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

Posted on June 6, 2017 by therealchrisparkle

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!

Production photos by Tristram Kenton

Review – The Ruling Class, Trafalgar Studio 1, 31st January 2015

Posted on February 2, 2015 by therealchrisparkle

1968 – what a momentous year for British theatre. The new Theatres Act did away with the censorship by the Lord Chamberlain’s office and writers now the freedom to convey the characters, the stories, and the satire that they had previously had to employ subterfuge to produce – that is, if they could produce it at all. Watching this revival of Peter Barnes’ savage 1968 comedy The Ruling Class really brings back that atmosphere of challenging the system, daring to be different, taking risks that might or might not work, heaping anarchy on to the stage; having pure expression as your dramatic be-all and end-all.

There’s no way this play would have been passed by the censor without his blue pen scrawled all over it. The main character spends much of Act One hopping on and off a crucifix (he thinks he’s God by the way, so it’s not inappropriate). The censor’s guidelines that had been handed down since 1909 included a clause that a play should not “do violence to the sentiment of religious reverence”. Well this play does that quite a lot. The 14th Earl of Gurney’s justification for believing he is God – “when I pray to Him I find I’m talking to myself” – is a pretty damning slap down to any fervent Christian.

But that’s all history now. In 2015 we take it for granted that we can say or do what we like on stage (more or less – there’s always a chance that a Mrs Whitehouse-type person could bring a private prosecution, mind) and as such, for the most part, we don’t tend to push the boundaries that much anymore. It’s already been done, and we frequently take that as an excuse simply not to bother with it nowadays. But back in 1968, boundaries were there to be dismantled. The title itself – The Ruling Class – makes no apologies for its black and white vision of the nobility; a simple tale of old Tory folk, representative of many who basically ran the country.

There’s the traditional family elder who likes to put on a tutu and dangle from a noose, the wet behind the ears toffee nosed cousin destined to be the local MP, the husband and wife who each take lovers as a given right, the mistress who can be employed to marry the Earl just so she can bear an heir, and of course the Earl himself, hidden away for years but who returns to take on the mantle of family leadership, despite being a paranoid schizophrenic who believes he’s God. At least he’s God until the second act, when he starts believing he’s something far more sinister. Outwardly the face of respectability, the play assumes that the Gurney family are typical of the old landed nobility on which the country has relied for centuries, and to whom, in previous decades, dramatists might have handled with kid gloves and loving respect. Not so Peter Barnes, who sideswipes the traditions and reveals the Earl and his family to be the immoral horde of crooks, lunatics and perverts that they are.

So is this play relevant today? Given the fact that we still have a considerable class structure, that a mere 1% of the world’s population own 48% of its wealth, and that you still have to have a considerable degree of independent wealth in order to stand for parliament, I’d say yes. Added to that the continued debate about the value of the House of Lords, questions of espionage, and a still inadequate understanding of mental health issues, and this is as relevant as ever. The only way in which the play feels at all dated is in some of the references. Old retainer Tucker goes loco on the news he will inherit £20,000, which at today’s rate would be about a quarter of a million pounds – currently about half the cost of the measliest studio apartment in Chelsea. The musical numbers, that the cast occasionally break into with delightful 60s anarchy, nobody sings anymore. “Dem dry bones” “My Blue Heaven” and the Eton Boating Song definitely represent a different era. Personally, I don’t think that matters much. It was written in 1968 – and it’s set in 1968. Not everything has to be today.

Jack’s second act transformation from benign (if loopy) God to Jack the Ripper also highlights one of the time’s major obsessions. I can remember the Dowager Mrs Chrisparkle saying there were only two things she hoped would be revealed before she died – proof that the Loch Ness Monster exists (yes, I know) and the true identity of Jack the Ripper. I don’t think either of those mysteries quite captures the imagination of the public today in the way that they did in the 1960s. A modern audience member who hasn’t done their research or bought the programme might well be confused by Jack’s identity change in Act Two, and if you don’t recognise the names of the Ripper victims as they get called out, you might not realise which way the play’s going. However, in 1968 those names would have been instantly recognisable by the entire audience. Of course, many of the Ripper theories suggest that a member of the nobility might have been responsible for the murders, so moving the plot in this direction not only gives it a nice twist but is still in keeping with exploring the reprehensible kind of tricks a family like the Gurneys could have up their sleeve.

Jamie Lloyd’s production is fairly faithful to the original, although I enjoyed the joke of having two male actors playing the Tory ladies Mrs Treadwell and Mrs Piggot-Jones. With a central role like Jack Gurney, it’s easy to see why it attracts larger than life, charismatic actors like Peter O’Toole, who took the role in the 1972 film and flung his unique magic at it. Now one of our best young actors, James McAvoy, has taken the reins and gives us a really entertaining and credible performance. It would be easy to go over-the-top with this role and make the character into a flamboyant show-off, a mere figure of fun whose eccentricities are there for us to laugh at and ridicule. But like King Lear’s Fool, there’s much more substance to Jack, and by making him a considered, rounded sort of paranoid schizophrenic, it makes his second act development not only perfectly reasonable but also very sinister. Mr McAvoy has great stage presence and excellent comic timing but is also scarily serious when the text calls for it. I’m pleased to report he also gives a graciously happy curtain call.

He’s supported by a talented team who provide us with some excellent performances. It’s been many years since I’ve seen Ron Cook on stage and I’d forgotten what a great actor he is. His Sir Charles Gurney is a delightfully weasly, self-centred, horrid little man, trying to maintain as much power for himself by manipulating those around him. Serena Evans, as his wife Claire, is a perfect match for him, weighing up how do you solve a problem like Jack with seeming innocence, but when she goes in for the kill it’s not quite the kill she expected. Her performance is a classic mix of nobility and tart. Kathryn Drysdale is nicely duplicitous as Grace, the 13th earl’s enamorata, Sir Charles’ mistress and the 14th earl’s wife. She’s in it for what she can get but at the same time shows a surprising loyalty towards her husband. Noblesse obliges for her just as much as anyone. Joshua McGuire, a fantastic Mozart in last year’s Amadeus at Chichester, is perfect as the simpering cousin Dinsdale, a typical Lord Muck character, acting superior whilst being completely lacking in substance; and I also enjoyed the quiet dignity of Elliot Levey’s Dr Herder, seemingly authoritative in his medical knowledge but joining the list of stage psychiatrists who end up on the off-piste side of the mental sticky slope in strait jackets. Joe Orton, who also combines lunatics and doctors in What The Butler Saw, would have loved the idea of the doctor being sexually aroused by a detective’s dead body outline on the floor.

Anthony O’Donnell provides many of the best laughs with his aggressively irreverent manservant Tucker, puffing away on his cigar as he joins the big league, but whilst also confiding in us that he is a Soviet spy – and why not? In Mr Barnes’ world nothing can be taken for granted. Michael Cronin is a pompous windbag of a Bishop, and Paul Leonard and Forbes Masson give excellent support in a variety of minor roles, including the ghastly Tory ladies, and I really liked Mr Masson as fellow Old Etonian Truscott, showing that the Old Boys Network is a solid bond that mere insanity cannot break.

So although it’s very much of its time, this play also reveals timeless truths about timeless issues. A very funny production of a remarkable piece of writing, full of the joy of late 60s freedom and anarchy. A welcome arrival in the West End – we both loved it.

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.