Yes, Prime Minister, Richmond Theatre, June 2011

In an interesting essay in the programme, based on his experience in government and the civil service, Bernard Donoughue makes the observation that “Sir Humphrey’s Rolls-Royce machine” is “no longer running Whitehall as smoothly as earlier”. Could this be why Sir Humphrey, as portrayed by Simon Williams, seemed less coolly in command than I expected, though I liked Richard McCabe’s Jim Hacker with his eloquent facial expressions? As the other two main characters, Chris Larkin was suitably constipated as Bernard Woolley the PPS, and Charlotte Lucas was brilliantly in control as Claire Sutton, the PM’s Special Policy Advisor, but the plot was a bit thin.

Simon Williams and Richard McCabe

Jim Hacker is hosting a weekend conference of EU leaders, and Kumranistan is offering an interest-free ten trillion dollar loan to the EU to get it out of financial difficulties. The payment will come in the form of huge oil revenues based on a special premium price, but to give the British this diplomatic coup, the foreign minister of Kumranistan requires the services of an under-age schoolgirl. Confusion all round, added to which the BBC is doing a one-hour government documentary the same weekend. The pressure is on, and there are some good lines, such as when Hacker calls the BBC a bunch of ‘posturing opportunists’, and when — after the schoolgirl issue has burst — Hacker gives the Kumranistan ambassador ’48 hours to get to Heathrow’, and he responds, ‘What do you think I am — a snail?’ But the humour seemed a bit laboured, and the right comic timing was lacking.

There should be more spontaneity, or at least the appearance of it, but the only real piece of spontaneity came when the lights went out in Act I, due to a technical fault, and Simon Williams coolly said, ‘Night seems to be drawing in’. Well done indeed, and the actors quietly left the stage. When the lights came back on we heard them being recalled to stage, and after the interval things seemed to warm up, but the Rolls-Royce machine of creators Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn never quite seemed to get into gear.

Performances at the Richmond Theatre continue until Saturday, June 18 — for details click here. This production then moves to the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End for a ten week run from July 6.

The Real Inspector Hound / The Critic, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, July 2010

Both these entertaining plays end rather suddenly after a few bangs and plenty of laughs. With a poor cast they could easily fail, but in these performances the stylish overacting kept the audience in suspense and drew out the humour without ever overdoing it.

Moon and Birdfoot

In The Real Inspector Hound, Tom Stoppard uses his intellectual gymnastics to create a spoof of the murder mystery in an isolated house, temporarily cut off from the world by the rising tide. But it’s more than that — it’s also a parody of The Mousetrap, with the inspector arriving not on skis but wearing ‘two inflatable — and inflated — pontoons with flat bottoms about two feet across’. Stoppard used the title The Critics in an early draft of the play, and its connection with Sheridan’s Critic in this double bill is that both plays involve critics taking part in the action. In Hound the critics Moon and Birdboot are played with understated panache, and in true 1960s style, by Richard McCabe and Nicholas Le Prevost. They were both utterly convincing, the one as a second rank theatre critic, and the other as a womaniser who takes advantage of his alleged ability to influence careers.

Hound, The Company

The other actors were equally superb, with Una Stubbs as Mrs Drudge, and Sophie Bould and Hermione Gulliford as the attractive ladies of the house, Felicity and Cynthia. Joe Dixon played a creepily foppish Simon, Derek Griffiths a suitably single-minded Inspector Hound, and Sean Foley provided excellent spice as the irascibly assertive Major Magnus, as well as collaborating with Jonathan Church in directing both plays. The audience sat on all four sides of the stage, with the small critics’ section replaced after the interval by a curtained stage for Sheridan’s play within a play.

Puff, Sneer and Dangle

In The Critic we had many of the same actors, with Nicholas Le Prevost now playing Mr. Dangle, a rather boring and unctuously sincere theatre critic of the late eighteenth century. Una Stubbs was his wife, showing ennui and wit in equal measure, and Derek Griffiths was the supposedly more professional critic Mr. Sneer. Sean Foley reappeared in the delightfully camp role of Sir Fretful Plagiary, giving a marvellous solo performance, and Richard McCabe was superb as the playwright and impresario Puff whose play The Spanish Armada is given a rehearsal in front of the critics.

Mr. Puff's play

While the real Spanish Armada was of course in 1588, recent events in the summer of 1779, in which Britain found itself in a state of war with Spain, had inspired Mr. Puff to his creation, and this production of The Critic cleverly inserts some absolutely up-to-date remarks on politics during the preamble in Mr. Dangle’s drawing room. As to Mr. Puff’s play, which the actors had mercifully cut in places, the ham acting is very funny, yet the author of the text remains brilliantly in charge of his rehearsal, despite inconvenient questions and alterations. The entire ‘rehearsal’ cast worked wonderfully well together, with Joe Dixon delightful in overacting the part of Don Ferolo Whiskerandos. The final crash of part of the scenery was, at least to me, wholly unexpected and dramatic, and in case any audience member had got up to leave in proximity to the imminent event, an usher was ready to stop them. If the crash seemed dangerously real, it was, and along with other howlers it formed a glorious ending.

This wonderful double bill continues until 28^th August — for more details, click here. All photos by Manuel Harlan.

Bingo: Scenes of Money and Death, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, April 2010

Patrick Stewart as Shakespeare

The bizarre first word of the title, and lack of narrative drive in the text, was a striking contrast to the wonderful acting from a cast headed by Patrick Stewart as William Shakespeare. This 1974 play by Edward Bond, directed by Angus Jackson, is about Shakespeare’s last days. It deals primarily with his wish to protect the income from his landholdings, and secondly with a difficulty in his relationship with his younger daughter Judith. As a piece of fiction it is based on a few facts: Shakespeare did indeed favour a proposed land development by William Combe, played here by Jason Watkins, and he did change his will shortly before his death, leaving most of his estate to his elder daughter Susanna and her husband. An impression is given that Shakespeare cut his younger daughter Judith out of his will, though in fact her inheritance had provisions to protect it from her husband Thomas Quiney, of whose behaviour Shakespeare disapproved.

Patrick Stewart and Richard McCabe as Shakespeare and Ben Johnson

There are six scenes, each interesting enough in itself, but lacking overall momentum. The one I enjoyed most was the fourth, where Ben Johnson, entertainingly played by Richard McCabe, is the life and soul of an evening of heavy drinking with Shakespeare. While Johnson is cheerful and impecunious, Shakespeare is shown as a kindly but taciturn figure, ready to pay when others cannot. One of the talents Patrick Stewart brings to the part is an ability to portray Shakespeare’s long silences while others gaily rant on about things that concern them, but are of little interest to anyone else, including the audience.

The tenor of the times is brought out in the first scene, where Michelle Tate appears as a young woman, journeying without permission to alleged relatives in another part of the country. She needs money, which Shakespeare is happy to provide, but John McEnery, as a foolish and lecherous old retainer, gets her for himself, and she is later strung up on a scaffold for breaking the law in her illicit travels. This was a time in England when people were forbidden to travel without a permit, because of perceived threats by Roman Catholics. A time of casual brutality when executions were the norm, and family members might even pull on the legs of their hanging brethren to shorten the torture — none of the modern skill of calculating the length of rope according to the weight of the body so that dropping yields instant death, rather than a beheading. It was a time of bear baiting when starving dogs were set onto a chained bear, which might be blinded as additional entertainment. The script describes all this, with Shakespeare saying, “I am stupefied by the suffering I’ve seen”. This and the side story of the old retainer being attacked and eventually shot, possibly by his son, along with men running around armed with cudgels, gives the impression of a history lesson — interesting, but lacking in dramatic tension.

The old retainer’s wife, who gently tolerates her nutty husband, was very sympathetically portrayed by Ellie Haddington, and their anger-ridden son by Alex Prince. Catherine Cusack, as Shakespeare’s daughter Judith, showed fury mingled with care towards her father, but with the two of them saying, “I hate you” to one another, I was left with the feeling that while this fiction might be partly true, it might equally well be partly false. Some commentators refer to Lear-like aspects of this play, but I don’t find it remotely on the same level as Lear. What the playwright seems to have done is use Shakespeare as a vehicle for urging the audience to think about the crudity and unfairness of early seventeenth century England. His success would be greater if the play had more energy and drive, and I’m afraid even the presence of Patrick Stewart as the Bard, and fine acting by the rest of the cast, failed to grip me, nor presumably those who left after the interval.

Performances continue to May 22 — for more details click here.