The Ruling Class at Trafalgar Studios

Jamie Lloyd has certainly transformed Trafalgar Studios.  Thanks to a brave choice of material and excellent direction, his productions in Studio 1 of this great little theatre in Westminster are always interesting, different and hotly anticipated.  His latest offering, The Ruling Class, by the late playwright, Peter Barnes, is yet another notch on his director’s chair.  By casting the mesmerising James McAvoy as paranoid schizophrenic, Jack, 14^th Earl of Gurney, Jamie Lloyd has ensured that this satirical play, written in 1968, is well worth reviving.  It may be entrenched in the sixties (Summer of Love and all that) but the accusations of class privilege are still relevant in 2015.

This black comedy parodying the upper classes might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but as a lover of the likes of Monty Python, I enjoyed every minute.  Well, not exactly every minute, as there is a moment half way through where it does threaten to lose its way and it does tend to flog many of its jokes to death but, hey, who cares, taken as a whole last night was a theatrical treat. 

Jack inherits his title thanks to his father’s (a Judge and peer of the realm) proclivity for dressing up in a tutu, donning a pointed hat and indulging in a spot of auto-erotic asphyxiation.  Needless to say he does it once too often.  No one in the family would mind his untimely death if it weren’t for the fact that his only son, Jack, has spent the last seven years in a psychiatric hospital due to his conviction that he is God incarnate.  Whoops, the head of such a distinguished family can’t seem to be headed by a madman, not such an obvious one at any rate.  Thus follows a plot devised by his Uncle, Sir Charles Gurney (the always watchable Ron Cook), to marry Jack off and make sure a baby soon follows.  A sane heir will mean that the mad father can then be committed.  Job sorted.  But this is fiction, so of course things don’t turn out quite as planned.

We first see the new Earl dressed in a monk’s habit, impishly peeping out from his hood.  His meek “hello” belies his capabilities.  And what capabilities they are.  Mr. McAvoy dances, unicycles, sings, throws himself about as if on springs and, most importantly, draws us into his parallel universe with glinting blue eyes, beatific smile and an impish charm that had me hooked from the “hello”.  In McAvoys’ hands the Earl’s mad mercuriality is infused with charm and an enormous amount of wit.  His mood swings are unnerving, by turn hanging quietly on his large wooden cross before taking tea, to frenziedly railing against reality. He is totally unhinged and hilarious.

Following an intervention from Jack’s psychiatrist, the Second Act sees Jack no longer under the illusion that he is the God of Love.  Far from it, for he is now endorsing the values of vengeance.  This being more in keeping with the familiy’s own doctrine makes him much more acceptable.   They are thus unable, or unwilling, to see that, rather than being cured of his schizophrenia, he has just done an about turn.  He may have stopped seeing himself as God and, is  espousing the name Jack, but it’s not Jack the Earl of Gurney with whom he’s identifying, but a much more dangerous individual.  

Although James McAlvoy is the main reason most of the audience will gather at Trafalgar Studios, the remaining cast mustn’t be forgotten.  They are all excellent, especially Paul Leonard who plays a variety of roles including the “hanging Judge” and Mrs. Piggot-Jones and Anthony O’Donnell as the closet Marxist butler, Tucker.  On receiving £20,000 from the dead Earl’s will, this hilarious of butlers takes to the bottle and reveals his true feelings about the toffs.  His various bursts into song are a joy to behold.

Subtle this ‘aint, but entertaining it surely is.