A Marvellous Year for Plums, Chichester Festival Theatre, May 2012

Following the debacle of the Suez crisis, Anthony Eden resigned as Prime Minister in January 1957, and he and his wife took ship to New Zealand. In this play a young Steward serves him tea, and Eden commends him on winning a boxing competition on board. They get into conversation, and when Eden asks the young man his name he gets the response, “Prescott, Sir”. The audience fell about.

Ian Fleming, Eden, Clarissa and Ann, all images Manuel Harlan

But this clever play by Hugh Whitemore is no comedy. And nor was the meeting between Eden and Prescott mere poetic licence, just a light moment amidst a serious study of political events that went badly wrong in 1956. Yet the grave nature of what was going on is relieved by a love affair, along with brief dancing interludes to excellent musical arrangements from Matthew Scott. The clever set designs by Simon Higlett allow scenes to merge from one to the next as various characters are slowly swept in or out of view by a revolving ring on the stage, aided by subtle lighting from James Whiteside, and this production by Philip Franks has great forward momentum.

Gaitskell and Ann

1956 was of course the year that Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, and this play shows Eden’s extraordinary mishandling of the crisis. Firm in resolve to take military action, then willing to back off under American pressure even when the French told him to sleep on it first. Eden interrupts the French PM at lunch when he is discussing the formation of the European Economic Community with the Germans, and acting as perfidious Albion didn’t help Britain’s case, to say nothing of the lack of moral clarity that surely affected our response to the Soviet invasion of Hungary. What a year it was.

Anthony Andrews portrayed Eden as a decent man yet inadequate prime minister, with Abigail Cruttenden entirely convincing as Clarissa his devoted (second) wife. Nicholas Le Prevost was excellent as Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the opposition, who is carrying on an affair with the delectable Ann Fleming, elegantly played by Imogen Stubbs. Gaitskell accused Eden of being the captain of a sinking ship that he steered onto the rocks, but the real opposition close at hand was Anthony Nutting, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. Fiercely played by Martin Hutson, we see him with David Yelland as an urbane Selwyn Lloyd, successor as Foreign Secretary to Eden himself, but described by Macmillan as “a middle class lawyer from Liverpool”.

Eden and his wife

These were the days when Class counted in a way that it doesn’t now, and three of the characters in this play were Old Etonians: Eden, Nutting, and Ian Fleming, while Gaitskell went to Winchester, and Selwyn Lloyd to Fettes. Fleming appears very much as a man of the world, attractively played by Simon Dutton, and he and his wife Ann are friends of the Edens. They are with them when the telephone call comes through saying the last troops have been withdrawn from Egypt. Eden spills his drink and lets out a yell like a wounded animal. This was a man who lost two brothers in the First World War and a son in the Second. His attempt to be a man of peace brought war, albeit briefly, and humiliation for both himself and Britain.

How would it have been different if they’d pushed on? Selwyn Lloyd muses on these things, and has no answers. But towards the end, Eden’s father, an irascible baronet whose occasional stage appearances lie in Eden’s imagination, has some cutting words to say about how to live your life, “Run straight … don’t play a double game …”. Eden did and he failed. We hear Rab Butler’s gibe that Eden was “half mad baronet, half beautiful woman”, referring to his father and mother, and towards the end we even see them both dancing together.

This play is cleverly constructed, with video images adding a subtle background, and in exposing the British background to the tragedies of 1956 it is hugely effective. As to the title, you have to wait for the words of Selwyn Lloyd’s gardener, for whom international politics holds not the slightest interest. But if you are interested, this is a must-see that should surely go on to the West End.

Performances continue until June 2 — for details click here.

The Deep Blue Sea, Chichester Festival Theatre, August 2011

A shilling in the meter, for those of us who remember, was essential to keep the gas and electricity going. Awfully annoying when the money runs out unexpectedly, but in this case it saves Hester’s life. She took sleeping pills and put on the gas deliberately.

Collyer and Hester, all photos Manuel Harlan

As Mrs. Page she complains about being a ‘golf widow’, but when she’s found half gassed to death it turns out she’s really Mrs. Collyer, estranged wife of the judge, Sir William, superbly played by Anthony Calf. He’d no idea where she was living, but as soon as he’s told he comes round immediately. He still cares, very much, but has pretended not to, “I thought my indifference would hurt your vanity”. At the end of Act I we find out why she chose this moment to commit suicide. We also meet her lover Freddie Page, beautifully played by John Hopkins. He’s an ex-test pilot, ex-RAF, with good looks and charm that exceed by a long way his ability to earn a living.

Freddie Page

The ultimate failure of their relationship is inevitable, but the ending remains very much in doubt at the start of Act III, which was prefaced by music from one of Britten’s four sea interludes. Mr. Miller, the ex-doctor, very ably portrayed by Pip Donaghy, is the key to hope. He seems to understand her, “Most people commit suicide to escape. You do so because you feel you’re unworthy”. There is more where that comes from, “To live without hope is to live without despair”. Donaghy was excellent, as was Susan Tracy as Mrs. Elton the landlady. She is the epitome of common sense in this wonderful play by Terence Rattigan.

The trouble for me was that I didn’t really care whether Hester lived or died. As Mr. Miller says, “The purpose of life is to live”, but she seemed to lack a vitality that must have attracted Freddie in the first place. Amanda Root played Hester very naturally as a precise and sensitive woman caught up in an affair she thinks means everything, and you can see why she falls for Freddie, though not why he falls for her. That would seem to be an essential ingredient, and while the director Philip Franks did a terrific job with Rattigan’s Nijinsky this didn’t achieve the same theatrical impact.

Mr. Miller and Hester

A movie of this story starring Rachel Weisz as Hester is due out later this year. In the meantime performances at Chichester continue until September 3 — for details click here.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Chichester Festival Theatre (now at the Haymarket), June 2011

To the question of whether, if God is good and omnipotent why does evil exist, the answer is free will. But is free will illusory? As Guildenstern says, ‘… if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we’d know that we were lost’. Indeed they are lost. Opportunities arise, but they see themselves as small players in a bigger drama they don’t understand, unable to influence larger events. On the ship to England, they could destroy the letter they accidentally open, yet they don’t, not even to save Hamlet’s life. These minor characters from Shakespeare are twin axes around which Tom Stoppard’s thought-provoking play turns, and they were superbly played by Samuel Barnett and Jamie Parker — or was it the other way round?

Jamie Parker as Guildenstern and Samuel Barnett as Rosencrantz, all photos by Catherine Ashmore

The play itself is riveting, philosophical, and very funny. I love the coin tossing at the start, with 92 heads in a row. ‘Consider: One, probability is a factor which operates within natural forces. Two, probability is not operating as a factor. Three, we are now held within un‑, sub- or super-natural forces. Discuss’. Thus speaks Jamie Parker’s articulate Guildenstern. Samuel Barnett’s thoughtful Rosencrantz is also no slouch with his, ‘Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? … I can’t remember it. It never occurred to me at all. We must be born with an intuition of mortality’. Yet both of these spontaneously ready fellows articulate a sort of nonsense, counterbalancing the apparent nonsense spoken by Hamlet, which they try to explain, ‘I think I have it. A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself/ Or just as mad/ Or just as mad/ And he does both/ So there you are/ Stark raving sane’. Their subject, Hamlet, is nobly portrayed by Jack Hawkins, effortlessly reaching heights of free will to which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern cannot aspire.

Stoppard’s play is clever and intellectual, but above all it’s wonderful theatre. The players, led by Chris Andrew Mellon, who has replaced Tim Curry, give a hyper-theatrical contrast to the confused quasi-intellectualism of the two main characters, and Mellon himself is superbly quick and ready in his responses.

R and G on board the ship

A friend said she’d love to see this Stoppard play again and take her teenage son, who’s never seen Hamlet. Quite right — you don’t need to know Hamlet to appreciate this quick-witted theatre, beautifully brought to life in Trevor Nunn’s production, well aided by Tim Mitchell’s lighting. Scene changes take place invisibly, right under our noses, and I loved the spot-lights on the faces of R and G just before and just after the interval. There was a perfection about this entire staging, with Simon Higlett’s clever but simple designs, and Fotini Dimou’s excellent costumes. Not to be missed.

Performances at Chichester continue until June 11 — for more details click here. This production then transfers to the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London’s West End, with previews starting on June 16.

A Month in the Country, Chichester Festival Theatre, October 2010

At the end of this Turgenev play most people depart, leaving Natalya alone in her boredom and unhappy marriage.

Janie Dee and Michael Feast as Natalya and Rakitin

In the meantime it always looks as if things might work out more happily, particularly if Natalya’s relationship with Rakitin — who adores her and lives in the household — can stabilise itself. Rakitin is the character closest to Turgenev himself, who enjoyed a forty-year relationship with the celebrated singer Pauline Viardot, even living in her household, and Michael Feast played the part superbly. Utterly convincing, he elicited my sympathies, as did Phoebe Fox as Natalya’s foster-daughter. She gave a beautiful portrayal of intelligence and sincerity in the face of Janie Dee’s mercurial and histrionic Natalya, showing a woman scarcely under control as she battles with her repressed desire for the young tutor who has been with the family for less than a month.

Jonathan Coy gave a fine portrayal of Natalya’s husband Arkady, who simply doesn’t grasp what’s going on, and Joanna McCallum was excellent as his widowed mother, delivering her final speech with superb gravitas and sensitivity. Kenneth Cranham was wittily absurd as the local doctor, speaking with evident conviction when he describes himself as a “bitter, cunning, angry peasant”. This doctor is happy to avail himself of the opportunity to dine in the pleasant surroundings of the estate, well represented in Paul Brown’s designs with excellent lighting by Mark Henderson. The slightly worn appearance of the house helped give a sense of impending doom, and as Donald Rayfield writes in the programme, “after . . . watching A Month in the Country you realise quite how painful is the catastrophe that has struck the characters”.

Will the new tutor enliven everyone’s life, or cause everything to crash to the ground?

Of course the catalyst for this catastrophe is the young tutor, supposedly a lively and attractive young man, but played here by James McArdle as an unattractive Scottish oik. Was that the director’s intention, or simply the actor’s natural inclination? In any case it seemed odd that either Natalya or Vera could fall for this fellow — but with that one reservation aside this Jonathan Kent production gave a convincing sense of the underlying emotions fuelling the slow-motion train wreck into which some of these characters are propelling the others.

Performances of this Brian Friel adaptation of Turgenev’s play continue until October 16.

The Rivals, Richmond Theatre, September 2010

How do you play a character who has given her name to a word in the Oxford dictionary? Sincerely rather than as a caricature is what Penelope Keith gave us in her elegantly intelligent and sharply drawn portrayal of Mrs. Malaprop. It was a glowing performance, very well supported by Peter Bowles as an irascibly charming Sir Anthony Absolute, with Tam Williams smugly confident as his son Jack. The pretty and persistently wayward Lydia — Mrs. Malaprop’s niece — was beautifully portrayed by Robyn Addison, making her professional debut. What a delightful performance, and her cousin Julia, and Julia’s beloved Faulkland, were very well performed by Annabel Scholey and Tony Gardner.

Peter Bowles as Sir Anthony and Penelope Keith as Mrs Malaprop

The production by Peter Hall, from the Theatre Royal Bath, is wonderful fun, with excellent comic timing from Keiron Self as Bob Acres, and Gerard Murphy as a delightfully absurd Sir Lucius O’Trigger, looking just like a character from Alice in Wonderland. This period piece by Sheridan, with its stylised sense of humour, is a welcome relief from some of the politically correct theatre of today, and came over without the slightest feeling of contrivance. For an enjoyable evening of theatre it’s hard to beat.

After Richmond the production tours to: Theatre Royal Norwich Sept 17–Oct 2; Cambridge Arts Theatre Oct 4–9; Theatre Royal Nottingham Oct 12–16; Festival Theatre Malvern Oct 25–30; Festival Theatre Chichester Nov 1–6; with an as yet unconfirmed transfer to the West End.