In 1952, Benjamin Britten was riding high. With operas like Peter Grimes and Billy Budd under his belt, not to mention the famous Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, he was an obvious choice to compose an opera to celebrate the young Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation – Gloriana, based on Lytton Strachey’s Elizabeth and Essex. However, a composer – or any creative artist – is often not the best judge of their own work, and nine months before Gloriana was to grace the stage of Covent Garden, into Britten’s life stepped Imogen Holst. The daughter of Gustav, she was a composer and conductor in her own right, and her all encompassing passion was music, in all its forms and from all its angles. But she turned her back on her career in favour of teaching, support and assisting. At one point Britten suggests she should be designated as his amanuensis. But that’s too grand for Holst; she prefers the understated “musical assistant”.

What is it about creative geniuses that means they always seem to have a dark side? That’s one of the many questions posed in Mark Ravenhill’s thought-provoking and beautifully written Ben and Imo, an account of the nine months that led up to the first performance of Gloriana on 8^th June 1953.  We see their shared love of music, the arduous and cantankerous creative process, the struggle to overcome obstacles, and above all, their mutual reliance (although both, you feel, would deny it). What we don’t see is their lives outside of these four walls, or this circular stage. There is a huge contrast, for instance, between Imo’s austere existence and the affluence of Ben’s society lifestyle, wonderfully demonstrated by the difference between his enviable Astrakhan coat and her dowdy outfits.

We also don’t see the people who have shaped them into who they are: Gustav Holst, who had died many years before, and Peter Pears, Ben’s partner, always singing his way around the world. The play removes the protagonists from these prime influences, so that they are left to fend for themselves. The only other element that makes an incursion into the “Ben and Imo” environment is the sea off the Aldeburgh coast; a constant background reminder of the unpredictable power and destructive force it can wield.

This is not a portrayal of a harmonious relationship. Britten is one of those people who bring others into their lives because they need them for a purpose, and when that need has been fulfilled, they drop them. Holst, however, is the complete opposite; she’s loyal, nurturing, and generous. At first, Britten wants her to make all the decisions for him; later, he resents her for trying to take control. He attracts people towards him, but once a friendship is established and successful, he unexpectedly and without reason drives them away. He needs Imo’s encouragement, and she needs to give it to him. But when she envisages a plan to refine and develop his Gloriana score, he can’t abide the thought of her presence and so arranges for her to go to America for three months. In modern parlance, he catfishes, cancels, and then ghosts. No wonder Imo doesn’t know where she stands.

Ben’s progress is marked by a series of seemingly petty victories, such as when the Lord Chamberlain backs down over his refusal to allow the appearance of a “pisspot” as part of Elizabeth I’s domestic regime. He has a splendid time trashing Dame Ninette de Valois, Frederick Ashton, Covent Garden director Lord Harewood, and others. This man is nothing if not a name-dropper. As well as the creative process in general, the play examines not only the tricks that are played within a power struggle, blaming others for failure, but also the concept of the dumbing-down of art, and the perils of royal patronage. The powerplay between Britten and Holst was always going to be the sticking point of their relationship, and the play’s wonderfully sudden ending seems to nail that question once and for all.

Soutra Gilmour’s set places the piano at the heart of the play; no need for anything else on the stage unless it serves the piano – such as the stool and the supply of sheet music, or a few drinks to fuel the musicians. The piano is the ultimate visual indication that music is all.

Erica Whyman directs two stunning performances by Samuel Barnett as Ben and Victoria Yeates as Imo. Mr Barnett truly inhabits Britten’s enclosed, reserved mind, giving of himself only when he needs to, and spitting out volumes of unexpected vitriolic fury when he doesn’t get his own way. He shows us Britten as both masterful and pathetic; both a genius and a lame duck. Ms Yeates gives us a superb study of a willing slave, insightful and practical, prepared to give up her own success and dignity for the sake of what she perceives to be the greater good. But there is always a point where the worm turns, and she provides all the genuine emotional reactions that Mr Barnett’s Britten refuses to indulge in.

There were just two elements to the staging that jarred with me and became an unnecessary distraction from the pure realism of the play. Perched on top of the piano is a model of Britten’s house; no one ever refers to it or touches it, so presumably only we can see it. Its little windows are lit, as if to show there’s someone living there. When the second act opens, we understand that the house has been flooded and that the electricity has been cut off; yet the little lights in the model house remain on. That just doesn’t make any sense to me.

That flood is represented not only by the audience hearing loud lashings of rain and sea, but also by a little bit of water that trickles off the surface of the piano. Knowing how graphically the RSC can represent a storm when they want to (imagine Edgar on the blasted heath in King Lear), I’m afraid that little bit of rainwater dripping off the piano is hardly a deluge – it’s laughably pitiful.

Nevertheless, it’s a very well-written and structured play that grapples with some fascinating issues and aspects of humanity that some of us would prefer to remain hidden; and Samuel Barnett and Victoria Yeates are fantastic. Gloriana may well have been a flop – Ben and Imo makes up for that in spades.

Production photos by Ellie Kurttz

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!