October 6th QUASIMODO and the MONARCH

As autumn comes to Waterside (here’s the view from my daughter’s bedroom this morning) your faithful reporter has once more spared no pains or expense in sampling theatrical events throughout the realm of our Dear Queen (of whom more in a minute). 

Leaving behind Stratford and the waterways of Middle England, I headed once more to the teeming metropolis and to Sloane Square, pausing en route for a convivial glass with friends at The Antelope, a cheerful pub on Eaton Terrace. Cheerful for sure but – as with almost all central London pubs in the early evening, really, really noisy! Why do Londoners, on escaping from their offices/trading floors/trendy showrooms have to bray at each other? As a former resident of the Lake District I can assure you the sheepfolds of Borrowdale at sundown sound very, very similar. Perhaps the streets of Mayfair and Belgravia could be patrolled by border collies?

Around the corner at the Royal Court Theatre we met up with my American student charges, to see a new-ish play by Dennis Kelly, under the direction of the theatre’s new Artistic Director, Vicky Featherstone. It’s an earnest piece dealing with morality in corporate life, first produced in Germany, and some of the American students said they found it really interesting. Certainly it’s competently designed and directed, and Tom Brooke, who plays the eponymous Gorge, is an arresting and fascinating actor. 

But alas I found the script a somewhat disappointing introduction to the Court’s new regime – over-long and quite dull, lacking fresh insights and displaying but little wit. The disappointment was sharpened by knowing this to be by the writer responsible for the brilliant, sparkling RSC adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” – about which, regular readers will recall – this blog raved a year or so ago, when Bertie Carvel was so expertly hurling small girls about the stage at the Cambridge.

Fortunately, the students had an opportunity to sharpen their critical faculties the following Monday, at a seminar with the Evening Standard’s shrewd, respected theatre critic, Henry Hitchings.  An author of distinguished books on language, literature and social behaviour, Henry wears his erudition lightly,  and during a relaxed “q &a” expressed and exemplified the need for theatre criticism to be clear, intellectually honest and succinct. 

Now “succinct” is perhaps not the first word springing to mind in connection with our next outing, to see the Punchdrunk company perform “The Drowned Man – A Hollywood Fable”, three hours of “promenade” performance spread throughout several floors of a disused postal sorting office in Paddington. If you haven’t been to a Punchdrunk show (as I hadn’t) then perhaps you should go…


But have a care. It’s not for the faint-hearted. 

There are beautifully designed sets, terrific performances – especially strong, sexy dance work – and it’s true to say there’s never a dull moment. As an audience member you wear a mask (anyone without a mask is thus an actor in the story) and are expected to follow the action wherever it goes – and it goes all over the place. It consists of lots of different scenes performed simultaneously in different parts of the premises, each of which (I am told) is repeated three times in the course of the performance. 

I said it’s not for the faint-hearted. Neither is it for the unfit, the disabled or the elderly. I’m quite fit, but also quite old, and frankly I was knackered after the first two hours of traipsing up and down stairs. I’d also long given up trying to identify the strands of the story of “Woyzeck”, on which the show was supposed to be based. More importantly, sadly I’d stopped caring. Punchdrunk aficionados tell me this sprawling work is much less focussed than some of the company’s earlier pieces, such as “Sleep No More” (the Macbeth-inspired show still packing them in after two years in New York) and “The Masque of the Red Death”, which attracted huge acclaim at the Battersea Arts Centre. 

I found myself really regretting having missed the earlier stuff, as I left this production feeling weary and a bit cross. The tickets cost nearly forty quid apiece, which can clearly be justified in terms of production values – it’s a co-production with the National, with costumes, sets and music reflecting high standards and serious investment – but there’s no real indication in the advance booking information as to the possible effect on punters not in the full bloom of vigorous, able-bodied youth. The challenge is to discover the story – “make your own journey” – and it has to be said most of my young colleagues set about chasing the elusive plot-lines with gusto, and loved every moment of it. 

For my part a day or two later, still a little dazed, still a little stiff, I clambered aboard a northbound train, to the great city of York. Seasoned Radagrad Clive Kneller (a salty veteran of my classical productions aboard Cunard ships) has teamed up with Mike Burns to create a two-man rendering of Victor Hugo’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame”,scripted by Paddy Fletcher and directed by Richard Cameron.

Performed at the ancient ( and reputedly severely haunted) Black Swan Inn, in a style reminiscent of the sorely-missed National Theatre of Brent (a glorious double-act by Patrick Barlow and Jim Broadbent, before the latter became a movie star) this is outrageously funny, “poor theatre” at its best. 

The femme fatale Esmeralda is conjured via a coat-hanger, a bra and a sparkly skirt, sound effects produced by an elderly tape-recorder.  It was a daft, hugely entertaining evening  – and amongst the laughs the actors gave us the full sweep of Hugo’s dramatic story. There were no lavish sets, the costuming was make-shift, to say the most – but then the tickets were only eight quid each…. Perhaps the most striking ingredient was Mike Burns’s appearance as Quasimodo. He looked and sounded exactly like Charles Laughton in the 1939 movie – so much so it was almost spooky.

Two days on, back in London in the Kilburn High Rd, comes another, truly spooky frisson. As the lights creep up at the start of the Tricycle Theatre’s “Handbagged”, a very familiar female figure in a blue suit strides purposefully out of the shadows and hectors the audience with strident, confident rhetoric…but surely she died just a few months ago….? Then the eyes focus and, no, it’s that fine actress Stella Gonet, giving us Mrs T to a T. This is a brilliant, brilliant show. Let the Royal Court look to its laurels as London’s lead venue for new writing. Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingham and writer Moira Buffini have developed this play from a short contribution the latter made to a political sketch-show. The reviews have been excellent, and the word on the street is it could well be heading for the West End. Based on cleverly-imagined conversations during the weekly meetings between PM and Head of State, there is a younger and an older Margaret Thatcher, and an older and younger Queen, with two male actors (Jeff Rawle and Neet Mohan) having lots of fun being everyone from Dennis T to Michael Heseltine and Enoch Powell. 

Marion Bailey is amazing as the older Monarch – the “I’ve-just-swallowed-something-rather-unpleasant” default expression instantly giving way to the dazzling grandmotherly grin at the mention of a horse…And a happy thought for we old RADA tutors is that, five years on from Andrea Riseborough’s fine portrayal of the young Margaret in the TV docudrama “The Long Walk to Finchley” along comes another former student, the impeccable Fenella Woolgar giving a devastating, forensic account of the Iron Lady in her prime, onstage at the Tricycle. Fenella’s voice, bearing and timing are all quite extraordinary. Don’t hang about – go and see it before it becomes a cult….  

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