Red Velvet (Garrick)

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I have been seeing plays (quite a lot of them, in fact) but they have, by and large, been of such unremitting mediocrity that I have felt quite dispirited and not inclined to write a review. The catch-up post of mediocrity is on its way, for those who relish such things.

I was blown out of my January torpor, however, by the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company’s presentation of Red Velvet. This is the true story of Ira Aldridge, a black American who took over for the great Edmund Kean in the part of Othello on stage at Covent Garden in 1833. His performance was well received by the audience, but the racist critics of the time savaged him, and he was removed after only two performances. The story itself is astonishing enough, but the play was well constructed and very moving.  Lolita Chakrabarti’s play originated at the Tricycle, and focuses on imagined incidents from Aldridge’s life, which must have been an extraordinary one. It is an excellent play and extremely topical, given the ongoing conversation about diversity in the performing arts.

The play would not have been a success without Adrian Lester’s outstanding performance.  It begins and ends with time in Poland at the end of Aldridge’s life, and Lester is wonderful as an old man with a fierce sense of pride in his accomplishments and regret at his failings, understandable though they certainly are. But the highlight of the show is the central section, in which Aldridge takes over for the great Kean, facing the blatant racism of the time, prejudice against Americans and suspicion of his desire to use a more naturalistic style of acting.

It is a measure of Lester’s acting skill that he made even the mannered, gestured acting of the time work, and I wanted more than the brief glimpses of Othello provided (his Othello at the National was outstanding and is fondly remembered). Charlotte Lucas was sympathetic and skilled as Ellen Tree/Desdemona, Emun Elliott was nuanced as Aldridge’s French friend/promoter, and Ayesha Antoine’s serving girl well performed and with a heart and mind decidedly of her own.

There are several shocking moments in the play which I will not ruin for those who want to see it (unlike many newspaper critics, who blithely reveal the final coup de theatre). All I will say is that they show us both how far we have come as a society and how very, very far we have yet to go. Lester’s performance is unmissable and the rest of the production very good indeed. Enjoyable, and important.

 

Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Donmar)

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It is always interesting to revisit classics that were first seen at a much less mature age. I delighted in the (very different) film versions of Dangerous Liaisons and Valmont as a young teenager, without understanding in the slightest the nuances of the text. Christopher Hampton’s effective adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’s novel has lost none of its gleeful manipulation in this production.

Dominic West is the Vicomte de Valmont and Janet McTeer the Marquise de Merteuil, former lovers engaged in a battle of wits with seduction as the primary weapon. Merteuil wishes Valmont to seduce 15-year old, convent-educated Cecile (Morfydd Clark) in order to revenge herself on Cecile’s fiancé. Valmont is focussed upon the virtuous (and married) Madame de Tourvel (Elaine Cassidy) and is intent upon overcoming her (inexplicable, to him) fidelity to her husband.

The set, which resembles a distressed stately home or one in which the process of moving out has begun in earnest, adequately reflects the fragility of the regime. The performances are all of excellent quality, particularly McTeer’s Merteuil. She is an equal foil for Valmont and uses all of her weapons to great effect. She gives off an air of indomitability, and it is therefore all the more moving when she admits how vulnerable women in the society are. West epitomises the duality of Valmont, the exquisite languor of the aristocrat and the primal man beneath. This is the first role I’ve seen him in since Jimmy McNulty in The Wire in which he has been able to express that terrifying primacy, and it worked very well (I have never understood those who see him only as a toff – to me, one of his particular strengths is playing early man with a veneer of civilisation). He seemed to stumble over his lines at times, however, which was distracting.

Cassidy’s Tourvel was very good, and she created a fully realised character very quickly as she stepped in to play the part at the last minute after the sad death of Michelle Dockery’s fiance. I must admit to not having an enormous amount of sympathy for the character, which is probably because she’s a bit wet compared to Valmont and Merteuil. Clark’s Cecile was also enjoyable. The scene where Valmont relieves her of her virtue was particularly shocking in its perfunctoriness. Edward Holcroft’s Chevalier Danceny was there mostly for the plot, but Holcroft did a good job making him as interesting as possible.

An enjoyable diversion, and the play remains as fresh as ever. But not one of the Donmar’s unmissable evenings.

Pelléas et Mélisande (Barbican/LSO)

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A delightful way to begin a new year. Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, a semi-staged operatic performance at the Barbican with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. It is marvellous to have him back in the UK, even if it is not in the wonderful acoustics of Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. The Barbican was rather full last night, with an interesting mix of opera fans and admirers of the actor David Tennant, who was performing in the RSC’s Richard II in the theatre.

This enjoyable performance was directed by Peter Sellars and starred Magdalena Kožená (aka Mrs Rattle) as Mélisande, Christian Gerhaher as Pelléas, old favourite Gerald Finley as Golaud (Mélisande’s husband and brother of Pelléas), Franz-Josef Selig as Arkël (grandfather of Golaud and Pelléas), Bernarda Fink as Geneviève (mother of Golaud and Pelléas), Joshua Bloom as the Doctor and the Shepherd, and a young man identified in the programme only as “Soloist of the Tölzer Knabenchor” as Yniold (Golaud’s son).

Pelléas et Mélisande is Debussy’s only opera and it is truly glorious, with some of his most stunning music enhancing Maeterlinck’s play. It is remarkably fluid, with conversation leading throughout and almost no occasions on which there is a pause for a “look at me” moment. For an opera, there is relatively little plot and much misleading conversation. But oh, what conversation! Act two, scene 1, in which first Mélisande’s hair and then her ring fall in the well, to her and Paellas’ consternation, was exquisite and produced beautiful singing and acting from both Kožená and Gerhaher.

The singing was of excellent quality throughout. Kožená’s creamy, rich soprano was particularly suited to Debussy’s music, and Gerhaher’s rounded, earthy baritone well matched to her. Finley (a long time favourite of mine from Glyndebourne) provided a suitably menacing, intense air as Golaud, and Selig a grounded, deep bass as Arkël. Fink’s rich alto and Bloom’s supportive bass were also of superlative quality. And I must particularly praise the young Tölzer Knabenchor soloist, whose treble was of exquisite purity, and whose dedication to pitch and to the quality of his sung French would have been laudable in one several times his age.

Rattle kept a firm grip on the orchestra, which had beautiful dynamic control and paid close attention to him. I am very much looking forward to   Rattle’s assuming the position of Music Director for the LSO in 2017. I am cautiously optimistic about the possibility of a new concert hall, as neither the Royal Festival Hall nor Barbican Hall is really of the standard that London needs. I think it will cost significantly more than presently anticipated, however. Is there any possibility that a sponsor such as Emirates might obtain naming rights for a cheeky £100m or so? That would ease the government’s burden considerably.

Semi-staging is always a challenge, particularly in a traditional concert hall setup. I enjoyed the use of the orchestra and the positioning of the singers in and around the strings. That said, there were some odd long light fixtures that reminded one of our party of a Berlin nightclub and me of Star Wars lightsabers. When one of the singers was said to draw his épée, I half expected him to take up a light fixture and swing it around.

The costumes were also lacking. Kožená’s simple black dress worked well enough, especially since her beautiful red hair was all the adornment she needed, but the men, who were in informal black shirts and black jeans, looked like they were in a rehearsal. Because there is little to draw the eye in a semi-staged performance, the costumes are of great importance and I do hope that they are enhanced for the next semi-staged opera presented by the LSO and the Barbican next year.

This was a delightful start to 2016 and, musically, could not be faulted. A very enjoyable evening and the first of many semi-staged operas presented by the LSO and the Barbican. I look forward to the others.

wonder.land (NT)

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Damon Albarn’s musical adaptation of Alice in Wonderland seems to have been hovering on my radar for a long time. Unfortunately, it has the flavour of a production put together by committee. It is the story of Aly (Lois Chimimba), a contemporary London teenage girl. Her parents Bianca (Golda Rosheuvel) and Matt (Paul Hilton) have recently split up due to her father’s online gambling, which Aly discovered and about which she blames herself for telling her mother. Due to the split, she, her mother and her baby brother Charlie have had to move to a different part of London and she has had to start at a new school.

She attempts to make friends at school using a social network (carefully engineered to offend no one’s intellectual property rights), but her supposed friends bully her. Only Luke (Enyi Okoronkwo), who she rescues from another bully, is sympathetic. The head teacher, Ms A. Mixsome (a divine Anna Francolini) is unsympathetic and orders her to detention yet again. So she enters an online game called wonder.land, which is exciting and allows her to choose an avatar. A very slightly plump mixed-race girl, she chooses the whitest and most princessy avatar imaginable (Carly Bawden), who she calls “allypally32.” She must acquiesce to the game’s one and only “term and condition,” which is that there must be no extreme malice (in the word of Private Eye, geddit?). In the game, Aly must fight her demons and battle for her friends, and even her very identity (there are not one, but three different Alices in this production). The callbacks to Alice in Wonderland were somewhat interestingly done, but seemed unnecessary – why not simply tell a new story?

As a person who moved around a lot as a child and who was always facing a new school. I was sympathetic to Aly’s plight. Teenagers are particularly vicious and they will seize on any perceived weakness. Aly’s desire to escape in an online fantasy world seemed perfectly logical to me. The social network and game in the production, however, seemed very much to be an adult’s view of what life online as a teenager must be like. I did not get the impression that anyone involved with the production had ever spoken to a teenager. Aly’s online world was very much Facebook and World of Warcraft, when from what I understand, it’s all about Instagram, Snapchat, ask.fm and Tumblr for teenagers nowadays.

Some of the songs are fairly good – Aly’s first foray into wonder.land is well done, with the projections, Bawden’s beautiful movement and the music combining to produce something rather lovely. Unfortunately, most of them are more pedestrian, with “Everyone Loves Charlie” an example of a ballad that stops the action stone cold. There are far too many such ballads. (Speaking of Charlie, the baby is portrayed by positively the creepiest doll that I have ever seen. There is rather a funny – and gross – running joke associated with him, but I cannot think why the character was necessary).

Chimimba is effective at portraying a stroppy teenager. However, her singing voice is slight, and she is overshadowed by the stronger performances of Rosheuvel, Bawden and Francolini. One of the most underdeveloped aspects of the production is the relationship between Bianca and Matt (Mum and Dad). One can absolutely see why they fell out, but we weren’t given enough evidence to see why they fell in love in the first place. Perhaps Charlie was there to show that, but I’m afraid he wasn’t quite enough.

I did enjoy some aspects of it, especially Francolini’s performance. She had some very funny and un-PC lines about dyslexia that had me, as an educator, cackling with glee. Her singing was gorgeous and her physical comedy excellent. Perhaps that is the problem: now, I am firmly on the side of the adults. An interesting experiment, but ultimately unsuccessful. I will be very surprised if it gets a West End transfer.

Little Eyolf (Almeida)

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The Almeida has had a good track record lately when it comes to Ibsen. Ghosts was wonderful, with the uber-talented Lesley Manville. I was not previously familiar with Little Eyolf, but am always interested in a new production of the classics. Little Eyolf is about a rural family: father Alfred (Jolyon Coy), mother Rita (Lydia Leonard), and their disabled son Eyolf (Adam Greaves-Neal, at the performance I saw). Alfred’s sister Asta (Eve Ponsonby) lives nearby and often visits, and sympathetic, dynamic Borghejm (Sam Hazeldine), who is romantically interested in Asta, also comes to call.

Alfred has just returned from a hiking trip in the mountains, and has resolved to spend more time with little Eyolf and to make him his life’s work, abandoning the book on which he had been spending the bulk of his time. Rita resents this, and would like for Alfred to devote himself to her, as he had earlier in their marriage (before Eyolf’s birth). There is a great deal of affection between Alfred and Asta, and Rita resents this too. Alfred feels a great dealt of guilt, as Eyolf’s disability is the result of an injury which was suffered when he fell off a table as an infant, neglected as Alfred and Rita were making love.

Following a visit from the Rat-Woman (Eileen Walsh), where her rat-banishing services are declined and an uneasy feeling left in her wake, a tragedy ensues. The main protagonists are devastated, and the tensions that had been simmering below the surface come to the fore. Alfred and Asta’s relationship is explored, and Alfred and Rita’s relationship will never be the same. The acting was very good generally, but I must admit to thinking that Coy’s Alfred was nowhere near charismatic enough to warrant such excesses of devotion.

The highlight for me was Eve Ponsonby’s Asta, who played the part beautifully and whose highly strung tension was palpable. Her love for her brother shone through, and her nervousness about the situation was illuminated throughout. Lydia Leonard (most recently seen by me in the BBC’s Wolf Hall) was also very good in the fairly thankless role of Rita. It was an interesting role in the sense that it could easily have been a modern woman. There are plenty of women who do not particularly enjoy being mothers, and who resent that their children take some of their husbands’ affection away from them. It is simply not acceptable, in our modern cult of parenthood, to admit it. It does not necessarily take away from one’s love of one’s children to admit that one is not particularly good at raising them, and yet no one would ever dare say such a thing.

It was an interesting play, well staged and well acted. But I was glad it was only 80 minutes long. The emotions were too intense and the play too claustrophobic to warrant more. I enjoyed it, and I’m glad I saw it. But it was not on the same level as Ghosts. That, however, is Ibsen’s fault, rather than that of the production or the actors.

Guys and Dolls (WE from Chichester)

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Does the world really need another production of Guys and Dolls? This Chichester transfer garnered rave reviews in its original incarnation. For my part, I still recall fondly the recent production with Douglas Hodge. It is, of course, a cracking musical with great songs and a superior book and it’s always a pleasure to see it. This production was very enjoyable, but there wasn’t much novelty to it.

The cast was delightful. It was great fun to see Sophie Thompson as Adelaide and David Haig as Nathan Detroit, the first time they have acted together as a couple since their immortal Lydia and Bernard in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Siubhan Harrison was a charming Sarah Brown and Jamie Parker a really excellent Sky Masterson. The supporting cast were also very good.

Guys and Dolls is about a somewhat anarchic prewar New York, where the archetypal guys and dolls drink, gamble and generally enjoy themselves, and Sarah Brown’s mission (clearly modelled on the Salvation Army) attempts to save their souls. Masterson takes a bet from Detroit that he can’t get Sarah to accompany him to Havana. They go, of course, have a lovely evening and discover that they are very much attracted to each other. Their respective lifestyles seem destined to tear them apart, until Masterson makes one last gamble on love. The songs are the heart of this musical, with “A Bushel and a Peck,” “Adelaide’s Lament,” “Luck be a Lady,” and “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat” hands down classics.

Sophie Thompson is an excellent comic actress, and she didn’t disappoint here. She was, perhaps, a little more subdued than I would have liked to have seen. Her singing was secondary to the comedy, and so I would have liked a little more breadth. But her wistfulness added an interesting tone to Adelaide that I hadn’t seen before, and it was overall a very good performance. David Haig was also very good, although I would have liked to see a little more chemistry between the two. I enjoyed Haig’s performance as the craps game facilitator rather more than his interactions with Thompson. I believed that Thompson loved him, but not necessarily the reverse.

Siubhan Harrison was a lovely and charming Sarah Brown with a beautiful voice. She acted well, as you could just see how she was falling for Sky and the subtle turn of her lips as she found it hard to keep from laughing at his ploys. Jamie Parker was similarly restrained in his attraction, but it was clear. He is an excellent actor, and we are lucky to have him on the London stage. The two had superlative chemistry, and that is what really makes or breaks a production of Guys and Dolls. Parker is more an actor than a singer, but I was generally impressed with his singing when it was in the tenor range. He had lovely, dare I say Sinatra-esque phrasing and a beautiful tone. He is not, however, a baritone, and when the songs dipped into a lower register his projection suffered.

The ensemble was also very good, with lovely singing and dancing throughout. The sets were a little basic for the West End but generally good. I enjoyed myself thoroughly and am perhaps a little churlish in looking for novelty. When a production is as charming and well put together as this one, why quibble?

Henry V (RSC Barbican)

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I think I could watch Henry V every month and not tire of it. I know that it is bombastic, warlike, simplistic. And yet it has some of Shakespeare’s most stirring speeches and his most beautiful poetry. It is remarkably funny. It is one of his best plays, and I would like to have a 12 or 13 year old to take to it, as it can be a wonderful introduction to Shakespeare (as an entire play, rather than the abridged versions that can be fabulous for children).

Unfortunately, I would not particularly recommend this production. Perhaps it is unfair of me, as the last play I saw at the Barbican was Cumberbatch’s Hamlet, with Es Devlin’s stunning set. But this stripped down, bare bones production felt lost on the Barbican’s huge stage. The cast were professional and excellent actors to a man (and woman), but some of the interpretive choices did not work for me. It was staged as a stage production, with Oliver Ford Davies’ Chorus making knowing winks to the audience about the staging. But I’m afraid it just looked like they were cutting costs.

I saw Alex Hassell’s Henry IV Part I and II and enjoyed his performances as Prince Hal very much. (It is for that reason that I suspect I may be being unfair to the production, as the stripped down sets for those did not bother me. Devlin’s exquisite – and no doubt expensive – set has spoiled me). However, what worked for me in his performances as Prince Hal, that lordling air of ennui, meant that I did not enjoy his Henry V nearly as much. I think I understand what he was going for – he was trying to illustrate the difficulties inherent in the transformation of a callow pleasure-seeker to a warrior King. Unfortunately, it ultimately came across as simple weakness. And the famous speech on the eve of Agincourt sounded merely desperate, rather than stirring in a Churchillian sense.

The supporting cast were very good, of course. The RSC does not admit mediocre actors. Daniel Abbott (Gloucester) Martin Bassindale (Boy), Antony Byrne (Pistol), Sean Chapman (Exeter), Oliver Ford Davies (Chorus), Nicholas Gerard-Martin (Orleans/Ely), Robert Gilbert (Dauphin), Jim Hooper (Canterbury), Jane Lapotaire (Queen Isobel), Sam Marks (Constable of France), Dale Mathurin (Bates/Bedford), Chris Middleton (Nym/Warwick/Governor of Harfleur), Evelyn Miller (Rambures/Lady-in-Waiting), Keith Osborn (Montjoy/Scroop), Sarah Parks (Mistress Quickly), Leigh Quinn (Alice), Joshua Richards (Bardolph/Fluellen), Simon Thorp (King of France), Obioma Ugoala (Grey/Gower), Andrew Westfield (Westmoreland/MacMorris) and Simon Yadoo (Cambridge/Williams/Jamy), were all very good.

I must particularly praise Jennifer Kirby as Katherine. She was delightful  in all of her scenes, an excellent physical comedienne. And her scene with Henry at the end was the first time I truly believed in him as a King. They had delightful chemistry and he was playful, authoritative and affectionate with her. I enjoyed that scene more than any other in the play.

So a serviceable interpretation. Not bad of course, but it did not attain the brilliant heights that this play can so easily access. I hope not too many adolescent school groups see it, as they will not see Shakespeare’s magic here.

Funny Girl (Menier)

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I have often wondered what it is about Barbra Streisand that makes it so difficult for others to play the same roles. It’s not just because she’s a legend. Liza Minnelli is a legend, and God knows there are enough revivals of Cabaret about. But Streisand inhabited the roles she played so completely (especially Fanny Brice) that it is truly difficult to imagine anyone else in them. When people try, even someone as talented as Lea Michele, it comes across as an imitation.

Sheridan Smith is an actor whose career path has been somewhat unconventional. She has broken out of the “cheerful funny working class girl” straitjacket by dint of sheer, uncontainable and blinding talent. She has been outstanding in drama (Flare Path, Hedda Gabler), comedy (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and certainly musicals (Legally Blonde, Little Shop of Horrors), to focus only on her stage work. So if anyone could fill the Streisand-shaped hole in Funny Girl, it would be Sheridan.

Funny Girl is the story of Fanny Brice (Smith), a woman who became a vaudeville star despite unconventional looks. The musical covers her rise to fame and her relationship with Nick Arnstein (Darius Campbell), a charming but crooked man who seemed impossibly sophisticated to the working-class Brice. It’s the songs that make it, however, and they are inextricably linked with Streisand. “People,” “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” “I’m the Greatest Star,” etc.

Sheridan Smith smashed it. She was a wonder. Dare I whisper it, she was even better than Barbra. In the first act, she was fairly relentlessly cheerful, and showcased her excellent singing, good dancing and absolutely peerless comic timing. But oh, in the second, her astonishing dramatic talent came to the fore. Her ability to cry, sing, and act her socks off at the same time is something I have never seen before to this degree. She is really just that good. Her accent was spot-on throughout, New York but not too much so. It was in no way an imitation of Streisand but fully her own. It is a fabulous, fabulous performance and I feel so lucky to have seen it close up in the tiny Menier. It produced a standing ovation and is, I am confident, going to be a massive hit.

The rest of the cast is very good as well, with particular praise going to Marilyn Cutts as Fanny’s mother Rose, who also nailed the accent without overdoing it. Campbell was very well cast, with his height and solidness a delightful contrast to Smith’s tiny stature. He sang very well, with “Who Are You Now” a surprisingly moving duet. The ensemble produced some marvellous dancing in a very bijou space. It was most impressive.

The one fly in the ointment for me (which may be a somewhat churlish complaint in a London production) is that, with the exception of Smith and Cutts, it wasn’t New York enough for me. I know it can be done in London, as In The Heights is doing so brilliantly up in King’s Cross. The accents were generally good, but they were generic East Coast rather than Brooklyn. (Speaking of Brooklyn, it was amusing to hear them talk about Henry Street, where apartments are going for $3.5 million these days, and its contrasts with Manhattan). To put it in a New York way, the chicken soup needs a little more salt.

But that is a small complaint in what is a very good production. I cannot praise Smith enough. She is phenomenal and I can’t imagine anyone beating her to the Olivier next year. It’s sold out at the Menier but run, do not walk, to get a ticket for this at the Savoy.

The Moderate Soprano (Hampstead)

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I will warn you in advance that this review is unlikely to be objective. I adore Glyndebourne opera in West Sussex and attend several times each summer. I am also an unabashed fan of Roger Allam, and his delightfully dry sarcasm. I have, however, had my differences with playwright David Hare over the years, so was anticipating a class-based critique of Glyndebourne’s early years. (One of the not inconsiderable joys of being a foreigner in the UK is that one is outside of the class system). I was delighted to discover that the play was much more subtle than that. An elegy on art, honour and the nature of love, I found it very moving.

Allam plays John Christie, the founder of Glyndebourne opera house. The notion of country house opera seems to us now to be delightfully eccentric (and typically English) but it was considered utterly crazy in 1933 as there was simply very little opera in the UK at the time. As Professor Carl Ebert (Nick Sampson), a producer imported from Germany, rather unkindly points out, “You have no tradition!” Ebert was joined by Fritz Busch, a conductor (Paul Jesson) and charming young Austrian Rudolf Bing (George Taylor). Indeed, it took representatives from the German and Austrian traditions to build this most English of institutions.

The first part of the play (there is no interval) looks at Christie’s motivation for establishing the opera house and the assembly of the artistic team. We first see Allam as a rich autocrat, but his determination and seriousness are enhanced as the play develops. His battles with Ebert and Busch (and to a lesser extent, Bing) over control are enjoyable, and Allam relishes the opportunity to throw his (metaphorical) weight around.  There is some very funny ruminating on Mozart’s virtues (or lack thereof) and Christie’s decided preference for Wagner. Ebert, Busch and Bing were very well played, with the actors clearly relishing the required accents. Their explanations of the reasons why they had to leave Hitler’s Germany were very affecting.

The play deepens, however, when Christie’s relationship with his wife, the soprano Audrey Mildmay (Nancy Carroll, breaking my heart as usual) is considered. Mildmay had been a member of a touring company before meeting Christie, and (as she puts it) had resisted marriage fiercely before giving in. The scenes where she acknowledges that she must audition for the role of Susanna in the opening season and where she shyly asks Rudolf for the outcome of the audition are poignant. Carroll displays naked vulnerability and yet wisdom, as Mildmay acknowledges what she has given up by marrying Christie. Her touring career may not have been prestigious, but it was all hers. Christie describes her “moderate soprano” as being one that is especially versatile, but it is made clear that she had a small voice but immense charm and an artist’s soul.

The play alternates between the early years, when Glyndebourne was in its infancy, and the postwar period when first Mildmay and then Christie suffered from various ailments. Allam’s portrayal of Christie’s love for his wife is love at its most uncompromising. His resentment at Busch (who refused to cast her in a production in New York during the war, when she was living in Vancouver and badly needed money) is fierce and palpable. His description of how all happy marriages end badly (since one of the parties must leave the other in the end) was incredibly affecting.

I will end where I began, on the notion of class and privilege. In the postwar scenes, Mildmay asks her husband why “they” hate “us,” as a trust was established to assist Glyndebourne (as was not uncommon in the postwar period). It is made clear that Christie is an aristocrat, who thinks that tickets should be expensive and that people should dress up and take the day to experience the opera in order to properly appreciate it. And this is, indeed, a privilege. Modern Glyndebourne has made welcome efforts to provide discounted tickets to younger people and that is, of course, desirable and necessary. But I hope it does not make me an unthinking privileged person to note that the formal dress and all day experience help to make Glyndebourne such a very special place. A delightful play and more thought-provoking than anticipated.

 

The Winter’s Tale (WE)

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The Winter’s Tale is a play of two very different halves. The first half, dour and serious, filled with darkness, jealousy and vengeance, and then the second half, lighter and happier, complete with peasants, dancing and dénouement. Branagh’s approach did not deviate from this, but the first half began with a pleasant sense of gemütlichkeit, cosiness and contentment, which made the ensuing poison of jealousy and despair that much more effective. Christopher Oram’s set was beautifully cosy and reminiscent of the Nutcracker, with velvet fabrics, Victorian costumes, a Christmas tree and some atmospheric snow. It was the least Sicilian Sicilia I have ever seen, but it worked very well in November in London.

I have long been a fan of Kenneth Branagh’s, since his elegant films of Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing brought a clear, somewhat abridged version of Shakespeare to the wilds of my local multiplex, many years ago. His tabloid exploits and youthful arrogance, vilified in the press on this side of the pond, largely passed me by. I always enjoy seeing him on stage, and his performance as Leontes was no exception. Initial reports indicated that he was overacting somewhat, but I did not notice this. I thought his interpretation was as clearly voiced and interpretively generous as usual. His interactions with Miranda Raison’s beautiful (if somewhat chilly) Hermione were well done, and the creeping sense of jealousy that invaded his senses was done gradually and did not feel inevitable. As the atmosphere turned colder and Leontes turned against Hermione, the anguish was palpable. Pierre Atri did extremely well as Mamilius, in a difficult and lengthy role for a young person to memorise.

Every time I see Judi Dench on stage, I am reminded of just how wonderful she is. I have seen her in bad plays (Madame de Sade comes, wincingly, to mind) but I have never seen her give even a mediocre performance. Her Paulina was wise and every word she spoke perfectly timed. She speaks iambic pentameter as though it were prose. Long may she grace our stages. Michael Pennington was a beautifully voiced Antigonus and John Shrapnel an affecting Camillo.

It was a pleasure to see Hadley Fraser (Polixenes), Adam Garcia (Amadis) and John Dagleish (Autolycus) in Shakespeare (as opposed to their usual musical theatre). Fraser played it straight in the first half and his explosion in the second in the confrontation with Florizel was genuinely frightening. I knew Dagleish was funny, but his performance as Autolycus revealed hidden skills, such as his ability to switch accents on a dime and his ability as an excellent physical comedian.

The second half brought, as always, lightness and relief. Jimmy Yuill’s Shepherd was funny and again beautifully timed. There was wonderful chemistry between Tom Bateman’s earthy, lusty Florizel and Jessie Buckley’s exquisitely voiced Perdita. Rob Ashford choreographed some delightful dancing, which I could have watched for much longer than it went on. The climax of the piece was acted with great delicacy of feeling by Branagh and narrated with perfect timing by Dench. I had rather hoped for a traditional dance to finish off with, as I had enjoyed the Bohemian dancing so very much. It was a wistful, poignant ending to a very enjoyable production of the play. A good start to the Branagh Company’s season.