Fortunes Fool at The Old Vic

The Old Vic is back on form with its latest offering, Fortunes Fool by Turgenev, in a version by Mike Poulton.  Turgenev (a poor man’s Chekhov in some respects) hasn’t written a brilliant play, but this is easily overlooked with this excellent cast, direction and set.

Fortunes Fool centres around Vassily Semyonitch Kuzovkin, a gentleman who has fallen on hard times (actually as the play progresses one is left wondering if he’s ever known anything else).  He has been reduced to sleeping in the top of a linen cupboard situated in a grand house on a large estate, having been employed as the late owner’s resident court jester.  It turns out that he has inhabited the house for the past thirty years.

The play opens as the staff bustle around the vast set getting ready for the return of the newly married Olga Petrovna.  She has inherited the estate following the death of her father.  She and her brand new husband, Pavel Nikolaitch Yeletsky, are about to arrive to take charge.  The servants aren’t the only ones excited and curious to see the young couple.  We soon realize that Kuzovkin, although apprehensive, can’t wait to be reunited with the young woman, who he adored when she was a child.  Meanwhile a close neighbour, is also eager to snoop.  He is an unkind, buffoon of a man called Flegont Alexandrovitch Tropatchov and he and his side-kick, Karpatchov, arrive and stay for lunch.  It is during this meal, when they ply Kuzovkin with too much wine and then proceed to mercilessly humiliate him, that hidden secrets start to emerge.  All is definitely not what it seems.

We view this first act, appalled at the way poor Kuzovkin is treated and discover during the second the consequences of his drunken humiliation and resulting disclosures.  Turgenev, in writing this savagely funny play, satirically highlights what was wrong with Russian country life in the mid-nineteenth century and, despite the odd clumsiness, mostly succeeds.  This is due in no small measure to everyone connected with this first showing of the play in the West End.

Iain Glen makes a superb Kuzovkin.  It is extremely painful to watch this proud man descend drunkenly into disclosing a secret he has kept all these years and uplifting to witness his ascent back to the noble gentleman he has always strived to be.  We don’t have to endure maudlin sentimentality.  Thanks to Lucy Bailey’s expert direction and Iain Glen’s excellent portrayal, his character is pitched just right. 

Likewise Richard McCabe’s Tropatchov.  Initially viewed as merely an hilariously absurd fop, we soon realize that this is a man imbued with an extraordinary amount of spiteful malice.  He is a detestable character, but Richard McCabe manages to make him humourously fascinating.

There is strong support from the whole cast and, most especially, Lucy Briggs-Owen as Olga Petrovna.  The scene between her and Kuzovkin towards the end of Act Two is wonderfully touching.

Mix in William Dudley’s atmospheric, towering set and we’re left with the usual top notch Old Vic, following it’s last little blip.

Coriolanus at The Donmar

At first glance staging Shakespeare’s final tragedy in such a small, intimate space as The Donmar is something of an anomaly.  However, digging deeper, one discovers that he possibly wrote Coriolanus for the Blackfriars Playhouse, a space which was around the same size.

Josie Rourke capitalizes on the Donmar’s intimacy by the clever use of ladders, a graffiti splattered wall, chairs and firebombs and the simple staging enables us to fully concentrate on the proceedings.  Immersion in what is happening a few feet away from us is total. The chairs come into their own during the battle-scenes at Corioli, which I imagine in a lesser production could be very confusing.  Add to this, the clarity with which each and every actor delivers their lines and this is Shakespeare at his best.  Quite a lot has been written about the Volscians using very strong North Country accents, but for me, who was seeing Coriolanus for the first time, it’s a godsend.  No confusion here on who is playing a Roman or a Volscian;  it is crystal clear from the start.

Tom Hiddleston makes a thoroughly believable, multifaceted Coriolanus. He starts out a brave, but arrogant military hero, contemptuous of the rioters and ends up literally hoisted by his own petard due to his stubborn intransigence.  But there is also a deep tenderness, love and aching sadness shown to devastating effect when his mother, wife and son persuade him to spare Rome.  His realization that this turn around will cost him dear is heartbreaking to watch, as are the final few moments when we witness his death.

There is so much to recommend this latest Donmar offering, not least the scene where Coriolanus, blood soaked from battle, stands beneath a shower centre stage.  The pain when the water hits is wounds is palpable, as is his isolation. 

It seems wrong somehow to single out some performances and not others, as there is no weak link whatsoever, but the stand-outs are Deborah Findlay as Volumnia (Coriolanus’s domineering mother) and Mark Gatiss as the cunning patrician Menenius.  Deborah Findlay gives such a well rounded performance.  When we first meet her, she rather comically brags to Coriolanus’s wife, Virgilia, a very good Birgitte Hjort Sorensen of Borgen fame, about her son’s wounds, leaving us in no doubt that she has played no small a part in his warrior-like stance.  Then towards the end she becomes a terrifying figure, intent in brow beating Coriolanus into doing a u-turn. 

Also worth a special mention is the smirking, self-satisfied Elliott Levey as the male tribune member, Brutus and Hadley Fraser’s “is he properly gay or not” Aufidius, the commander of the Volscian army. 

The costumes, a mixture of modern and period, work well, the music and sound likewise, so all in all, the Donmar is back up to speed and I’ll be booking my cinema ticket in order to see the NT Live broadcast on January 30^th.

The Duck House at The Vaudeville

The Duck House, which has now transferred to The Vaudeville, is a new play by Colin Swash and Dan Patterson, who have been responsible for such tv classics as Have I Got News For You, Whose Line Is it Anyway and Mock the Week, amongst others.  This, their first foray together into writing for the stage, centres around the MP’s expenses scandal of 2009 and takes its name from such an object which one MP actually bought with taxpayer’s money.

Robert Houston, wonderfully played by Ben Miller, is a Labour backbencher about to defect to the Tories, much to the delight of his posh wife (Nancy Carroll) who is thrilled that “at last they can stop pretending”.  The trouble is, a slight problem has arisen in that the expenses scandal has erupted, Mr, Houston is expecting a visit from Tory grandee Sir Normal Cavendish (Simon Shepherd) which will hopefully cement his transfer and he subsequently needs to hide numerous illicitly claimed for purchases, including a sparkly loo seat, massage chair, hanging baskets, manure and a rather splendid, yes you’ve guessed it, Duck House.  One of the funniest moments in the play is the result of the decision by their Russian housekeeper (Debbie Chazen) to pass the Duck House off to Sir Norman as a Russian dolls house.  A brilliant idea in principal, except that the ducks are still fully ensconced within and show their presence vocally and physically when the odd duck egg gently rolls out of the dear little front door.  Ben Miller thereby spends the majority of the play in a guilty panic, either desperately trying to persuade Sir Norman that his wife, Felicity, is the expert secretary – futile exercise seeing as how her way of bringing something up on the screen is to wave the computer mouse around like a tv remote control, or the improbability of his son, Seb (James Musgrave) also working for him.

Cue, Act Two, which, despite a promising start, quickly descends into farcical tarts and toffs shenanigans and the whole thing becomes rather strained and predictable.  The scene here has shifted to the Houston’s London flat and revolves around them desperately trying to change it from the gothic hell hole it has become since Seb has lived there, into the sort of accommodation they would inhabit.  Little do they know that Sir Norman knows the place all too well, although totally unaware of its owners.  Strangely enough, the laughter here is mainly the result of son Seb donning a panda suit and his reaction on seeing Sir Norman, dressed in a nappy rather than his usual city slicker suit. Unfortunately the remainder of the scene is the overused practice of hiding in strategically placed cupboards and the slamming of various doors

The performances are good all round, although special mention should be given to Debbie Chazen, as the exceptionally funny Ludmilla and to Ben Miller, himself, who has the audience, if not always Sir Norman, eating out of his hand.  The direction, too, is spot on, thanks to Terry Johnson. 

This production can never be termed subtle but it is fun and ensures plenty of laughs especially during the first half.

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

I left The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on Wednesday night with a big smile on my face.  Not usually enamoured with musicals, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is an exception, partly because of my daughter’s links to the production and partly because Willy Wonka is portrayed by the wonderful Douglas Hodge.

Roald Dahl was a great favourite of all three of my children and I think this adaptation of one of his most popular stories would in turn be a favourite of his.  I saw a programme on television the other night devoted to the show and having seen the technical problems involved in such a massive production, the fact that everything now works to perfection is a great testament to everyone concerned.  Not only is it a great feat of theatrical engineering, but also a great artistic feat.  Sam Mendes has gone from directing the biggest film of his career (Skyfall) to the biggest theatre production and all credit to him and the cast.  It may not be subtle, but the excellent Oliver Finnegan playing Charlie Bucket on the night I went, ensures that there is the right amount of pathos, whilst Mr. Hodge gives his Willy Wonka the correct mix of cruelty and humour.  Not too scarey for the kids, but not too nice either.

The music and lyrics by Marc Chalman and Scott Wittman handle the various songs with panache, ensuring that there isn’t too much American syrup mixed with Dahl’s anarchic take on childhood.  Although I now can’t remember any of the songs, apart from Pure Imagination, which featured in the film version starring Gene Wilder and some of the words are lost in the very, very fast paced delivery, it really doesn’t matter.  This musical is all about fun and spectacle with some old style morality added to the mix.

I’ve already mentioned the adorable Oliver as Charlie, but the other four children who win the gold tickets to visit the chocolate factory are also pretty good.  They range from Augustus Gloop, (Alexzander Griffiths) an obvious lover of chocolate who, complete with lederhosen, yodeling and burping is the first to meet his maker via a chocolate pipeline, to a tutu wearing spoilt brat of a girl called Veruca Salt (Tea Noakes).  She ends up being squidged down a chute by a group of very large dancing squirrels.  Violet Beauregarde (Jade Johnson) plays the gum chewing hip-hop star, who blows up into a huge blueberry, whilst the final winner is Mike Teavee (Jay Heyman), a manic, scowling lover of tv computer games who, after appearing inside a television, “is never the same again”. 

The choreography by Peter Darling is of the highest quality with the Oompa-Loompas needing special mention and Mark Thompson’s costumes and sets brilliantly highlight the extremes between Bucket’s more than run down shack and the psychedelically coloured chocolate factory.

This spectacle, complete with working glass elevator, is an enjoyable feast and I only wish I’d had a child to take with me.  Let’s hope it enjoys a long run in the West End, so that my Australian grand-daughter gets the chance to see it.

A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Noel Coward Theatre

We saw Michael Grandage’s Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Noel Coward Theatre uncharacteristically late in its run as it finishes this weekend, so I went with preconceived notions of how good it is.  Needless to say, I concur with the majority of critical comments but not necessarily with others.

It is almost universally agreed that David Walliams playing Bottom proves he is a comic actor par excellence, whilst Sheridan Smith as Titania and Hippolyta is an actress who never disappoints.  Some of the remaining cast do not fare so well, but sitting at the rear of the stalls may have something to do with it, as my main complaint is not hearing them terribly well.  Perhaps it’s their lack of experience of performing Shakespeare, yet D.W. and S.S. can also fall into this category and I heard and understood every word they uttered.  They also bring light and shade to every speech, so Shakespeare’s poetry can be enjoyed to the full.  The same cannot be said for Katherine Kingsley’s Helena.  She is at times blissfully funny, especially when using her height to portray self-conscience gangliness, but her frenzied love for Demetrius is all too often highlighted by raising her voice a couple of octaves resulting in my turning off my concentration button.  Susannah Fielding’s Hermia is much better.  She manages to be coherent even when sobbing.

The production, designed by the magnificent Christopher Oram is set in the sixties, with the fairies transformed into spliff smoking, shades wearing hippy types.  Titania herself has borrowed the Tina Turner look and Sheridan Smith revels in playing her with abandoned sexuality.  In fact this wood after dark is a very sexy place indeed, as we also find the star-crossed lovers, wantonly removing items of clothing whenever one of them falls in love at first sight.  None of them prove much of a problem for Costumer Supervisor Poppy Hall, as Demetrius and Lysander in particular spend much of their time running around in their underwear, whilst Puck (a very fit Gavin Fowler) goes topless.

David Walliams keeps his clothes on throughout and very fetching he is too.  Camping it up to perfection in his braces, the stage-struck weaver is constantly striving for a larger part in the play, Pyramus and Thisbe the Athenian workmen are planning to put on for Duke Theseus’s wedding to Hippolyta.  When transformed as the buck-toothed, big eared ass, he illustrates total bi-sexuality by delighting in Titania’s lustful embraces and the sight of a very hairy fairy in equal measure.  Connecting with his audience is as easy as pie for our Little Britain star, who is fast turning into a national treasure.

Michael Grandage infuses the sixties “happening” with music from the era, which is complimented perfectly by Christopher Oram’s giant moonlit wonderland.  A clever concept for a Shakespeare play seldom performed in the West End.

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Jeeves & Wooster A Perfect Nonsense at The Duke of Yorks Theatre

There have been, amongst others, Morecambe and Wise, Matthau and Lemmon, Ant and Dec and now there is Macfadyen and Mangan.  I have always been aware from watching the TV series Green Wing and Episodes that Stephen Mangan is a great comic actor but Macfadyen?  He is a superb actor but not so well known for comedic roles.  After his stint as Jeeves and, many other roles in this wonderfully funny play, Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, we can see that he is more than a match for his sidekick and, it turns out, great friend Mangan. They trained at RADA together and obviously get on tremendously well, such is their rapport as gentleman and butler in this adaptation by the Goodale Brothers of The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse.

Directed by the excellent comic director, Sean Foley of The Ladykillers fame, Jeeves and Wooster at The Duke of Yorks is a delight.  Mangan is a natural at confiding his first person narrative with the audience, allowing them, in effect to become a part of the proceedings.  The pretext of Perfect Nonsense is that Wooster is presenting a play about his recent experiences at Totleigh Towers, where he tried to steal an antique silver cow-creamer at the behest of his Aunt Dahlia.  Realising that he actually can’t play all the relevant characters himself, he calls upon Jeeves and Aunt Dahlia’s butler Seppings (Mark Hadfield) to play themselves and many other various characters.  Much to Wooster’s astonishment, his butler is also a dab hand at inventive and elaborate set designs in order to make his play more realistic.  Hilarity ensues, especially when Macfadyen simultaneously plays both a man and a woman with adroitness and perfect timing.

When Jeeves can’t manage to portray a character because he has to be on stage as someone else, Seppings, the third side to the triangle, steps in.  Especially funny is this somewhat vertically challenged actor’s turn as the seven foot tall, Roderick Spode.  The running visual gag of him standing on a chair or stool wearing an eight foot leather coat is sublime.  The fact that he becomes all his characters without losing his original grumpy expression and unwillingness to participate only adds to the laughter.

I can’t imagine a better threesome playing these roles.  Mangan’s facial expressions are wondrous and compliment Macfadyen’s dour Jeeves to perfection.  He wins the audience over immediately and elicits their support by grinning manically whenever he suffers a moment of embarrassment.  These moments tend to be quite frequent, such is his inadequacy at story telling, but we’re always on his side no matter how ludicrous he becomes.  His playing with a rubber duck in a bubble bath centre stage endears us to him even more.  An idiot he may be, but a lovable one at that.

Meanwhile Matthew Macfadyen is the perfect English gentleman’s butler.  Laconic, unflappable and supremely confident, he manages to sort out every problem that arises.  Thus his turns at all the other characters, especially Bertie’s ghastly former fiancée Madeline Bassett, are even more incongruous and joyful.

The pinching of the Globe’s idea of finishing a production with a dance is an inspired choice.  Who would guess that Jeeves, Wooster and Seppings could do a more than passable Charleston, choreographed by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille? Part farce, part tour de force, part homage to Wodehouse, Perfect Nonsense is Perfect Entertainment.

Mojo at The Harold Pinter Theatre

What a cast and what a playwright, if Jerusalem is anything to go by, so booking tickets to see Mojo at The Harold Pinter was a no brainer and, although maybe it isn’t quite as excellent as I hoped, it is good and well worth seeing.

Set in Ezra’s Atlantic, a club in Dean Street, Soho in July 1958, Mojo is a somewhat seedy tale about gangsters and their would-be counterparts and once again re-unites its author with the director Ian Rickson.  Jez Butterworth is a master craftsman at combining humour with darkness and it is shown to great effect in this, his 1995 first play for the Royal Court.  It opens with Silver Johnny (Tom Rhys) in the upstairs room of the club getting ready to strut his stuff to the audience downstairs.  Although his is a small role, the plot revolves around his character being poached away by a rival establishment and how this affects the rest of the employees at Ezra’s Atlantic.  With a diet of pills and very little sleep the paranoid young men caught up in this London underworld get to sample many scary moments, often at the hands of Baby (the magnificent Ben Whishaw) the son of the club’s proprietor, Ezra.  Mickey (Brendan Coyle) is supposedly the owner’s main man and, as such the person in charge, but as the tale unfolds, his weaknesses are illuminated.  The ending is as dark as the beginning is funny.

The humour is due in no small measure to the wonderful portrayal of Potts, the ever brilliant Daniel Mays, who I have yet to see give a bad performance in anything.  He also brings out the best in Rupert Grint, as his sidekick, Sweets (so called because he is the one who supplies the pills).  We have an alumnus from Hogwarts who can act – hurrah.  Added to this mix, is a bit of a psycho brilliantly portrayed by Ben Whishaw.  He manages to keep everyone on tenterhooks wondering what on earth his character will do next and it is wonderfully done.  His nemesis is in the shape of Skinny, an excellent Colin Morgan whose performance builds to a crescendo in the final scene.  I can tell you no more. 

The usually reliable Brendan Coyle is somewhat disappointing and I found it difficult to believe in him as a malevolent gang member, which is maybe why the ending is a little unsatisfying.  No matter, this doesn’t detract from the play as a whole and it is a clever writer who can switch from laugh out loud moments to intakes of breath in a heartbeat.

The designer, Ultz, the third part of the Jerusalem trilogy alongside

Butterworth and Rickson, does a wonderful job evoking the edgy atmosphere of Ezra’s pokey little club.  Likewise, the music scored by Stephen Warbeck can’t be faulted.  I defy anyone not to tap their feet at least once during the evening.  So with toe tapping music, laughs, tension and excellent acting, what's not to enjoy about Mojo.