Review – King John, Royal and Derngate and Shakespeare’s Globe at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Northampton, 25th April 2015

Posted on April 29, 2015 by therealchrisparkle

Wasn’t it Tony Hancock who said, and I believe it was, “Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?” Actually, no, she didn’t. Because one of the off-shoots of the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta is this co-production between the Royal and Derngate and Shakespeare’s Globe, of King John; one of Will’s lesser-known histories, relatively infrequently performed; an early play, not considered to be one of his greats. Geeky me, when I was 15 I devoted the summer holidays to reading all of Shakespeare’s plays. I didn’t understand King John much; and it hasn’t featured on my radar since, until this splendid opportunity to combine seeing a Shakespeare play with visiting the extraordinary Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Northampton, built in Norman times in imitation of the Holy Sepulchre church in Jerusalem. It’s an amazing place – and if you’ve not visited it before, and your ticket to see King John only leaves your curiosity piqued (as it surely will), come back and visit it on Wednesday or Saturday afternoons during the summer. It’s full of history and surprises.

However, not only is it a splendidly atmospheric venue, it’s highly appropriate to this particular play too. King John himself is believed to have visited the church several times, and Shakespeare sets Act Four and the first scene of Act Five in Northampton Castle. Given that the castle fell into ruin and what was left of it was swept aside to build the railway station in the 1860s, bringing the play to the Holy Sepulchre gets us as close as we can to sharing a truly theatrical experience in its original surroundings.

King John is an episodic dash through the highlights (or should that be lowlights) of the eponymous monarch’s life. As an early play, Shakespeare hasn’t got much of a narrative style going on here, it’s more like separate snapshots of the savage sovereign’s reign – his coronation, his deciding between the two Faulconbridge brothers as to who should inherit, the assault on Angers, the manipulation of the French King by the Papal legate to cause war with England, the almost-torture of Arthur, Arthur’s death, and finally King John’s death and succession by Prince Henry. It’s a bit like The Archers but with more blood. Look a bit more closely and you can see traces of much greater things to come. Talk of the clashing of swords and shields presages his more eloquent writing in Othello. Three forcefully meaty female roles look forward to King Lear’s daughters. The character of the Bastard – a complete invention of Shakespeare’s, as it turns out – paves the way for Edmund, also in Lear. King John himself is in some ways a forerunner for Shakespeare’s interpretation of Richard III.

We knew a few people to whom this production would definitely appeal. So a veritable baker’s dozen of us turned up at the Holy Sep on Saturday night. We were joined by Lady Duncansby and her butler Sir William (recently knighted for services to the vehicle bodywork repair industry), the lovely Belle of Great Billing, Lord Liverpool and the Countess of Cockfosters, our nieces Secret Agent Code November and Special Agent Code Sierra together with their Mum and Dad, and Professor and Mrs Plum. The good Professor had previously accompanied us to the magnificent, site specific production of The Bacchae three years ago – indeed he gave a talk at the theatre before one of the performances; maybe one day Prof & Mrs P will actually get to see a play inside one of the Northampton theatres. The production of The Bacchae, directed by Laurie Sansom, and of King John, directed by his successor as Artistic Director, James Dacre, make fascinating comparisons, both extracting an extraordinary atmosphere from an unusual location, encouraging an amazing sense of ensemble from the cast, and creating productions that will stand the tests of time as being definitive for that particular play.

Prior to its Northampton run, the production had indulged in some previews at the Temple Church in London; I’ve not been there, but it’s another extraordinary setting, I’ll be bound. We saw its second preview in Northampton so it is possible that some things might have changed before its “proper” opening. Something that might benefit from a change – if I might be so bold – is what happens when the doors to the church unlock and you enter the building. Hooded monks sing a requiem for the late Richard I, walking solemnly around the rotunda. It’s a stunning opening image. An usher invites you to stand and listen to the requiem – just the first of many exquisite compositions by Orlando Gough. However, with unreserved seats, the temptation is to head straight for the pews and nab the best viewpoint. As a result you only get that stunning image fleetingly – and although you can still hear the requiem from your seats, it’s not as impressive as actually remaining in the rotunda to hear it in full. I wonder, therefore, if there could be some way of imposing a delay on the physical progress of the audience, just so that they enjoy the requiem a little longer.

Guided by the ushers you locate your seat. The church is dark and mysterious, lit by candles, and whatever fading light remains is dramatically converging through the stained glass windows. The stage area takes the form of an enormous crucifix, with the audience in pews either side of the central vertical strut. King John’s throne is at the top of the crucifix – and there are five entrance and exit points on to the stage which enable a constant flow of characters in all directions. As a theatregoing experience this is all enormously vivid. Sitting in the front row, knights, courtiers, royalty, soldiers all sweep past you, their brightly coloured capes swirling and rustling in front of your eyes. The thump of their footsteps reverberates against your feet. They stop and converse just inches away from your face. Their gloriously performed plainsong is delivered directly to your ears. Their intense stares, the glints from their eyes, their mischievous smiles, invade your personal space. Battle rages terrifyingly all around you. It’s a communal experience. You can’t be this close to the action without actually being part of it. And, whether or not you have any faith, there’s definitely a frisson to be derived from experiencing the juxtaposition of all this medieval death and villainy whilst sitting in a House of God.

It’s a rare theatrical event when absolutely everything comes together with stunning perfection. The gloriously atmospheric building. The haunting music and ominous drum beats. The costumes, both lavish and poverty-stricken. A group of actors who have been so well cast in their roles that you absolutely believe they are their thirteenth century originals. And whilst the play itself is rather turgid at times, with some chewy and hard to understand dialogue, there is such clarity in this production that you’re never at a loss as to what’s going on. Every word is spoken with precision and value, every sentence with insight and every reaction with honest expressiveness, creating two and a half hours of sheer viewing privilege. As I was watching it, I could not stop thinking that the experience was so riveting, so stimulating, and so downright exciting that I was incredibly lucky to be there to witness it.

At its heart is a sensational performance by Jo Stone-Fewings as King John. Whilst we were talking about the play before it started, Lord Liverpool declared that when most people think of King John, the Disney version voiced by Peter Ustinov in Robin Hood comes to mind. It does for him anyway. For me, I think of him more like the character in A A Milne’s Now We Are Six masterpiece King John’s Christmas. But my Lord Liverpool was right. Mr Stone-Fewings looks remarkably like the Disney John, but his performance is no cartoon. Calculating, panicking, conniving; this is a true wretch of a man hiding behind a regal exterior. You instantly got the measure of him during his opening coronation ceremony when he hurriedly assumes the crown whilst no one’s looking. We’d previously seen Mr S-F in the RSC’s Twelfth Night and the Trafalgar’s Richard III, but his performance in this production outshines those completely. A terrific blend of charismatic leader and utter degenerate.

Barbara Marten, as his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine, has that classic look of Middle Ages wealthy respectability – she could have stepped straight out from a contemporary portrait. Powerful and dominating, more statesmanlike than her son and heir, it’s a superb performance of control and manipulation. Tanya Moodie is extraordinary as Constance, mother of Arthur, who is King John’s nephew and claimant to the throne. I’ve rarely seen such an intense, moving and overwhelmingly strong performance. Her clipped enunciation is a delight; her stage presence extraordinary.

One of the strongest aspects of this production is not only that the actors are so good but that they are so appropriately cast in their roles. There are some spectacularly dynamic scenes with Arthur and Hubert and I cannot imagine anyone more perfect for these characters than Laurence Belcher and Mark Meadows. Mr Belcher’s quiet demeanour, youthful pallor and innocent expression and voice all create an unforgettable image of the vulnerable young pretender, who died aged 16 – although his jumping off the prison wall is another of Shakespeare’s inventions. His final scene, where he falls dramatically to his death, is staged simply but inventively and I know the Belle of Great Billing was devastated to find the poor lad lifeless at her feet. Mr Meadows’ Hubert looks for all the world as though he would carry out his liege’s wishes no matter how dastardly, and you can see the internal angst as he tries his hardest to comply with the king’s villainous instructions but cannot overcome his innate decency. It was one of the best acted scenes I can ever remember.

Another role that’s perfectly cast is Alex Waldmann as the Bastard. He instantly engages the audience in his soliloquies, talking to us openly and frankly, as though we had been mates for ages. He’s one of us, we’re one of him. We’re on his side as soon as he invites a member of the audience to participate in his speech – in our performance, it was “if his name be…. Justin…. I’ll call him Peter…” He’s one of the few characters who remain faithful to King John throughout the play and although we think of the King as a pretty bad man and therefore the Bastard is carrying out some pretty bad things, we have a sneaking regard for his loyalty and common-touch decency. It’s a fantastic performance, immaculately judged; a fine balance between humour, vengeance and ambition. His down-to-earth manner and slightly wide-boy approach sets him apart from the essential nobility of Ciaran Owens’ performance as Faulconbridge; they may both be of royal blood but only one of them is ever going to get their hands dirty.

The whole cast work together like a dream – Aruhan Galieva makes an extraordinary stage debut as the compliant yet self-reliant Blanche, and the eerie Peter of Pomfret; Joseph Marcell, a hard-as-nails papal legate Pandulph whom you wouldn’t trust further than you could swing your incense burner; Simon Coates, a delightfully manipulable King Philip of France, and with great support from Daniel Rabin as the faithful Salisbury and Giles Terera as the bloodthirsty Austria.

In 48 years of theatregoing I can only think of a handful of Shakespeare productions on a par with this. Judi Dench in the RSC’s 1976 Comedy of Errors. The Oxford Shakespeare Company’s chilling Macbeth. Albert Finney as Hamlet. For clarity of vision, for intense atmosphere, for immaculate performances and for all-round satisfaction, this is about as good as it gets. After it finishes its Northampton run, it plays Salisbury Cathedral for the last week of May then is at the Globe in June. I can’t recommend this highly enough. Simply a triumph.

P.S. I was travelling on the train back from Euston on Monday afternoon, and, as I was preparing to get off at Northampton, I recognised someone also getting their bags together before getting off the train. It was Arthur. Who would have guessed that the young Duke of Brittany would have been on the same commute? I resolved that if we stopped at the same pelican crossing walking into town I would have complimented him on his performance. However, he made a beeline for the chocolate counter of W H Smiths, so an embarrassing moment was avoided.

Review – Richard III, Trafalgar Studios, 13th September 2014

Posted on September 16, 2014 by therealchrisparkle

You know that thing when you’re really, really looking forward to something and then, for whatever reason, you don’t enjoy it like you think you’re going to? Welcome, dear reader, to my Richard III experience.

Martin Freeman as Richard III? Yes please! That was my instant reaction when the production was announced. I got on the internet as fast as my ATG Theatre Friends membership card would take me, and there was a great choice of seats everywhere. That’s when I realised there would be stage seating too. I’ve only done that once before – almost forty years ago, when I was on a school outing to see Equus (I know, but we were very advanced). In addition to the usual stalls, circle, balcony seats in what was then the Albery theatre (now the Noel Coward), that original production also had benches on the stage, behind the action, not particularly comfortable but with a significant rake that gave an excellent view of what was going on. It was odd to be in that position, and of course, there were times when the actors played out front and not to us so you missed a bit, but my memory of that is that it wasn’t a problem, and us lot at the back certainly got our fair share of attention from the cast. And of course we were so close to the action; I recall it felt incredibly exciting; a unique experience, in fact. So, remembering all that, I plumped for the stage seating for Richard III. I was reassured by the fact that it wasn’t cheap – if it had been, I would have been suspicious, and would have upgraded us to the front stalls in the traditional layout. It’s important for me to have good seats at the theatre – if I can’t see or hear as clearly as I want, my enjoyment level absolutely plummets. But – apart from those goddam Premium Seats – those stage seating seats were top price. So they’ve got to be a quality place to sit. Haven’t they?

No. They are awful, awful seats. Just awful. From our position of BB 11 and 12, the view was extremely obstructed, although primarily not from the people in row AA, but by the furniture and props that littered the stage. This is a very heavily “furnitured” set. The Trafalgar Studio 1 stage is not particularly big, but for this production it houses two long tables and about six other office desks, stacked high with pot plants, typewriters, telephones, and so on, to give you the impression of a 1970s office. It’s set in the 1970s, by the way, so that they can make the “winter of discontent” speech have a double meaning. Otherwise, there’s no particular link made from the play to the era. The offending desk that Mrs Chrisparkle and I mainly resented was the one right in front of us, at which no one sat, no one made a phone call from the phone, no one typed on the typewriter and no one watered the pot plant. If it hadn’t been there, we could have seen something, and it wouldn’t have affected the rest of the staging one iota.

The layout and blocking of the whole production is purely for the benefit of those in the regular seats. There are a few short scenes that take place very far stage right – I don’t know if they were on or off the stage as such as we couldn’t see. “Helpfully”, every so often a member of the cast swings an old TV set in front of us in the stage seating so that we can see what’s happening (these are £52.50 seats remember, not described as obstructed view), but either they didn’t leave it in the best position for us to see or it was obstructed by the people sitting in Row AA right in front of it. So that was a waste of space.

Shakespeare’s Richard III is a cruel, vicious swine. The rather simple story is that he kills everyone who can possibly get in the way of his becoming King, and once he is king, he’s got a bunch of rebels on his hands, one of which eventually kills him. Not a nice chap. This is quite a bloody production, and we get to see him despatch all his enemies and many of his friends too. Well, that’s the case if you’re sat in the traditional seats. From our position, we could only guess that was what was going on. Clarence dies by foul means involving a fish tank, but whether he was drowned, had his throat slit or got attacked by a piranha I don’t know, as his murderers masked the action from our sight. For Rivers’ death, it was one of the pesky long tables and chairs that got in the way of our view. At one moment, he was chatting away – a bit anxiously because he knew things were not looking good – the next he was writhing on the floor, doing a very convincing death rattle, but we had no idea why. Someone must have done something to him but who? And what? Stabbed? Poisoned? Disturbed his feng shui? We couldn’t tell. Then there was the death of Lady Anne. This took place right at the front of the stage, which is physically quite a distance from the stage seating. There was some unexpected movement from Richard and suddenly she was gargling. We think a phone wire was used, but as it all took place obstructed by that sodding typewriter, don’t take my word for it. During her death, to emphasise the atmosphere of anarchy and terror, some bright spark (the director?) decided to make the lift doors continually open and shut, open and shut, like something invisible was trapped there, thus creating a terrible din that really – REALLY – got on our nerves.

To say the production suffered from gimmicks would, I think, be an understatement. A week or so before we went, I received an email saying that you might get spattered with blood if you sit in rows A-D or in AA, so dress accordingly. Excuse me? Not only do you take £52.50 from people to sit somewhere they can’t see what’s going on, you’re also going to add to their laundry bill? I could see that a member of staff was addressing the people in the front three rows before the play started, presumably giving them warning. T-shirts were provided that you could put on to protect yourself. Only a few people did. The blood spattering comes from Richard’s doing away with yet another enemy – a man who was already very blood soaked from the start of the scene, but neither Mrs C nor I could recognise him or work out who he was. Researching for this blog, I now realise it was Buckingham – couldn’t tell from our angle. Not quite sure how it happened but we saw blood spurt out from around his neck high into the air and then splash down on the front rows. A lady in the front row who had obviously declined the T-shirt rushed for paper tissues from her handbag and was looking exceedingly annoyed. But it’s all pure gimmick. There was no need for it. Just come upstage a bit and the blood spurt wouldn’t have reached the paying punters. The same disregard for the audience that fleeces us for obstructed view seats also takes it for granted that we’d love to have our clothes all blood spattered before going out for a nice meal. We’re clearly the least important people in that production.

One more thing – Seat AA8 was allocated as a wheelchair space. Now, no criticism of the wheelchair user herself, of course, but I would question the wisdom of that allocation. The lady who sat there had a very tall wheelchair. If you looked at the height of the heads along the row, everyone was more or less the same height until you came to this last lady whose head came at least a foot taller than the rest. For the lady sitting directly behind her the whole performance must have been completely invisible. I can only hope she got the ticket for free or successfully asked for her money back, because it really was stupid. Her husband, sat next to me, had to constantly duck and dive in order to see anything; and indeed, for a lengthy time in the first act, he simply decided to go to sleep as it wasn’t worth the candle. Mrs C did the same thing too – when she realised what a struggle it was going to be to follow what was going on – she just gave up. Wheelchair seating can be a sensitive issue – they’ve definitely got it wrong here.

As for the production itself, we both felt it was very chewy and hard to follow in the first act. I admit it’s not a play with which I am particularly familiar, but even so, all the gimmicks and all the furniture simply got in the way of understanding. In an attempt to recreate the 70s setting, they had nearly all the men looking like each other. They each had the same Tom Selleck moustaches, the same severe black rimmed spectacles, the same swarthy complexions. I couldn’t tell Catesby from Buckingham from Richmond. Queen Margaret kept on drifting in and out in such an ethereal way I presumed she was meant to be a ghost. The second act was easier to follow, simply because less happened, but as Mrs C pointed out, even more of what did happen happened at the front of the stage and was spoken out to the main audience so that we heard very few of the speeches. Acoustically the setup is a shocker, and when an actor is out front declaiming to the stalls, we couldn’t hear a darn thing. Technically, it wasn’t a great performance; one of the few things we could see was a fax coming through on a printer that an actor tore off and read, but with that old fashioned sound of a dot matrix printer printing away long after the fax had been torn off and whilst the printer was at a complete standstill. It could have been straight out of Noises Off; bit pathetic, really.

We thought Martin Freeman, as far as we could judge, was really good in the role. He has a very intense stare and would be a really scary boss. His timing is great, and we assume he does a great line in quirky looks and comic asides, from the sound of the audience out front enjoying them, although we couldn’t see them. There’s a very strong scene between him and the excellent Gina McKee as Queen Elizabeth, when she is condemning him for murdering her sons and trying to protect her daughter from being next on the list. Miss McKee gave a great performance as the grieving and bitterly furious mother. Fortunately that was one scene we could see properly. Jo Stone-Fewings was very good as Buckingham, professionally malign to further his cause with the king-to-be, then wounded and furious when he finds he has been duped; and I thought Gabrielle Lloyd as the Duchess of York lent the production some much needed gravitas – no gimmicks, nothing sensational, just clear enunciation and proper understanding of the text.

I think the rest of the run is now pretty much sold out. If you’ve got tickets for the ordinary seats, you’ll definitely derive some enjoyment out of it. If you’ve got stage seating, I wouldn’t throw good money after bad by buying a train ticket.