Hamilton (Broadway)

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It has been an extremely difficult and physically and mentally demanding couple of weeks, involving much travel and more emotional trauma. I cancelled pretty much everything and changed all plans to spend as much time in Canada as possible, so I had about 12 very sickly hours in New York. But I was determined to spend 3 of those hours watching Hamilton (and trying, desperately, not to cough).

It has been the most-hyped new musical of my memory. I really wondered if anything could live up to the almost hysterical praise it has received. It was not a perfect musical, but it was a great leap forward. Its clever word smithery and use of hip hop, combined with outstanding choreography, pared down costumes, effective acting and generally beautiful singing meant that I felt that I was witnessing the birth of a new art form. I felt as the audience must have done in New York in 1949, watching South Pacific for the first time and knowing that the world of musical theatre would never be the same again.

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s masterpiece here can be anticipated in his work in In the Heights. His use of melody, inventive mixing of musical genres and (it must be said) very short scenes that ensure that a modern audience never loses focus were previewed there. The transitions, in particular, are extremely well done. But the subject matter here is deeper, richer and more meaningful. I have never explicitly been taught US history of the relevant period, but have absorbed it by osmosis through my studies and wider reading. Miranda expertly explains who all of these people are and gives them distinct personalities, very quickly and effectively. The story cycles rapidly from the revolution, to the birth of the nation in 1776, to the constitutional conventions, to the elections of the early 19th century, and then the ultimately fatal duel (if nothing else, this musical demonstrates very effectively why duelling was a horrific waste of life and should have been outlawed sooner than it was).

The casting also deserves special praise. As I saw a Sunday matinee, I saw Javier Muñoz as Hamilton rather than Miranda himself. Muñoz was clever, handsome, a beautiful singer and an emotionally devastating actor, especially in Act 2. He gave his all to the performance. I must admit that I could not say the same of all the cast, although I could not point to any particular person who was slacking. There just seemed a general tendency to mark and to hold back a little emotionally. This was, however, decidedly not the case for Philippa Soo’s exquisite Eliza, who played the ingenue beautifully in the first act and then blew me away with her depth of feeling in the second.

The men all had lovely voices, great energy and lots of presence. As an alumna of Mr Jefferson’s university and a person who is morally conflicted about the man himself (as, frankly, we all ought to be) it was a treat to see him played by Daveed Diggs, who was six foot something of pure charisma. He was a delight as Lafayette in the first half, but his appearance at the beginning of the second half as Jefferson reenergised the show and made me sit up a little straighter every time he came on stage. His mic drop rap battles with Hamilton were one of the highlights of the show, including phenomenal lines such as, “A civics lesson from a slaver.  Hey neighbor/Your debts are paid ’cause you don’t pay for labor.” The show is full of such rhyming gems spat out at breakneck speed. I may have to download the cast album just to pick up on the nuances of the text.

A hero of the show (and of the Founding Fathers) for me was George Washington, beautifully and authoritatively played by Christopher Jackson. We forget that the notion that a president’s term ought to come to an end was by no means a given, especially in the late 18th century. Andrew Rannells’ very funny George III (which reminded me of Hugh Laurie’s fabulous Prince Regent in Blackadder) explains this in the most direct way possible. Jackson’s portrayal of Washington reminded us of the essential dignity and nobility that he demonstrated by standing aside, the simplest and most profound act he could do. Leslie Odom, Jr as Aaron Burr, Renée Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler, Okieriete Onaodowan as Mulligan and Madison, and the rest of the cast were also very, very good.

My criticisms may seem very nit-picky, but I think are important. On the more petty side, I don’t think anyone with any sense would have described New York in the 1770s as the “greatest city in the world.” It wasn’t even the greatest city in the colonies, as Boston was much bigger and more sophisticated. On the more significant side, it must be noted that the British abolished slavery much earlier than the Americans, and the musical dances around this fact quite a lot, seeming to criticise the British for what would ultimately be the original sin of the southern states.

That said, it was truly inspiring to see a very diverse cast paying homage to the men who founded their country. Most of the founding fathers would not have looked this cast in the eye. But the founding fathers, human though they were, were inspired by something greater than themselves, something greater than even they knew (ahem, Scalia). When they said that “all men are created equal,” they didn’t mean the men on that stage. And they didn’t mean women. But they created an ideal that has inspired the best in some very talented people for centuries. And it has inspired a piece of art that could not have been created in any other country on earth. I salute it, and I’m so glad that I saw it (and, by mainlining pre-unwrapped lozenges, I managed not to cough). A guaranteed Tony-winning smash.

People, Places and Things (NT/Headlong)

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I booked this not knowing anything about it, but just because I tend to book everything the NT has on offer these days, and I skip anything that seems to sink without trace (ahem, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire). I was enthralled from the first, when Denise Gough’s Emma (or is she) made an indelible impression in the waiting room of a rehabilitation facility. From there, Duncan Macmillan’s play manages to make rehab interesting, exciting, and naturally harrowing.

In rehab (for alcohol and pills) Emma, a somewhat unsuccessful actress, meets a doctor and a therapist who resemble her Mum, all played and strongly differentiated by Barbara Marten. Alistair Cope’s Foster is a fellow addict who now works for the facility, and the other inhabitants include Nathaniel Martello-White’s Mark, who is cynical and clever, and Scottish Paul (Kevin McMonagle) who also plays Emma’s Dad.

At first, Emma resists fully. She does not want to be there and sabotages treatment at every possible opportunity. An atheist, she rejects the concept of a higher power and considers herself too bright and well educated to surrender to any irrational concept. At one stage, she recites the plot of Hedda Gabler as her life story, thinking that no one would spot it. The play explains very well the dilemma of many an intelligent addict – how on earth can I get through life, which is essentially meaningless and frequently painful, without a little purchased relief? And why am I unable to stop at a little relief, but must pursue a lot of it?

I find it difficult to articulate precisely why Denise Gough’s performance was so extraordinary. It is a physically demanding role and she throws herself into it. But more than that, she simply takes you inside the mind of an addict with laser-sharp precision. Addicts lie, and Emma lies, right up until the end of the play. We’re never sure whether what she is telling us is the whole truth. She’s a narcissist, like many actors and all addicts, but with the curse of low self esteem thrown in (again like all addicts). Much has been made of the fact that Emma is an actress, but this seems to me to ignore the fact that all addicts are actors. They have to be. They’re all pretending to be someone else, someone who doesn’t need chemical help to get through life. What makes Gough’s performance so utterly amazing are the depths of emotion that are so clearly reflected on her shattered face. It is the finest performance I have seen on stage this year, and I hope that she wins every award going.

The other members of the cast are also very good. Martello-White’s Mark in particular is a realist who knows that he has done awful things in the grip of his addiction. He knows that making amends is a much more difficult thing to do than its benign name suggests. Not all of Emma’s peers in rehab successfully beat their addictions, and the look on Gough’s face when she discovers this will not soon leave my memory.

This is getting a West End transfer and it very much deserves to be seen by a wider audience. It is not a morality tale; it is finer than that. Those who can have one drink and leave it at that should see it, in order to understand the mentality of those who cannot. An absolute triumph.

Medea (Almeida)

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Medea is one of those plays that I generally enjoy seeing, as despite its goriness, it is an opportunity for our greatest actresses to show us the full range of their skills. Helen McCrory’s astonishing performance of a couple of years ago will have a long life in my memory. I have always enjoyed Kate Fleetwood’s performances (most recently in a very different role in High Society) so it was with a pleasant sense of anticipation that I set off for  Islington.

The Almeida’s Greeks season has been, to my mind, an unqualified success. Oresteia was stunning and Bakkhai pleasantly memorable (although there was far too much of the chorus). This version of Medea was the most radically changed from the original of all of the Greeks season plays. I enjoyed it and thought it enormously effective, but I do not anticipate a long life for this, as it is vividly and determinedly tied to life in London circa 2015.

Fleetwood’s Medea is an immediately recognisable North London type: beautiful, not in the first flush of youth and very conscious of that fact, and deeply despairing of where her life and energy have gone. Jason (a diffident and frustrated Jason Salinger) has left her for a younger, richer woman, and this is destroying her. She is reevaluating her life and her decision to have children, as many women do (but of course never admit it). She focuses, increasingly, on that part of her children that comes from Jason, and the love and hate for him are transferred to the children in the end. This, again, seemed very realistic to me. It is only natural to respond most strongly to the elements in your children that come from yourself, and to react negatively to those elements that come from your partner and which you don’t particularly like.

This soul-searching is reinforced well by the chorus, transformed into a group of North London yummy mummies, who make it clear that Medea’s questioning does not fit in with the herd. This again rings very true, as I understand that those who have children are often shocked by the conformity required at the school gate. If one doesn’t fit in, life becomes very difficult. Michele Austin added a welcome dose of reality as the Brazilian cleaner who doesn’t have the luxury of ennui enjoyed by the North London privileged brigade. It was interesting to make Richard Cant’s Aegeus a gay man contemplating having children with his partner via surrogate, but it did not add much to the play beyond expanding the discussion of parenthood and felt rather detached and academic.

Andy de la Tour’s outstanding performance as Creon was anything but dry and academic. He now controls Medea’s finances, her lifeline to the outside world. In one devastating scene, he lays bare all of the insecurities that many 40-something women feel, from the loss of their looks to becoming invisible to more intimate physical changes. It was like having one’s soul exposed to the world by a particularly vicious London taxi driver. Rachel Cusk has outdone herself with this play, navel-gazing though it may appear.

Fleetwood’s performance is, of course, outstanding. You truly felt her love, her rage and her anguish. I have never felt such lack of sympathy for Jason, and I have never felt the inevitability of the end of the play more strongly. I am still not sure whether it was a truly extraordinary version of the play or it only seemed extraordinary because it was set so close to my own milieu, but it was, undeniably, gripping and beautifully acted. Closing soon, but highly recommended.

Jonas Kaufmann, Royal Festival Hall

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Jonas Kaufmann, the McDreamy of the opera world. I have heard recordings of his dark, intense tenor and seen the brooding photos that are inescapable for anyone who loves opera. But I had never heard him in person before tonight. I must admit to having wondered whether anyone could live up to the hype. I needn’t have worried; his singing was exquisite.

The evening was devoted solely to Puccini, and Kaufmann was partnered by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The evening began a trifle inauspiciously with a Prelude symphonic for which the rhythm was somewhat shaky, and “Ecco la casa,” from Le Villi, in which Kaufmann’s burnished tenor seemed slightly strained (although the top B flat was stunning). But everything from then on was utter pleasure (with the mild exception of the LPO’s Intermezzo from Suor Angelica, which was a bit tentative).

The first half contained selections from Le Villi (as mentioned), Edgar, and Manon Lescaut. I was only familiar with “Donna non vidi am” and “Guardate, pazzo son” from the latter opera, and perhaps it is for that reason that I thought they were by far the finest moments in that half. It is much easier to sing well loudly than to sing well quietly, and I was utterly gobsmacked by Kaufmann’s mastery of dynamic control and constant, absolute attachment to pitch. The LPO, and conductor Jochen Rieder, also deserve praise for their attention to detail and similar dynamic control.

The second half began with selections from Tosca, and I have never heard a better “E lucevan le stelle.” Ordinarily, artists in recital make lip service to acting, and focus only on the voice. Not Kaufmann – if I closed my eyes, I would have believed myself at the beginning of the final act of Tosca. It was utterly beautiful, perfectly despairing, and as subtle as that aria could possibly have been. It did not leave me in the state of bliss that it ought to have done, however, as I was filled with rage at the coughing hordes who hacked up lungs during what should have been only music. I was not alone in my anger, however, and the collective feeling of the healthy majority of the audience seemed to have pierced the shell of selfishness of the afflicted, resulting in (relatively) peaceful silence for the rest of the half.

Intermezzi from Madama Butterfly and Suor Angelica represented the LPO’s primary contributions to the second half, and Kaufmann’s “Una parola sola…Or son sei mesi” produced more glorious, bang on-pitch B flats. But the unquestioned highlight of this half was Kaufmann’s Nessun Dorma. There are a very few instances of great art that retain their power no matter how cliched they have become. The Ride of the Valkyries, Hamlet’s To Be or Not To Be speech, etc. Nessun Dorma is amongst those, and listening to Kaufmann’s vocal intelligence and that spinning, espresso tone, I truly believed that Calaf would win. It was phenomenal.

The encores included more selections from Tosca and Fanciulla, and went beyond Puccini to include selections like Refice’s Ombra di nube. It was a stupendous, stonking evening. And after the first admiration of the dinner jacket, I didn’t think once about his looks. The voice was all.

In the Heights

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I have spent my adult life circling around, but never really living in, New York City. But it is one of that city’s peculiar gifts that even those who have spent little time there can feel at home. I normally detest when theatrical productions are called “life-affirming,” but this Lin-Manuel Miranda musical was a true affirmation of life in Washington Heights as it was in the mid-2000s. The area is gentrifying (or, as a friend told me we are supposed to say now, “up and coming”) but Washington Heights has traditionally been a Dominican (and Puerto Rican) neighbourhood, and the musical represents a last pop of colour and culture before the inexorable market forces took over.

I didn’t make it to this at Southwark and made the trek up to the small King’s Cross Theatre, which is running this and The Railway Children in rep, with few expectations (I did wonder how long the theatre would be there, given the gentrification occurring in King’s Cross itself). I was absolutely blown away. This is a joyous musical with cracking tunes, beautifully danced, sung and acted by an energetic and very talented cast. I enjoyed it enormously and hope that it gains the audience it very much deserves.

In the Heights is an urban drama with overlapping storylines, in the manner of Rent. Nina (Lily Frazer, effervescent) is the local girl upon whom the community has pinned their hopes, as she was a straight-A student in high school, feted by the Mayor, who has just returned from her first year at Stanford. Kevin (authoritatively played by David Bedella) and Camila (Josie Benson, channelling Vanessa Williams) are her parents, who have spent their lives building up a car service business. Benny (Joe Aaron Reid, jaw-droppingly gorgeous) works for the business and quietly holds a torch for Nina. On the other, more scrappy side of the street, Usnavi (Sam Mackay, who deftly balances the requisite swagger and vulnerability) helps out his Abuela Claudia (Eve Polycarpou, touchingly beautiful) while trying to get up the courage to ask out Vanessa (radiant Jade Ewen) and managing his immature cousin Sonny (a charming Cleve September). The neighbourhood hair salon includes local busybody Daniela (hilariously played by a heavily pregnant Victoria Hamilton-Barritt) and slightly dim Carla (Sarah Naudi). The rest of the ensemble is similarly talented and sang and danced beautifully throughout.

Nina’s story was particularly resonant. It is very difficult, as a talented teenager who has done well in a small pond, to cope with a new, much larger and much more privileged environment. This is particularly the case when your family and community are very proud of you, but do not understand the particular challenges that such students must face when switching between the two. A lovely scene between Nina and Benny deftly addresses this code-switching. Frazer and Reid, and Bedella and Benson as the parents, played these scenes straight, without excessive sentimentality.

Another cliche that I normally abhor is the notion of a “love letter” to a particular place, but again I must eat my words. I am not sure what the London audience made of it, but references to the GWB, the Deegan, the Cloisters, the West Side Highway, etc made me almost homesick. There were lovely nods to the influence of other New Yorkers, with “a little schmutz” being wiped off Usnavi’s face and a delightful line, “If you’re buyin’, L’Chaim!” Reference was made as well to the Irish-Americans who previously inhabited Washington Heights, acknowledging that any city is a work in progress. The only thing I missed were the “Happy to Serve You” iconic blue coffee cups.

Lin-Manuel Miranda is the toast of New York at the moment for Hamilton (which I am very much looking forward to seeing), but this earlier effort of his is a somewhat hidden treat. I left with a smile on my face and, very unusually for me, a desire to see it again. Very highly recommended.

London Film Festival

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I do enjoy a good gala. The red carpet, the frocks, the people who dress up to the nines in the hopes that someone will take their picture…it’s all delightful. And the films aren’t bad either. I’ve seen five films at the LFF this year, and it has been a particularly woman-friendly year.

Suffragette This unabashedly feminist film stars Carey Mulligan as a working class woman who gradually gains political consciousness and seeks suffrage. She does excellent work, as do Ben Whishaw as her husband and Anne-Marie Duff as a fellow washerwoman and activist. Meryl Streep has a cameo role (seriously, it’s shorter than Judi Dench’s screen time in Shakespeare in Love) as Emmeline Pankhurst, and Romola Garai is a middle class woman who helps to fund the movement. It’s an important film, and a well-made and well acted one. There’s nothing particularly surprising if you know anything about the history of the suffragette movement and the film is more competent than extraordinary, but I hope that it is a success and that young women (who are among the least likely to vote) will exercise the right that their great-great-grandmothers suffered and died to gain.

He Named Me Malala I have long been an admirer of Malala Yousafzai, the young activist who was shot by the Taliban for being an advocate for girls’ education and who has recovered and made her life in Birmingham (because she hadn’t suffered enough before) (wee joke). This documentary is effective and uses beautiful illustrations to tell stories of life in the Swat Valley, where the Yousafzai family lived before being forced to leave. But the most effective scenes are those where the Yousafzai family reveal themselves as a charming family, and Malala a normal teenage girl with crushes on Shane Watson, Shahid Afridi and Roger Federer. Albeit a normal teenage girl who (spoiler alert) wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

Room I read Emma Donoghue’s 2010 book on which this film was based, and could never have imagined how they would make a half-decent film about it. This is the story of 5-year old Jack and his Ma, who live together in Room. They are kept there by Old Nick, who kidnapped Ma seven years before and has kept them confined (as with Josef Fritzl and Ariel Castro) ever since. The book was told entirely from Jack’s perspective, a difficult feat that Donoghue somehow managed to pull off. The film achieves similar miracles, which is partly down to the filmmaking and mostly down to astonishing performances from Jacob Tremblay as Jack and, especially, Brie Larson as Ma. Larson is absolutely extraordinary, making her love for Jack, her despair at the situation and her frantic desire to escape crystal clear. I have no idea how a 26-year old pulled off that performance. This is a film that really does not benefit from spoilers, so I will not say too much about what happens next. But there is wonderful work from Joan Allen as Ma’s mother and William H. Macy from her father as well. One scene where Ma says to her own mother, words to the effect of, “If you hadn’t taught me to be so nice, this wouldn’t have happened to me,” hit me like a punch in the gut. We do teach our daughters to be too nice. We need to encourage them to fight back. An extraordinary film, one of the best I have seen in this or any other year. I hope it, and Larson’s performance, get the recognition they deserve.

Brooklyn After Room, just about anything would have seemed trite. But Brooklyn was a charming palate cleanser. I read and enjoyed the book, but I maintain that had it been written by a woman instead of Colm Toibin, it would have been relegated to the “chick lit” section of the bookstore, instead of being feted as literature. (See also Jonathan Franzen). Saoirse Ronan is Eilis Lacey, a young Irish woman who is given a chance to emigrate to New York in the 1950s. Homesick at first, she grows to love the city and a young Italian-American man named Tony (Emory Cohen). But when she is forced to return to Ireland, she must decide whether to stay and move forward with local boy Jim (Domnhall Gleason) or return to Brooklyn. I very much enjoyed the exploration of how one’s notion of “home” can grow, and change, and perhaps be expanded rather than limited. It was beautifully shot and had excellent performances throughout. But it felt lightweight. A diversion.

Carol Well, I suppose I should have known what I was getting into with a Todd Haynes film. However, I enjoyed Far From Heaven enormously and the cast list for Carol was very intriguing. Cate Blanchett is Carol, a wealthy woman in 1950s New York with a husband (an excellent Kyle Chandler) and a young daughter. She’s also bored to tears, at least until she meets Therese (Rooney Mara) in the doll department of a department store (groan). From there, it’s all wide eyes and close-ups of exquisite cheekbones until they (finally, after many too many longing looks) get it on. But I could have done with rather less longing and rather more passion (and I don’t mean more sex scenes). It was a very idealised view of a lesbian relationship, and it seemed to me to come from the perspective of someone who really wasn’t interested in showing them wanting to be with each other in a sexual way. It also must be said that Mara, while beautiful, and thin, and possessed of lovely cheekbones, has rather a blank face. Blanchett, of the thousand facial expressions, did her best, but even she couldn’t create chemistry out of thin air. Frankly, I would have been much more interested in watching a film about the relationship between Carol and her (presumably) ex-lover and present friend Abby, gloriously played by Sarah Paulson. Watchable, but missable.

October Catch-Up Post

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Yet again I have fallen behind. It’s a busy time of year! So here we have another catch-up post to get back on track.

The Red Lion (NT)
I am not immune to the allure of the beautiful game at the top level. Messi’s impossible brilliance, Cristiano Ronaldo’s frustrating perfection and even Wayne Rooney’s brutish elegance are not lost on me. But I have never really loved football for its own sake, especially at the unglamorous, semi-pro league level portrayed in Patrick Marber’s well structured three-hander. Calvin Demba, Daniel Mays and Peter Wight were very strong as the young talent, desperate manager and aging heart and soul of the club, respectively. The comedy and passion elicited by Marber from this situation were remarkable, and I found myself caring desperately about the characters. It will be interesting to see if it is revived in a couple of years, and what the state of football will be when it is. One of two beautifully written Marber plays in this round-up.

Hangmen (Royal Court)
I have always enjoyed Martin McDonagh’s plays in the past, but thought his voice uniquely Irish. So it was something of a shock to see that he is equally comfortable (or seems to be, I am far from an expert) writing in the vernacular of the north of England. This unusual and blackly comic play involving retired hangmen (capital punishment having been abolished in England in 1965) was one of the funniest and most disturbing plays I have seen in ages. A stellar cast was led by David Morrissey as Harry, a retired hangman, and Johnny Flynn as Mooney, a slightly disturbing young man who may not be quite what he seems. A scene where Mooney employs classic “negging” and pick-up artist techniques on Harry’s teenage daughter Shirley (Bronwyn James, perfectly gullible) sent shivers down my spine and made me want to buy a copy of “The Gift of Fear” for every teenage girl in the world. It’s being given a West End transfer. Go, you won’t regret it.

La Musica (Young Vic)
A short two-hander about the end of a marriage, by Marguerite Duras. It began with the couple (played by Emily Barclay and Sam Troughton in a marvel of concentration) sitting on a raised plinth with their backs to us. Cameras projected their faces to us on the wall in extreme close-up, and I must confess to marvelling at Barclay’s beautiful complexion and lack of visible pores as much as the couple’s (exquisite) acting. In the second half, the couple moved to a small area to one side, and the audience followed, surrounding them. Such an atmosphere of claustrophobia added to the tension inevitably felt by the audience. It was an effective play, but I couldn’t help but feel that it would be utterly exhausting being married to either of the narcissistic, self-absorbed characters. An interesting experiment.

Tipping the Velvet (Lyric Hammersmith)
A play written by Laura Wade (who wrote Posh, which I thoroughly enjoyed), directed by Lyndsey Turner (a director whose productions I always find thought-provoking) and based on a beautifully written book about Victorian lesbians by Sarah Waters (one of my favourite authors in the world). What could possibly go wrong? Oh dear oh dear oh dear. It looked amateurish, seemed to last forever, and worst of all, there was no chemistry between Kitty (Laura Rogers) and Nancy (Sally Messham). The cast were talented (particularly Messham, who is clearly one to watch) but not enough to keep us there. After a first half of an hour and twenty minutes and faced with a second half of about the same length of time, we decided that discretion was the better part of valour and abandoned the effort. Stick to the BBC miniseries or better yet, the book.

Three Days in the Country (NT)
You may be wondering, what happened to the rest of the month? It was truncated in this version of Turgenev’s masterpiece, simply and effectively updated by Patrick Marber. The play was once memorably described by a friend of mine as “it’s just posh Russians going on about love,” but they go on very articulately in Marber’s version. Amanda Drew was a beautiful and charming Natalya, although as ever with this play, I found it difficult to believe that simply everyone was in love with her. John Simm was a dignified and funny Rakitin, and Lily Sacofsky a passionate and very young Vera. John Light’s Arkady was fiery (and his beard surprisingly flattering) and Mark Gatiss brought welcome notes of levity as Shpigelsky. Royce Pierreson was something of a blank as Belyaev, but then the character is supposed to be a blank on which others project their own feelings (and boy, do these people have a lot of feelings). It doesn’t matter though, as Pierreson is going to be a star. He has simply buckets of star quality, beautiful intensity, and great presence. An unusual though effective set, a great script and a wonderful cast made this an evening to remember. Highly recommended.

Hamlet, Revisited

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The media frenzy has died down and Cumberbatch and co have settled into the business of getting the thing done every night. I was delighted to have the opportunity to revisit the play so I could see how it had changed since the previews.

I must admit to being somewhat disappointed. The set was still as stunning as ever, but the changes made in response to the initial criticisms diminished the production significantly. First, the ‘to be or not to be speech’ was moved back to its proper place. This made sense structurally, but it meant that the prologue, with Hamlet sitting with his father’s record player, had very little meaning. They removed many of the instances of Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy and cut down the toy motif significantly. This had the effect of removing the emotional immaturity that I had rather enjoyed in the preview performance, and there were no overall themes to be found in its place. Ophelia’s characterisation was also changed, with her photography and piano-playing gone and a rather forced scene of passion with Hamlet inserted. Her exit, followed by Gertrude (which I had found touching) was also changed. Overall, it felt rather like the direction was being done by committee. There were aspects of the direction I had disliked in the preview, but at least I understood the themes. Here, there were no themes, but merely theatrical mush.

Some aspects of the production were changed for the better. Ciaran Hinds has grown into the role and is an excellent Claudius. They sorted Anastasia Hille’s microphone issues, but didn’t turn it up loudly enough. They restored some of Polonius’s speeches, which meant that we got to hear more of Jim Norton’s beautifully resonant speaking voice (and they’re awfully good speeches). There were cuts made, though, to Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’s excellent Laertes and a Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern that I had rather enjoyed.

Cumberbatch himself was just as good as ever. His Hamlet remains fiercely intelligent and athletic and the speeches beautifully voiced. He has settled into the role and I did enjoy his performance very much. However, the lighter moments seemed to have gone by the wayside, and there were only a couple of moments of laughter.

So I would say to directors: stick to your guns! If you have a vision, carry on with it. I do acknowledge that it’s difficult to do that when you’re working with a huge star and the most hyped theatrical production of the year, however. I also hope that this experience doesn’t put Cumberbatch off returning to the stage, as I enjoy his theatre work very much. An interesting experiment. And if it means that more people enjoy and are not put off by Shakespeare, then it will have been worthwhile.

Mr Foote’s Other Leg (Hampstead)

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I will make a particular effort to see a play if I know that a favourite actor is in it. Mark Rylance of course, David Tennant, Anne-Marie Duff, Helen McCrory, etc. But there is no actor that I will move heaven and earth more to see than my beloved Simon Russell Beale (I am a very typical middle-aged theatre lover). So it was that in the middle of an extremely busy week, I made the trek up to the charming Hampstead Theatre to see Mr Foote’s Other Leg, a play about which I knew nothing other than that SRB was in it (and that the theatre had set up a special gin bar in celebration, which I must admit was almost as big a draw as the man himself).

Mr Foote’s Other Leg is a play about many things: the Georgian era, the law, and slavery to name but a few. But mostly it is that often slightly depressing thing, a love letter to the theatre. Happily, in this case, it was a sparkling, charming letter, filled with wit and energy and making one almost wish to be transported to the era. (That “almost” is important, as the play does not shy away from the inconvenient truth that the past was a treacherous place filled with dangers at every turn).

SRB was Mr Foote, and he was a delight in the role, which allowed him to be foul-mouthed, vulgar, touching, and his usual intelligent self. His interactions with the newly free Frank Barber (Micah Balfour, in a sensitive performance) were admittedly anachronistic, but very pleasing. Joseph Millson was lean and elegant as David Garrick, and as a person with some knowledge of the law I found his lines to be pithy and witty. (Rather unusually, I seemed to be somewhat alone in my laughter, which is not often the case, so either not many lawyers were present or my pre-show gin was particularly effective).

All the audience joined in the laughter at the lines from Ian Kelly, who was the best Prince George I have seen since Hugh Laurie’s effort in Blackadder. But my favourite performance was Dervla Kirwan’s gorgeous Peg Woffington. I often find Kirwan a bit of an ice queen, but here she was funny, human, very beautiful and deeply moving.

The play itself was by turns hilarious, thought-provoking (particularly about the nature of celebrity, as true today as it was in the Georgian era) and the two hours forty minutes flew by. One caveat – if you are squeamish, perhaps give this one a miss. It is not graphic exactly, but you are made entirely aware of the means by which the play is given its name. Highly recommended for all with strong stomachs.

Photograph 51

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After the drubbing I received for reviewing Hamlet during its preview period, I hesitated before posting this review. I do not anticipate that Nicole Kidman’s more enthusiastic fans reach the heights of Cumber-mania, however, and therefore I will proceed (albeit with some trepidation).

Photograph 51 tells the story of Rosalind Franklin (Kidman), a talented chemist and crystallographer working at King’s College in the postwar period. Her photographs were instrumental in contributing to the discovery of the structure of DNA that was ultimately made by James Watson (Will Attenborough) and Francis Crick (Edward Bennett). She worked, somewhat uneasily, alongside diffident Professor Maurice Wilkins (Stephen Campbell Moore) and sympathetic PhD student Ray Gosling (Joshua Silver). Don Caspar, an American postdoc (Patrick Kennedy) was the final player.

I enjoyed this play (beautifully written by Anna Ziegler) very much. It was whip-smart, feminist, and above all, interesting from start to finish. It explored issues of misogyny, anti-semitism, scientific collaboration and theft, and even romance. I was reminded of poor Tim Hunt, who was hounded for suggesting that it’s difficult to have women in a lab because “you fall in love with them and they fall in love with you.” Now, that was a joke, and the poor man has certainly paid for it. It is an inconvenient truth, however, that in all workplaces (not just labs), people fall in love with each other (and not just heterosexually) and this can wreak havoc on the work. We are all expected to act professionally and most of us do, but it is human nature that most people find it very difficult to pretend that they don’t have feelings.

At any rate, that was a minor, but interesting, point in the play. The focus was on Franklin’s work, and Kidman did a good job developing her clever, prickly character. She seemed to be having some difficulty in making the transition back from screen to stage, as she was sometimes larger than life and at certain moments impossibly subtle. This is a performance that I think will bed in significantly over the preview period, and I would like to see it again before the end of the run to see how it develops. Her accent was acceptably English, but not nearly posh enough for the period (although none of the other actors went for a period accent either). Having seen a significant amount of celebrity casting this summer (American Buffalo, The Elephant Man) and not having been particularly impressed by the plays themselves, I came away most impressed with Kidman’s acumen in choosing the play.

The other actors were all very good. Will Attenborough was the standout for me as a delightfully obnoxious James Watson, complete with spot-on American accent and some of the best lines (one enjoyable line was to the effect of “Religion is a scam run by the rich to keep down the poor,” which resonates rather well in contemplating US politics). The others were also excellent, providing ample illustration of the points that Ziegler makes about men and women, sexism and misogyny. I appreciated the set, which felt suitably dank for King’s College in 1951. (As someone who has taken language classes on the lower ground floor of King’s College, I can attest that it can be somewhat dank even today).

The play ends with the end of Franklin’s life, about which I will be vague (although its foreshadowing was subtly and exquisitely done). Watson, Crick and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962, but Rosalind Franklin’s contribution to the study of nucleic acids is growing in recognition. Recommended.