Tag Archives: Christopher Hampton

Review – The Lie, Menier Chocolate Factory, 24th September 2017

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It doesn’t seem like that long ago that we were at the Menier Chocolate Factory, watching Alexander Hanson in Florian Zeller’s The Truth, translated by Christopher Hampton. It was a one-act play with two couples, where the husband in one couple was having an affair with the wife in the other couple, and vice versa. Here we are again at the Menier Chocolate Factory, watching Alexander Hanson in Florian Zeller’s The Lie, translated by Christopher Hampton. It’s a one-act play with two couples, where the husband in one…. Oh, I think I’d better stop there.

It’s true though; this does feel like very familiar territory. Even more so than watching a sequence of Ayckbourns or Pinters, because even if those redoubtable playwrights deal with many recurring themes, at least they place them in different locations and have a variety of character-types. With M. Zeller, we’re again back in a luxury Paris flat, with four characters called Paul, Alice, Michel and Laurence – although to be fair, this time Mr Hanson is playing Paul, not Michel. They can’t actually be the very same characters, because I doubt whether those in The Truth would still be talking together long enough to engage in intrigues as they do in The Lie. I guess M. Zeller just feels he’s on to a winning formula so why waste time changing names and locations?

Paul and Alice are expecting Michel and Laurence to join them for a dinner party, but Alice is on edge. She was in a taxi driving by the Galeries Lafayette (well not the Galeries Lafayette exactly, but a road to the side) and she saw a man they know kissing a woman who wasn’t his wife. There are of course several perfectly innocent explanations for this, but not in the way that Alice says she saw it. As Paul questions her further, he realises the guilty party is closer to home than he thought; but could his best friend really have an affair without Paul knowing about it? And should Alice tell her best friend that she knows her husband is having an affair, or should she tell a lie?

Both The Truth and The Lie are actually very similar plays – both written for the same lead actor, so perhaps it’s not surprising – although structurally there’s a very enjoyable difference. In The Truth, the individual scenes were labelled (with just a hint of Brecht) so that you could count down the stages of deception. In The Lie, we just have a one-act play, with no hints from the programme if there are any surprises in store. However, as I am beginning to realise, M. Zeller is most definitely a man of surprises, so let’s just say it isn’t over until it’s over. He must have the most deceitful imagination going, because over the course of ninety minutes he pulls the characters every way but loose through a series of lies and fantasies so that you really don’t know who or what to believe. It’s incredibly clever and inventive, and everything hangs together perfectly at the end, so the audience does get the satisfaction of a full explanation. Oh, and it’s excruciatingly funny.

Originally the role of Paul was to be played by James Dreyfus, but he had to pull out at the last minute due to medical reasons. Enter Alexander Hanson like a knight in shining armour rescuing the production from disaster. We saw last Sunday’s preview, at which point Mr Hanson had only been rehearsing for a week, so he still had to have the book with him for some scenes; but to be honest we barely noticed it. Given his lack of rehearsal time, he’s absolutely brilliant. What a trouper! He really conveys the character’s intricate blend of honest outrage and feigned innocence, sometimes looking like butter wouldn’t melt, at others, as guilty as sin. And of course he has immaculate comic delivery, making the most of M. Zeller’s and Mr Hampton’s hilarious script.

Samantha Bond is also superb as Alice; constantly on the lookout for signs of deception, seeking reassurance, and throwing herself whole-heartedly into the grand gesture of locking herself in the bedroom overnight. One can only imagine that the Hanson-Bond household can be a lively place if they ever have an argument. Being a thrusting woman on the business front, Mrs Chrisparkle wants to know why Alice would go to an important presentation in the morning dressed in the same outfit that she was wearing for a dinner party the night before? When she spent the night locked in her own bedroom? You just wouldn’t do that. There’s excellent support from Tony Gardner as the extremely laid-back Michel – you get the feeling nothing would ever faze him; and from Alexandra Gilbreath as the bubbly Laurence, confidently assured of Michel’s devoted fidelity.

If you saw The Truth, you’ll want to see The Lie as a companion piece. Even if you didn’t, I’d really recommend it as one of those laugh a minute plays where you sometimes watch the stage through your fingers through sheer embarrassment. As with The Truth, this is NOT a play to take your other half if you’ve been playing away from home. It’s on till 18th November and you should go and see it – not a word of a lie.

P. S. Next year at the Menier Chocolate Factory, Alexander Hanson in The Half-Truth; a one-act play by Florian Zeller translated by Christopher Hampton, where Paul and Michel have a homosexual affair but it’s fine because unknown to them so do Alice and Laurence. No, I made that up. Or did I…?

Review – The Philanthropist, Trafalgar Studios, 3rd June 2017

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I remember seeing the theatre listings in my early teens and noticing The Philanthropist on in the West End and thinking, “what an interesting title. I must look it up.” I can’t remember if I did; I doubt if I’d have been much the wiser. Nevertheless, the lure of this play stayed with me and it was one of the first batch of play texts that I was given as a present from the Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle for Christmas 1975. How much of it I fully understood, is questionable. However, I really loved it – particularly that coup de theatre of a first scene, which I note still draws a huge gasp of breath and uncomfortable nervous laughter throughout the subsequent scene change. Ever since, I’ve always wanted to see a production so that I could judge it for myself. And it’s taken forty-two years for me to achieve it!

So, having booked it as soon as it went on sale, imagine my disappointment after it opened and the word got around that it was terrible. One four-star review from the Daily Telegraph; but a distinct handful of one-star reviews almost made me rue my initial enthusiasm. I’d booked for halfway through the run and I rather expected it to have closed before my chance came around. But no, it’s still going; and judging from Saturday’s matinee performance, business isn’t too bad, and the production itself is extremely enjoyable!

Christopher Hampton called it a “bourgeois comedy” with a cheeky nod to the Royal Court, that left-wing palace of the avant-garde, where the original production was staged. It’s also a nod to Molière, whose influence on modern theatre simply won’t go away, with Don Juan in Soho still at Wyndham’s (just), and The Miser having just left the Garrick. One of Molière’s masterpieces is Le Misanthrope, a comedy of manners where the central character rejects the conventions of the day and refuses to see the good in people, and just criticises and complains at everything and everyone with whom he comes into contact. Alceste, the Misanthrope, is the exact reverse of Philip in The Philanthropist, who always sees the good in everything and finds it impossible to criticise. That’s why he can’t lecture in English Literature, only in philology.

The play follows the fortune of Philip over a tense few days as he and his colleague Don listen to a keen young playwright read through his script, with disastrous consequences; and then a few days later as Philip and his fiancée Celia host a dinner party spoiled by some awful guests. Life will never be the same and there are some hard questions to be answered the morning after the night before. Can Philip square the circle and carry on? You’ll have to watch it to find out.

What I always loved about this play is its intelligent script; maybe today it’s a little show-offy but that probably appealed to the 15-year-old me. As Mrs Chrisparkle and I were watching it I realised (and she recognised) that it contains many of my favourite little quotes with which I have peppered my day to day conversations over the intervening decades: “it’s far more important for a theory to be shapely than for it to be true”; “Now perhaps you’ll oblige us with a fart”; “Darling, I hope you’re not going to be bourgeois about this, but I’m going to leave you and the children for a few months.” The 23-year-old Christopher Hampton had a truly sparkling turn of phrase that I have always relished.

The play was written in 1970 and it’s firmly staying there, but I enjoyed the 70s clothing and other contemporary staging details; and talk of the Prime Minister and the front bench being mown down in an assassination attack is more relevant today, although probably less funny. The character types are still eminently recognisable; there’ll always be characters like Philip: well-meaning, inept, too cerebral for their own good; not bad at friendships but hopeless in love; measuring out their lives with coffee spoons, like Prufrock. There’ll always be characters like Braham too; full of conceited, empty swagger, complacent in their ability to turn a nifty phrase, who will ride roughshod over others’ feelings and relationships, simply because he can.

Simon Callow’s production seems very faithful to the original stage directions, with even the same choice of music to bridge the gap between scenes. He’s definitely letting the script do the talking. He has accumulated a cast of young TV actors, which will no doubt help put bums on seats, although I’ve never seen any of the shows they are in, so I didn’t know any of them from Adam. I thought Simon Bird was excellent as Philip, really conveying the character’s total uselessness and sheer lack of harmfulness. He allows himself the time to wallow in some superb crushed facial expressions and lines, and I felt sorry for him just as much as I laughed at him.

Charlotte Ritchie is also extremely good as Celia; no nonsense with her public criticisms of Philip, her cut glass sideswipes really hitting home. As her character develops you get a strong sense of her own inner dilemmas, and how hard it is for her to come to a conclusion as to what to do; I thought she was very impressive. And we both really liked Lily Cole as Araminta, provocatively reclining so as to make the maximum impression on Philip; notching up another number on the bedpost for no reason other than her own weakness, even though she gains no benefit from it.

It’s a very enjoyable production of Christopher Hampton’s first big success, and it’s really interesting to see it full of life all these years later. I’m very glad to have finally seen it! It’s on until 22nd July.

P. S. When I booked, the Trafalgar Studios was still part of the ATG theatre group. Today, however, they are the first procurement of the new TEG – Trafalgar Entertainment Group – run by Sir Howard Panter and Rosemary Squire – who were the chief execs of the ATG group. Such are the ways of big business. The downside is that your ATG membership card will no longer get you 10% off at the bar. The good news is that they’ve really spiced up the bar experience and I can definitely recommend a bottle of the Verdejo to accompany your theatregoing!