Allelujah at The Bridge Theatre

A new play by Alan Bennett is always highly anticipated, especially when it’s directed by Nicholas Hytner.  And so it was with great expectations that I booked to see Allelujah at The Bridge Theatre.  Sadly, in this instance, the saying, “never expect”, is never more apt, as the great Mr. Bennett’s latest offering isn’t his best.

The play is set in a geriatric ward, although it often has the feel of an old people’s rest home, in an old style, cradle-to-grave Yorkshire hospital (the Beth) which is faced with closure.  It focuses on several of the elderly patients, Colin (Samuel Barnett), the son of wheelchair bound Joe (Jeff Rawle), Salter (Peter Forbes) the Chairman of the Hospital Trust and Sister Gilchrist (Deborah Findlay).  In order to try and keep the Beth alive, the self- important Salter is waging a sponsored campaign, which includes a two-man

documentary team filming the ward and those connected with it.

The main thrust of the play, apart from the threat of the hospital’s closure, is  its lack of beds and the need, as far as Nurse Pinkney (Nicola Hughes) is concerned to keep the patients’ “spirits up”, by getting them all to sing in her choir.  Add to this a dollop of concern about the lack of visitors, ‘If people love their parents, why do they put them away’ and the less than subtle nod to Brexit and the problem this is likely to cause immigrants like the excellent Dr. Valentine (Sacha Dhawan).  Bennett’s points hit home and we’re in no doubt as to his bugbears.  The trouble is that it isn’t until we get to the Second Act that some sort of plot emerges.  That’s not to say Allelujah isn’t rich with Bennett’s usual witty dialogue, often uttered by the aged patients, and the visuals, when the geriatrics mix their singing with a dance or three, is at times joyous.  I just wish the whole thing wasn’t quite so contrived.

Deborah Findlay is superb as the rather hard-nosed ward sister who has her own, albeit drastic, solution to the freeing up of beds.  She expertly shows how resigned this hard-working nurse has become to the constant daily chores of tending to the old, and only allows some warmth to shine through when tripping the light fantastic with Thatcher hater Joe.  Also doing a great job is Peter Forbes as the puffed-up canary, Salter, feathering his own nest in as officious manner as possible.  And let me not forget Jeff Rawle, Samuel Barnett and Sacha Dhawan, who all ensure their characters are anything but one dimensional.

Bob Crowley has designed a clever set of movable peach coloured walls portraying the various wards, corridors and nurse’s station.  He also extends the playwright’s humorous poke at modernism (William Wordsworth ward is now named Joan Collins) by plonking a blue NHS direction sign ‘Chapel’ above ‘Endoscopy’.

Despite the depressing nature of the play, and my few quibbles, Allelujah still has enough Bennett brilliance to make it enjoyable.  It’s just not quite as entertaining as his previous works.

The Lehman Trilogy at The Lyttleton

The way Sam Mendes brings to life Stefano Massini’s epic play, adapted here at The Lyttleton by Ben Power, is inspired.  Using just three actors, but what a trio, we become privy to how Lehman Brothers turned into the Wall Street institution it was until its spectacular collapse in 2008.

I wasn’t totally sure if a 3½ hour play about a financial corporation was really my thing, but decided the cast and director were worth the gamble.  No need to worry, because rather than being a wordy blow-by-blow account of a bank’s demise, this is a very amusing and pacey synopsis of how and why the whole thing collapsed.

This play has a very unusual and interesting format.  It’s written in a kind of verse, the actors often direct their speeches to the audience and talk about themselves in the third person before moving into dialogue.  It is neither rhyme no prose so has more of an affinity to Greek drama, albeit lighter in tone.  Ben Power has to be given massive credit for succeeding so brilliantly in his massive task of creating this version out of the literal translation of the original, especially if you take into account that Stefano Massini’s drama originally ran for 5 hours and it took him 3½ years to write.  His reason for writing the play, which has since been translated into 11 languages and staged across the world, was his desire to find out how such a massive enterprise as Lehman’s collapsed so spectacularly. 

To this end, The Lehman Trilogy starts way back in the 1840’s and Henry Lehman’s (Simon Russell-Beale) arrival in America from Bavaria.  Settling in Montgomery, Alabama, he starts modestly by opening a general store (well actually a one-room shop selling cloth by the inch to those of very modest means).  Soon joined by his brother, Emanuel (Ben Miles) and then Mayer (Adam Godley), they soon move onto loaning money to the plantations, receiving payment in raw cotton which they sell on, at profit, to New York.  Thus the “middle man” is effectively born.   Eventually investing in coffee and railways, they prosper so well that their main commodity is money itself.  In Mendes’s production, the signage depicting the changing face of their business is written with marker pen on one of the glass walls of Es Devlin’s remarkable revolving glass box.  Likewise, the New York skyline, plantation fields and the various catastrophes that threaten their business along the way, but from which they cannily survive, is depicted on Luke Hall’s back video screen.

Just as the three actors portray every character from demure 19^th century Alabama girl to each and every subsequent Lehman family member, so they remain in their original black frock coats.  Very few props are used, but do include cardboard boxes like those used by Lehman employees to remove their belongings from their offices on the 15^th September 2008.  These boxes become a host of other things including towers and podiums; minimalism at its most effective.

But it’s the three actors and their director that ensure this impeccable production is such a joy to watch.  Simon Russell-Beale has never been better as the solidly respectable older brother, Henry and, never one to shirk from harnessing his female side, his transformation into various women is nothing short of brilliant.  With just the slightest of movements, inflections and voice, he can convince you he can be anybody doing anything.

Likewise, Adam Godley, when not portraying the patronised youngest brother, Mayer, plays a mean female   Then, by complete contrast transmogrifies into a fractious toddler and the entrepreneurial Bobbie, dancing as the stockmarket goes haywire.

Then we have Ben Miles, the calm and authoritative middle brother, Emanuel, who turns into various later members of the Lehman clan who are anything but.

The Lehman Trilogy has it all but pared down to the bare minimum.  For one who knows diddly-squat about banking and the like, I came away from the Lyttleton understanding a lot more, especially how easy it was for a family business initially conducting their business with the Jewish ethics they grew up with, ending up with no Lehman involved and ethics going out of the window.

Well worth seeing.

The Lieutenant of Inishmore at the Noel Coward Theatre

Martin McDonagh once described his play, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, as “a violent play that is wholeheartedly anti-violence”.  An addendum to this should read that it is also hilarious, both visibly and because the plot, albeit ‘off the wall’ and script are incomparable.

No-one can dispute that this is comedy at its blackest.  How could that not be the case when the story is based around Mad Padriac (Aidan Turner), the sole member of his own Irish National Liberation Army splinter group who was deemed too mad for the IRA.  That’s not to say that Padriac isn’t without compassion, it’s just that it’s only visible when concerning cats, and one cat in particular, namely “Wee Thomas”.  Currently being looked after by his father, Donny (Denis Conway), Wee Thomas is Padriac’s only friend.  Well aware of this, three INLA members incensed by Padriac’s splinter group and intent on wreaking their revenge, lure him back home by battering the aforementioned moggy to death.

The play opens with Padriac torturing a local drug dealer, James (Brian Martin) strung up by his legs, the better to have his toenails unceremoniously removed.  His ordeal is temporarily halted when a phone call informs his perpetrator that his “Wee Thomas” is in a poor state of health.  Brought to his knees with grief, Padriac is offered veterinary advice, involving ringworm pellets from his torture victim. It’s only on his return home that Padriac realises his cat is a lost cause and no amount of pellets of any description will resurrect him.  Time for revenge and the fear that grips Donny and his ginger-mulleted young pal, Davey (Chris Walley) on the immediate return of the former’s prodigal son is completely founded.  Despite their cunning plan of disguising a ginger cat by polishing him with black boot polish, Padriac smells a rat (well boot polish actually) and it’s time for them to meet their maker.  What follows is a blood fest, but don’t let that put you off.  It’s delivered in such a farcical, laugh out loud way that only those suffering from S.O.H.F. (sense of humour failure) or utter despondency that their beloved Poldark could turn out so malevolent will be shocked into an early exit from the theatre.

There is a nod to female character content in the form of Mairead (Charlie Murphy), Davey’s sister, but at the risk of upsetting the L.G.B.T. community, she’s not your normal girlie girl.  Her idea of stating the case for the cessation of slaughtering animals for food is to shoot out the eyes of cows!  After all, what farmer could sell a blind one!  She is also a passionate advocate for a free Ireland, so Padriac and his ideals are quite a draw. They’re both cut from the same cloth and their relationship, built on the shared passion of a splinter INLA group is likewise broken due to their shared passion of felines.

The entire play mercilessly highlights McDonagh’s mockery of the politics of revenge.  The terrorists are shown to be inept and full of sentimental self-righteousness, with more than a hint of the psychopath.  After all, Padriac is a man overwhelmed by grief over the death of his cat but has no compunction about killing his father.  He sighs, “All I ever wanted was an Ireland free .. Free for cats to roam about”.  And the script is littered with delightful understatement.  None more so than Donny’s line when bloody mayhem has ensued, “It’s incidents like this that does put the tourists off Ireland”.

Michael Grandage directs the cast with sure fired accuracy, ensuring that McDonagh’s script loses none of its bite.  It helps that all the actors are exemplary and that Christoper Oram’s set couldn’t be more ‘bog Ireland’ if it tried.  Aidan Turner, wild eyed and blood spattered, makes for an unnerving Padriac but one who is also strangely innocent.   Who knows what a character who utters the line “You never let bygones be bygones you” when talking to Christy whose eye he shot with a crossbow, might do next?  What a good move on his part to leave the Cornish Hills for a while and return to his homeland.  He really isn’t just a pretty face.

Chris Walley, the actor playing young Davey is superb.  His ‘biog’

of  just one previous TV/Film performance, as he has just graduated from RADA, will surely ratchet up after this turn as the hapless young Davey.  Oh and what a stroke of genius to furnish him with a pink bicycle!

Denis Conway is a master at delivering McDonagh’s off the cuff witticisms, whilst Charlie Murphy couldn’t be better as the passionate but flawed adolescent girl.  The INLA men, Will Irvine, Daryl McCormack and Julian Moore-Cook, also play their part in ensuring that whether the laughs are involuntary during a shocking bit or joyous from yet another brilliant quip, they’re there nonetheless.

The futility of all the violence eventually becomes clear, but as it’s a spoiler alert my lips are sealed.  Suffice it to say that like everything else about this production, it is brilliant.

Julie at The Lyttleton

Put simply, this updated version by Polly Stenham of Strindberg’s Miss Julie, didn’t do it for me.  It’s nothing to do with the acting, which is up to the mark, it’s the fact that the dramatic tension usually associated with this play isn’t there.

Stenham’s updated version has Julie (Vanessa Kirby) transported to modern day London. It’s her thirty something birthday and she’s celebrating with a party in the home she shares with her wealthy father.  He’s away, the only members of the household insitu are Jean (Eric Kofi Abrefa), the Ghanian chauffeur and his Brazilian fiancé Kristina (Thalissa Teixara) and drugs are freely flowing.  Julie, the ultimate poor little rich girl, has issues stemming from the death of her mother and regularly imbibes Xanax and Cocaine. This birthday bash is an excuse for her to go wild following a recent break-up.  As such, anything goes, including the chance to engage in a power game with Jean which ultimately ends in rough sex and the decision, albeit constantly changed, to run away together.

The trouble is, unlike the original play, this sexual encounter isn’t a massive deal. Yes, it means Kristina’s dignity and happiness is severely compromised, but in this day and age, sleeping with the staff of whatever nationality isn’t life shattering from anyone’s point of view and certainly shouldn’t bring about the ultimate conclusion viewed here.

Vanessa Kirby is great at showing the disturbed nature of the over indulged Julie and letting us glimpse the changing nature of her relationship with both Jean and Kristina.  At times overly pally and needy, whilst at others imperious and condescending, but never really interested in their lives or how they may be feeling.  Thalissa Teixeira is very affecting as the deceived Kristina and illicits our sympathy in a way that Julie never really can.  Meanwhile Eric Kofi Abrefa expertly conveys his conflicting emotions of desire and distaste towards his employer’s daughter.

Another sticking point is Tom Scutt’s design. The Lyttleton stage is basically cut in half.  The top shows the party in full, somewhat contrived swing, whilst the kitchen in the bottom half has Jean and Kristina bustling around making sure everything’s in order when the boss gets back.  The throbbing base from above is distracting, whilst the kitchen area is far too large for the intimate exchanges between the couple.  Strindberg himself realised his play required a “small stage and small auditorium” which begs the question, why stage it in a theatre which is anything but.

A reason for Stenham updating Miss Julie was to apparently investigate the hypocrisies of middle-class liberals towards their immigrant staff and she would probably have been better writing a play to this effect from scratch.  Maybe those not conversant with the original might enjoy this update more.  It just isn’t for me.

Sea Wall at The Old Vic

This play, well monologue to be precise, was written by Simon Stephens for Andrew Scott.  He says that this is the play that is closest to him and was commissioned by Josie Rourke when she was artistic Director of the Bush Theatre.  He was on the west coast of France with his wife, children and father-in-law when she contacted him and he drew absolutely from that holiday and those characters.  Andrew Scott was the actor he wanted to play photographer Alex, as his physicality, tenderness and humanity freed the playwright from speculation about the world within Sea Wall, to imagining a character. And, alone on the Old Vic stage, apart from a frequently used bottle of water, Andrew Scott is Alex. I can’t imagine any other actor getting as much out of a character during the 35-minute running time as he does.

It’s all credit to Stephen’s writing that one isn’t immediately aware about whom Alex is initially reminiscing.  Could it be his lover, father, friend?  Eventually we discover the man in question is his father-in-law and how the tragedy that devastates Alex centres around him.  

Dressed casually in faded jeans and a well-worn Lacoste polo shirt, Scott’s performance resembles a stand-up.  Immediately engaging the audience as soon as he speaks, we’re enraptured by his dry witty observations and so want his story to have a happy ending.  Scott turns nuance into an art form and handles the half-finished sentences to the manner-born.

I have never seen Andrew Scott deliver a mediocre performance and on this occasion, delivering Simon Stephen’s faultless script, he is breathtakingly brilliant. I for one will never miss seeing him perform. Pure genius.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at The Donmar

I suppose many people, me included, conjure up a young Maggie Smith whenever The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is mentioned, so iconic was she as the free spirited and highly entertaining Scottish teacher in the 1969 movie adaptation of Muriel Sparke’s novel.  One wonders if Lia Williams felt the same before embarking on inhabiting the role herself.  And inhabit she surely does.  So much so in fact that she has more than made the part her own.

Dressed from top to toe in figure hugging red (and then green after the interval) Williams seductively purrs each line in a soft Edinburgh accent.  Who wouldn’t want to be a part of her gang?  Certainly not her impressionable young girl pupils, used as they have been to the strict disciplinarianism instilled at Marcia Blaine School by headmistress Miss Mackay (Sylvestra Le Touzel).  Suddenly they’re in the thrall of a radical teacher who wants them to enjoy freedom of speech whilst being taught the delights of love, beauty and, more disturbingly, Mussolini.  Miss Brodie’s mantra is ‘give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life’.  To this end she picks her favourite pupils, or crème de la crème, to be part of her clique, ensuring loyalty and worship in equal measure.  Unfortunately, Sandy (an excellent Rona Morison), her star pupil isn’t entirely hooked, caught as she is between fascination and horror at this new teacher’s radical methods.

And it is Sandy that ultimately brings about the fall of Miss Jean Brodie.  Don’t worry, this isn’t a spoiler alert as David Harrower’s adaptation flits between the girl’s school days in the 1930’s and 1947, the day before Sandy becomes a fully-fledged nun.  She is being interviewed by a journalist (Kit Young) who wants to discover why, having written a successful book, she has chosen this particular journey.  Thus, it is her recollections that steer the production back and forth in time.

One of the most striking aspects of Lia William’s flawless performance is her ability to show the complexity of Brodie.  Thanks to her portrayal, our feelings for this amusing yet ultimately tragic figure are, as Muriel Spark intended, totally ambivalent.  Veering between splendour and ludicrousness, strength and fragility, Williams’s Brodie is never one dimensional, and the subdued woman riddled with cancer at the end of the play bears no resemblance to her vibrant younger self.  Despite her theoretical notions of romance, Brodie fails miserably when it comes to the practicalities.  She has the attention of two male teachers, Mr. Lowther (Angus Wright) the reserved choir master and Teddy Lloyd (Edward Macliam) the louche art master, but they both fail to win her heart.  More than able to extol the virtues of the notion of love, it’s quite another to actually practice what she preaches.

Although the accolades are mostly reserved for Lia Williams, praise must also be bestowed on the other members of the cast.  Rona Morison not only shows us that her highly intelligent Sandy is constantly surveying Brodie but that she has an underlying coldness, even ruthlessness.  Nicola Coughlan perfectly captures the neediness and desperation of her character, Joyce and Angus Wright is perfect as the diffident Mr. Lowther.  Sylvestra Le Touzel also deserves a mention.   Her buttoned up Miss Mackay is the archetypal old-fashioned headmistress, the exact opposite of Miss Brodie.

There is only one criticism in what is otherwise a pitch perfect production by Polly Findlay.  Why is it necessary to sit several of the stall’s audience in the uncomfortable wooden classroom chairs?  Despite the atmospheric bell ringing summoning the girls to classes and nuns to cloisters, Lizzie Clachan’s design doesn’t necessarily resemble either a nunnery or 1930’s school room.  Apart from the aforementioned chairs, it is far too modern.

Translations at The Olivier

Several recent productions staged in the National’s Olivier Theatre have failed to comfortably inhabit its vast space.  Not so Ian Rickson’s brilliant portrayal of Brian Friel’s wonderful 1980 play, Translations.  Designer Rae Smith’s highly evocative set occupies every bit of the huge space, without compromising the fact that the focus of the play takes place down stage in the local hedge school.

A backdrop of skudding clouds and swirling mist, courtesy of Neil Austin’s atmospheric lighting, leave us in no doubt that we are in rural Ireland, County Donegal to be precise.  Translations is set in 1833 and Brian Friel more than succeeded in writing a play that, according to the extracts from his “sporadic” diary wasn’t to be just about Irish peasants being suppressed by English sappers, totally about land surveying, re-naming place names or a lament on the death of the Irish language.  Although portions of these are all relevant, each is part of the atmosphere in which the real play lurks and Friel has brilliantly written a simple story that hides complicated meanings.  To be precise, Translations is about the power of language and its ability to divide.

Hedge Schools in rural Ireland were unlicensed and set up in makeshift locations with the lessons conducted in Irish.  The year in which this play is set is one of historical transition when these schools are due to be replaced by State run ones where English will be the official language.  Alongside this change, Ireland has been “invaded” by British soldiers who are tasked with completing an Ordance Survey map of Ireland and changing Irish place names into English.  Helping two of the Sappers in the role of interpreter is Owen (Colin Morgan), recently returned from six years in Dublin and the bilingual son of the hedge school’s alcoholic headmaster, Hugh (Ciaran Hinds).  Meanwhile his older brother, Manus (Seamus O’Hara) has never left home, is the unpaid assistant to his father and is desperately in love with local girl Maire (Judith Roddy).  Add to this mix, Lieutenant Yoland (Adetomiwa Edun) a handsome romantic entranced by Ireland and the Irish (or at least one in particular) and the scene is set for an emotional upset.

It would be wrong to single out a particular performance because the entire cast are exemplary.  However, Translation’s famous love scene between Maire and Lieutenant Yoland deserves a particular mention.  It is exquisite and effortlessly depicts the way their unfolding love for one another transcends any language barriers.  Likewise, the scenes between Manus and Sarah (Michelle Fox) when he is encouraging her to overcome her serious speech defect are a total delight.  Much of the humour of the piece is supplied by Dermot Crowley as the “unwashed” JimmyJack Cassie, well versed in Latin and Greek but not so au fait with soap and water.  It goes without saying that Ciaran Hinds excels in his role as Hugh, whilst Colin Morgan subtly conveys his delicate position as temporary helper to the British and permanent betrayer of his birthplace.

One of the best productions under the mantle of Rufus Norris and well worth the cost of a ticket.