotte Beaumont’s teen Susie as stroppy cheerleader in her own investigation armed only with conviction and banana yellow loons.

Ava Innes Jabares-Pita’s set is overhung with a huge sloping two way mirror, not a new conceit but one that works to great effect here, as we are drawn to see events from two different perspectives. Otherwise we have a bare stage with floor lighting to symbolise house, and with the busy cast carting stuff on and off stage (cornfield, clapboard houses, clothing) to advance the many scenes. As with Ms Still’s previous work, it is lighting (Matt Haskins), sound (Helen Skiera), music (Dave Price, whose playlist guides us efficiently through 70s and 80s) and movement (Mike Ashcroft) which generate the thrills through the brilliantly choreographed ensemble. Scenes begin as quickly as others end so that the whole story is crammed into less than a couple of hours and there are countless moments of theatrical ingenuity.

Of course with all this visual activity theatre-makers run the risk of scrambling the plot and cartooning the characters. Not here though. Ms Laverty gives us as much dialogue as we need, leaning on Susie’s punchy narration, without, as far as I could make out, condensing any of the key plot elements . And the characterisations, Dad Jack’s (Jack Sandle) guilt and grief, Mum Abigail’s (Catrin Aaron) withdrawal, sister Lindsey’s (Fanta Barrie) indefatigability, detective Len Fennerman’s (Huw Parmenter) entanglement, are all sufficiently well sketched to hit home. OK so maybe the various friends, mysterio-goth Ruth Connors (Leigh Lothian), sensitive boyfriend material Ray Singh (Samuel Gosrani), (and his No Nonsense Mum Ruana), and the additional composites created in the form of Sophie (Radhika Aggarwal) and Leah (Leah Haile), only just about stand up to scrutiny, but this is true of the book too. And the less said about hard drinking, homily wielding Grandma Lyn (Lynda Rookie) who comes to look after the family when Abigail leaves, the better.

Nicholas Khan as the killer Harvey screams creepy psycho from the off, but as with the rest of the production, and in keeping with the book, effect and momentum are prioritised over psychological insight. He is convincing mind you. Then again so is Samuel Gosrani doubling up as family dog Holiday who is, in that doggy way, immediately on to Harvey. Those familiar with Melly Still’s Captain Corelli’s Mandolin will know just what the actor as animal routine can bring to this sort of production.

Of course there are times when theatre is best served by two people getting deep and wordy. But its real power lies in its dynamism and in the shared experience, and, in this regard, Melly Still is, in my book, a brilliant practitioner. I am willing to bet that the version of The Lovely Bones on the night that I enjoyed it, (for just a tenner, grab those secret seats people), will have looked different to that presented on the first night in Birmingham. Which is exactly as I would want it to be.

The Remains of the Day at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre review *****

The Remains of the Day

Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, 13th April 2019

Right all you good citizens of Derby, Salisbury, Cambridge and Bristol. There is still time for you to book tickets to see this excellent adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s celebrated novel The Remains of the Day. A very well crafted script by Barney Norris, (just the fellow to write pensive studies of “Englishness” based on his previous work), in an excellent production from one of our premier touring companies Out of Joint, thoughtfully directed by Christopher Haydon, (latterly of the Gate Theatre), with a pair of sparkling central performances from Stephen Boxer and Niamh Cusack.

Now the Tourist has never been much good at reading. Nothing ever seems to sink in without repeated exposure. Especially with fiction. And especially with fiction he read in his youth. A vague recollection of the big picture, a few specific episodes and a general “I like that author”. Not like the SO who can trot out plot, character, meaning, style, context, like an A* student even for things she read decades ago. Maybe this low level intimidation is what stops the Tourist picking up a book except when on hols. That and spending too much time at the theatre and writing this stupid f*cking blog.

Anyway you probably. like the Tourist. know this work more from the 1993 Merchant-Ivory film with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson as Stevens and Kenton, both quietly upstaged by Peter Vaughan as Stevens Senior. Nominated for 8 Oscars, won none. Mind you that was the year the Academy rewarded Spielberg for Schindler’s List. Fair dos. I see that one Harold Pinter wrote an original screenplay for the film when Mike Nichols was slated to direct. Bits of Harold’s work made it to the end but he removed himself from the credits. Might have been a very different film with him and Mr Nichols in the driving seat.

Instead I remember the central, unrequited, relationship between the stiff Hopkins and the droll Thompson, the look and feel of the thing, (Merchant-Ivory being allowed to film in any toff’s house at the time such was their fame), and the almost elegiac take on the history under examination, the 1950’s and the 1930’s. Yes the politics were there but not as sharply delineated as in this play. Class, deference, knowing one’s place, belief in the wisdom of the elite, are common to both treatments but I was far more struck in this treatment by the desire of many in the aristocratic class in the 1930’s to broker a deal with Hitler, to appease, than I was in the film. And specifically the reasons why, the guilt at having inflicted so much economic misery on Germany post First World War, as well as the memory of the human carnage of that war, and, of course their anti-semitism, which motivated them to pursue this course.

It may just be that, like my reading of the book, I just don’t remember the film very well. Which is salient given that The Remains of the Day is a memory book/film/play. Or maybe more specifically a memory of a history, personal and political, book/film/play. To solve the “problem” of butler Stevens remembering the events at Darlington Hall in the run up to the Second World War, (as he undertakes the road trip in 1958 to pay the visit to the ex-housekeeper, Miss Kenton, prompted by her letter), the film makes generous use of flashbacks. And a cast of thousands.

Well maybe not quite but tons of extras and actors of the calibre of James Fox, Christopher Reeve, Hugh Grant, Michael Lonsdale and Tim Pigott-Smith to fill all the named characters, (trust me, a lot of people found their way to Darlington Hall). Even the minor parts are filled by the likes of Ben Chaplin, Patrick Godfrey, Peter Eyre, Pip Torrens and, the go-to actor for Germans in British films, Wolf Kahler. Blimey even a young Lena Headey, Cersei in you know what, gets a look in. Basically if you could do plummy or gor-blimey, and you weren’t engaged elsewhere, you got a part in the film.

No such technology of budget for Out of Joint and Messrs Haydon and Norris. So a fair bit of character pruning, some adroit exposition to incorporate those written out, and extensive doubling. But this is not just any old “exit Act 1, turn up as someone else in Act 2 with new costume and wig” stagecraft. This is seamlessly executed, on stage choreography, a hat, a coat, a pipe, to turn a cast the cast of 8 into the staff and guests of pre war Darlington Hall and the locals Stevens meets on his pint-sized odyssey of self-discovery. This means that the ghosts of the past are always present. Very clever and very easy to follow.

Stevens devotion to duty even in the face of the shocking demand by Lord Darlington to sack the two Jewish maids, Kenton teasing Stevens about his book, Stevens carrying on his duties even as his father dies and Mme Dupont, (a gender change to accommodate the casting pyrotechnics), whinges about her feet, Reginald’s increasing awareness of what his godfather is up to, Stevens disowning the past in his conversations with Dr Carlisle, the mocking Stevens is forced to undergo from “Sir David” the composite collaborator with Lord D, the radical conservatism, or conservative radicalism, espoused by everyman Morgan in the pub and, of course, the extraordinarily moving scenes between Kenton, or Mrs Benn later on, and Stevens, as the happiness they might might have had slips through their fingers. You flipping noodle Stevens.

All of these scenes are memorable, providing plenty of minor key drama, but the best things about the play are the performances of Mr Boxer and Ms Cusack. I’ll stick my neck out here and say that for me, and remember this is based on my faulty memory, they capture the essence of Stevens and Kenton more that Hopkins and Thompson in the film. The ten year age gap between these actors seems more convincing than the 20 years of the film. Mr Boxer seems to me to bring out more of the interior life of Stevens, the way he buries the emotions that he plainly has in the cause of maintaining the dignified exterior he believes is required of him, the way he is puzzled by, but still craves, Miss Kenton’s attention. Ms Cusack seems more playful as Kenton, holding back the regret until the very end. the structure of the play lends more prominence to the conversations in the pub and the way this changes Stevens’s perspective.

The directness of the political dilemma, and its flawed morality, is far more pointed here than in the film. And the reliability of Steven’s recollection is more nuanced as in the book, (yes I took a quick peep again whilst writing this). In fact generally Mr Norris seems to capture the essence of the book in a, er, more reliable way that the period-drama aesthetic of the film does.

The rest of the cast step up. Miles Richardson captures the naivety, in life as well as politics, of Lord Darlington and the middle class bonhomie of Dr Carlisle. Sadie Shimmin offers us an uncomplicated pub host in Mrs Taylor alongside the hauteur of fascist sympathiser Mme Dupont. Edward Franklin warms to his task as the bespectacled, conscientious godson Reginald, (drawn from the film not the book), Patrick Toomey is the arrogant American politician Lewis (and, I think Farraday, Steven’s current employer) and Pip Donaghy marks out Stevens Senior decline. Top marks to Stephen Critchlow though as he he shifts from Morgan to the real “villain” of the piece the anti-semitic Sir David.

I see a lot of plays but this is one of the more satisfying I have seen so far this year. “Knowing” the content helps of course, and, from a personal geographical perspective a hop to Guildford, and the fine design and accumulated history of the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, was no inconvenience. I get that Out of Joint rightly values its touring credentials and I am grateful to the Royal and Derngate, (on my list to visit), and the Oxford Playhouse for co-commissioning Barney Norris’s script. But I am stunned that this hasn’t secured, as far as I know, secured a berth in London.

The familiar story, the quality of the acting, the script and the production, (Lily Arnold’s set is another stand-out as is Elena Pena’s sound design), the themes it explores and their contemporary echoes – the dangers of passivity and nostalgia – all would suggest to me that this would pack them in in a mid sized West End venue. There is plenty for the customary theatre demographic to enjoy, (they certainly did on this Saturday afternoon), but, with the right tone, I reckon some younger folk could be persuaded. I know that Out of Joint’s last major production, Rita, Sue and Bob Too, had a false start, understandably, before eventually gathering plaudits as the Royal Court but most of the rest of their historical efforts have popped up in the capital. This, whilst still posing some thorny questions, looks to be a far more commercial proposition than many of those predecessors.

Barney Norris plainly says that “the play must be unlike the book or the film or it shouldn’t exist” in the programme. Fair dos. But, whilst its structure and perspective match his manifesto, there is more than enough of both earlier manifestations to justify your attendance should you know them.

Over to you nice people at ATG.


Grounded at the Gate Theatre review ****

image_crop-1-e1488913174438

Grounded

Gate Theatre, Notting Hill Gate, 15th March 2017

Given that Grounded is now into its third run at the Gate and that is has had critical acclaim heaped upon it the last thing it needs is this chump adding to the sound and fury. But it seems I am something of a completist when it comes to recording my cultural journey so so no let off for you I am afraid.

And it is good. I mean really good. There was a bit of me that was a bit dubious going in to this. Potentially obvious target with an an obvious outcome (I swear no irony intended in this). But it is some much more than it appears on the surface. To check this I whizzed through the script. Do that and compare to what you have just seen and I think what the writer George Brant has created and, in particular, what Lucy Ellinson, conjures up alone on stage is just really, really good theatre. Makes you care and makes you think without overtly moralising (well maybe right at the end).

The Pilot at the outset is exactly what you might expect of an F-16 fighter pilot. Then love, husband and child take over and the Pilot ends up flying a drone from a base in the Nevada desert. That is when the dilemmas and the twists (of a sort) kick in. The pace of the monologue is rapid but full of imagery (sky, desert, Vegas, family life, being boxed in amongst many others) and Lucy Ellinson completely inhabits the character. In some ways the journey the pilot takes and where she ends up is, in retrospect, predictable but the insight into being a woman in this world, into balancing home and this sort of work (including its drudgery and social interaction as well as its obvious purpose), into the psychological stress of killing from afar, into the morality of this sort of war, are all revealed in a smart way.

Now it is possible that this worked for me because I am a liberal type who knows f**k all about what it is to be the person who is tasked with killing but Brant certainly got me thinking about all of that.

Anyway see for yourself whilst it is still on. Or make a mental reminder should in pop up elsewhere in future.

Oh and a reminder that the best way to see theatre is not in some poxy, neo-classical Edwardian fol-de-rol but above a pub on a bench (though I confess the Gate’s benches are back-breaking – just as well most everything I have seen there has captivated).