Much Ado About Nothing

I went to see Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre about a month and a half ago and I've only just gotten round to blogging about it! I blame having to work weekends for the last month.

I'd been quite excited about going and seeing the play until about the week before, when the realisation that it was three hours (!) long and Shakespeare hit me. I'm not clever enough for that! I'll fall asleep, start snoring and get asked to leave, oh why did I book the tickets! My friend managed to catch the theatre-fear from me and both of us were less than enthusiastic about the play by the time we got there. As usual (due to circumstances beyond my control) I'm late and when we presented our tickets to the ushers, they said: "the plays just started" and hared off down the corridor, my friend and the usher sprinting away and leaving me to gallumph along in their wake. The only consolation I had was that another pair of theatre goers arrived at the same time and were directed at a hasty speed in the other direction. I'm at least not the only late comer.

What I hadn't realised was that the cheap seats at the side don't have a Row A, or they were removed for the stage and the seats that I had bought were in fact the front row which just made being late all the more excruciating, at least we were at the end of a row and didn't have to climb over everyone. Didn't stop the looks of disapproval though.



Anyway, the main roles of Beatrice and Benedick are taken by Zoe Wanamaker and Simon Russell Beale respectively and both were marvellous. Beatrice and Benedick love each other, but they don't want to admit it. They meet again after a long period of separation in which time Benedick has become an accomplished and respected soldier and Beatrice has comfortably settled into life living in her Uncle Leonato's house in Sicily and spends most of her time moderately tipsy.


Beatrice's cousin Hero (sweetly played by Susanna Fielding) falls in love with the dashing soldier Claudio (Daniel Hawkford). The soldiers are warmly welcomed and well fed by the generous Leonato (the wonderful Oliver Ford Davies), but the malevolent Don John (a villainous and brooding Andrew Woodall) is sullen and miserable because his brother Don Pedro (Julian Wadham) is an imperious and successful soldier. He envies his brother's power and is bitter at his own illegitimacy and so plots to ruin Don Pedro's most recent arrangement, the romance between Hero and Claudio, by casting aspersions on Hero's good character.


Meanwhile Bendick and Beatrice are sniping at one another at the masked ball and slowly realising that they still have feelings for each other. These are skillful and nuanced performances from both Zoe Wanamaker and Simon Russell Beale: warm, full and subtle. Benedick and Beatrice are both too obtuse to realise that the other still has feelings for them, but the other characters are quick to notice the resurgent emotions and decide to play at Cilla Black. In the morning in the garden by the pool, Benedick is having breakfast when he hears Don Pedro, Leonato and Claudio fast approaching, he hides, but the other men know he's there and besides the portly Simon Russell Beale is hard to miss, especially when trying to hide behind a 3 inch wide wooden pillar.

The Much Ado set revolves and during the ball scenes and the merriment at the end, while the actors are dancing, the floor is moving, not only that, the front row afforded a perfect view of the fact that occasionally the actors would have one foot on the revolve and one on the fixed stage. How did they not fall over? I have trouble even walking in flat shoes, so their admirable ability to frolic in these conditions is to be commended.

The men loudly exclaim that Beatrice is still madly in love with Benedick, all the while prowling about the stage forcing Benedick from one hiding place to another, when suddenly Benedick is stuck, he can't go anywhere without being caught eavesdropping, except one, the pool. So with a mighty splash, he actually cannonballs into the pool, to much incredulity and suppressed mirth from the others. Once the men leave, Benedick emerges from the pool looking like a seal and flops wetly about the stage wondering to himself if Beatrice does truly love him. Finally he wanders off happily to dry off before he dies of hypothermia and leaves the stage open for Beatrice to have the same trick pulled on her by the women of the house, even down to the dousing in the pool.

Poor Zoe Wanamaker has to heave around her sopping wet dress of many authentic layers which has, like a sheet of Bounty kitchen roll, soaked up the entire pool. Off she lurches to get wrung dry by an industrial mangle.

The plot to ruin Hero is hatched by Borachio (robustly played by Daniel Poyser) and has Don John's approval. The plan is for Borachio to canoodle with his lover Margaret (Niki Wardley) and pretend that it's actually the faithless Hero with her lover and on the night before her wedding too.

On the morning of the wedding, Hero twitters about happily and Beatrice sneezes and snuffles about, her cold appears to disappear very quickly as it's totally gone by the time the wedding begins.


All the main players are assembled for the wedding, though you would have thought that a society wedding for Leonato's daughter would've attracted more than a few Italian dignatories, but oh well. Claudio rejects a tearful and screeching hero and storms off followed by the rest of the soldiers bar Benedick who solemnly starts talking to Beatrice after Hero is taken away. The scene culminates in the "Kill Claudio" line, and despite exhortations to murder not being particularly funny, it got a laugh. Benedick is torn between his love for Beatrice and wanting to please her and his own sense of honour and decency.

Dogberry and Verges the Watchmen are played with comic brilliance by Mark Addy and Trevor Peacock. Peacock for example can grunt non commitally and get a round of applause and Mark Addy's circular speeches and constant contradictions bring a much needed obvious humour to the play.

Hero feigns her own death much to the consternation of Claudio who prostrates himself at her fake grave clad in sackcloth, mmm, scratchy, while a concealed Hero watches his distress and is now certain of his love. Their story ends when it is contrived for Claudio to marry Hero's cousin, who looks a lot like her.

Beatrice and Benedick after some more comic sniping kiss and settle down comfortably together on a bench, happy at last.

More Present Laughter

I went to see "Present Laughter" on Saturday, starring Alex Jennings as Garry Essendine, the vain, womanising ageing actor and I loved it!

Anyway, having gotten to London early (for once), I decided to go and have a look at the crack in the floor of the Turbine Hall at the Tate. It's quite impressive, for a crack in the floor. Not sure I'd want to dig up the floor to put it in, but it's a talking point and people were flocking around it. I think it's a pretty audacious piece of art: either it would have been a hit (as it is) or a total flop ("why go to see a crack in the floor, when my bathroom ceiling has plenty of it's own").

Then off I trot to the National Theatre to see the play, which is about twenty minutes walk from the Tate. Of course as usual, I leave it a bit late and end up half jogging to make it in time, meaning that I end up a bit flustered, sweaty and have to climb over knees to get to my seat. To be very honest, when I looked around the matinee audience and was faced with room full of grey hair and little old ladies with zimmer frames, and realising I was one of the youngest people there, I was slightly scared that perhaps I'd picked the wrong play, maybe I should have booked to see "Hairspray" instead (Michael Ball in drag, what's not to like?).

Just before the play started a late comer walked past two rows away, I wouldn't normally mention such an common occurrence, but when I recognised him I gasped involuntarily: it was only David Walliams! I think he was with his Mum. A little flutter went round the audience, along the lines of: "ooh, look it's David Walliams." I kept quiet, for one, he knows who he is, and secondly, he's on a day off, it must be a bit galling to go everywhere with people going: "ooh, look who it is"! At the end of the play while waiting patiently to leave the auditorium behind an old lady with two walking sticks and a man to hold her upright, I realised I was actually right behind him! Within arse pinching distance. This observation came unbidden into my mind, but don't fear, I kept my hands to myself, I have no desire to be arrested.

The play starts with Daphne Stillington wondering out into Garry's flat wearing his dressing gown and pyjamas and in a wordless scene Daphne ambles around the flat looking at photo's, kissing Garry's and turning face down the one with Garry and his wife Liz, this isn't in the text and is wonderfully in keeping and comic. The entrances of the stolid and matter of fact Miss Erikson, Fred and finally Monica all compound the evident fact that they've been here before and this is anything but an uncommon occurrence. Monica is fantastically played by Sarah Woodward, she brings the dry and caustic wit that Monica needs to be Garry's foil. She's a counterpoint to all the fawning and adoring debutantes that otherwise fill Garry's world and Sarah Woodward can wring a line dry to extract every single drop of comic potential. If only she didn't sound a bit like Ann Widdecombe.


Once Daphne's been promised a bath and some orange juice she retreats into the spare room, whereupon Garry makes his first appearance having been woken by the commotion. The energy level increased quite dramatically once Alex Jennings made his entrance as Garry. His huge stage filling presence really lifts the production and from that moment, you miss Garry when he's not on stage, because he is making the play tick and providing the intensity and dynamism that's required to make the play work.


Garry makes short work of getting rid of Daphne, with help from a well practised poem by Shelley and after going over a few letters with Monica, he wafts away to have his bath. Liz, his not quite ex-wife drops in to leave a dressing gown for Garry, who is something of a connoisseur of dressing gowns and to make Monica party to her plan to get Garry to behave himself after being confronted by Daphne.


Upon the presentation of his gift from Liz, Garry scampers, rather elegantly, onto the grand piano in the centre of the room and preens in the mirror. Liz then proceeds to remind him of his advancing age and his responsibilities and drops in a little gossip about Joanna and Morris being lovers, which is news to Garry. Then Roland Maule makes his entrance. Roland is besotted with Garry and is blessed with the firmest handshake this side of Superman, causing all to either squeal in pain or contort their faces at the agony of his herculean grip. Once Roland is convinced of his deficiencies as a playwright, he leaves to sit weeping (off stage) on the stairs, whereupon Henry (Joanna's husband) and Morris, Garry's business associates, make an appearance.


Henry is ignorant of his wife, Joanna's, dalliance with Morris and once Henry leaves for Brussels, Garry rounds on Morris asking him what he's up to. Morris is played by Tim McMullan with a nervous and slightly neurotic comic lightness. He's good and brings the right amount of fluster to a minor character, and makes Morris memorable by the level of talent he brings to the character.


After the scene setting of the first act, the play moves on and Joanna's seduction of Garry is accompanied by both actors prowling around the stage after one another. While I thought Lisa Dillon, as Joanna, was pretty good, her voice sounded strange, until I realised that it only sounded odd because she appeared to be channelling Queenie circa Blackadder II. It was as if she was playing at being coquettish, and that took a little of the danger out of the scene. Joanna shouldn't be flirty and coquettish, for real energy it needed a far more predatory Joanna. It seemed as if Garry was directing the seduction and it should have been the other way round.


The following morning, Joanna flounces around Garry's flat in one of his dressing gowns, frightening the staff and lording over them while demanding breakfast and acting superiorly. Liz turns up and appraises the situation carefully and blackmails Joanna into keeping quiet about Garry and ending the affair after one night by threatening to spill the beans to Henry and Morris. Joanna agrees hurriedly after believing that Morris is at the door and retreats to the spare room to hide while Liz gets rid of Morris. It transpires to be Roland Maule at the door who insinuates himself into the flat by lying that he has an appointment with Garry. Monica dispatches Roland to the office, while Morris bumps into Garry who's trying to sneak out.

Morris is distraught, he can't find Joanna and is desperate to find her. Garry knows exactly where she is but is horrified that Morris might find out. Morris realises that someone has been staying in the spare room, but both he and Garry are amazed when Liz walks out saying that she's just been powdering her nose. Liz phones the spare room in a ruse to get Morris to believe that Joanna spent the night with her. Roland Maule exits the office and Henry turns up early demanding to know where Joanna is. Garry in his exasperation smashes himself over the head with a plate showering the stage with porcelain.

Lady Saltburn arrives with her niece Daphne only to cause more consternation. Alex shows how good he is by imbuing the word "yellow" with more comic emphasis than it's ever had before. I loved the anguished double take Garry does when Lady Saltburn divulges that Garry knew Daphne's mother years ago. A sick little joke for a rather frothy little comedy. After Henry and Morris leave, Daphne begins her audition for Garry by reading the same poem that Garry recited for her at the beginning of the play. When Daphne stumbles over a word, the rest of the cast in unison correct her, Miss Erikson even deigning to leave the kitchen to do it. Succinctly and hilariously highlighting how common it was for Garry to recite that poem to his one night stands. When Joanna finally exits the spare room in her frock, the shock makes poor Daphne faint clean away.

The final act opens with Garry pensively going through his post with Monica and then trying to find reasons for her to stay once she decides it's time to leave for the night. She leaves and then Fred goes off to spend one more night with Doris and then before Miss Erikson leaves to go to a spiritualist meeting in Hammersmith she steals all of Garry's cigarettes quite blatantly. Once alone in the flat, Garry puts on the gramophone and sits quietly, he looks bereft and lonely and quite sad. When the door bell rings, he wipes away a tear before he goes to open it.

Daphne is at the door and informs Garry she's coming with him to Africa, then Roland appears and also claims he wants to come to Africa and demands a biscuit. Both of these irritations are dispatched to the office or the spare room when the door bell rings again, this time Joanna flaunts in, also announcing that she is going to accompany Garry to Africa.

This time, Garry realising he not going to be able to cope alone, phones Liz and using their ingenious code of "I'm terribly sorry," Liz knows to rush straight round.

Eventually Morris and Henry turn up, both angry at Garry as they've read Joanna's note confessing the affair with Garry. Garry gives them all a piece of his mind and it transpires that neither Morris or Henry really want to fall out with Garry as they've just bought a theatre and want to Garry to act in it. Garry had previously been quite damning about it and when he finds out is just as coruscating. Joanna finally realises that Garry isn't interested and slaps him across the face in lieu of goodbye. Garry takes the blow and instead of commenting on it, turns round and begins to berate Morris and Henry about the Forum Theatre. After blustering on for a while, Liz tells the pair to leave and that she'll take care of Garry. After a few medicinal brandies, Liz informs Garry she's here to stay, but Garry remembering the twin horrors of Roland and Daphne still in the flat, puts on his coat and says he's coming back to her.

Overall the play was incredibly funny, with great performances. Liz was played by Sara Stewart and you can understand her irritation with Garry at times, but the character is played with warmth and the underlying intimacy between Garry and Liz is apparent. Her solicitude in returning with presents and her labours to prevent Morris and Henry finding out the truth about Joanna, all prove her obvious and deep feeling for Garry. And Garry likewise depends on Liz, she's the first one he calls when he needs help and, in my mind the most telling gesture of his love for Liz comes in the first scene. Daphne had turned face down the picture of Liz and Garry, but almost the first thing Garry does in the scene is to turn it face up again.

The minor parts of Miss Erikson and Fred were well played, with Miss Erikson ambling around in house coat with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth one of the abiding images of the play. Henry was anaemically acted and didn't have much impact unfortunately, Morris was better and far more comic character, though you did want to pat him and give him a cup of tea for his nerves.

Sarah Woodward was great and of course Alex Jennings was utterly marvellous as Garry. He brought out the inherent comedy in lines that are barely comic in the text and is so charismatic that you forgive Garry his womanising, vanity and self importance. He shows you the human under the handsome veneer, the lonely man in his ivory tower (though it leaks a bit in the rain).


The play appears quite frothy and light on the surface, with plenty of one liners and laughs, but ultimately it's about friendship, love, trust and responsibility. It's a stylish play hiding quite a sensitive heart, rather like Garry himself.

A Little More Present Laughter

A few more Present Laughter links and then I promise I'll stop. Whatsonstage.com has a lovely little video (click on the picture) of the first night with interviews with all of the main performers. The set looks impressive, but as it is a rather peculiar green colour, it does look like Garry's flat is covered in mould. Weird.This is Pip Carter, who plays Raymond Maule, looking distinctly ungeeky.

Sarah Woodward looking glamourous, as all actors tend to, praising Noel Coward and Alex Jennings' performance as Garry. Sara Stewart looks very sparkly in her sequined frock, in contrast with Alex Jennings, whom I greatly admire, but whose outfit can be generously described as "lively". The shirt by itself, I can just about take, but where did that waistcoat come from? I hope he kept the receipt.

And finally here's a review of the play in Variety: "In a role he was born to play, Jennings makes ease look, well, easy. Despite peacocking about in a series of dressing gowns, Jennings never confuses charm and smarm; he sweeps about the stage like a cross between Rex Harrison and a well-bred wolf" and "Jennings' timing is so flawless he even finds space to stretch punctuation to delicious comic effect. Attempting to extricate himself from last night's love-struck ingenue, he trots out the line, "Don't love me too much, Daphne." But he halts momentarily on the comma to search for her name, indicating just how common an occurrence this is."

Present Laughter

Lots of reviews of "Present Laughter" for you, which I'm going to see, so I'm enthusing beforehand. Unfortunately the reviews are uniformly tepid about the play, but uniformly complimentary about the performers, Sarah Woodward and Alex Jennings in particular.

I don't quite know how you can enjoy a performance and then not like the play, but what do I know, I'm not a theatre critic!

The Times, said it was funny, but not funny enough, the Evening Standard is similarly cool towards the play, but does include my favourite line about it so far: "Alex Jennings, who clearly adores flouncing around in one dressing gown and several piques".

The Guardian states that: "Alex Jennings offers a superbly executed re-interpretation." and is a "richly funny performance".


The Telegraph hated it apparently, calling it "Impossible to like or laugh at " and a "botched attempt at an overated play". Ouch! But heaps praise on Alex Jennings. It appears that the problems may be with Coward's play rather than the performers.


Whatsonstage.com call the play "oddly brusque and charmlessly monumental", which seems incredibly harsh! And includes my second favourite quote: "Gary should not resemble a tramp with a bad haircut and an ugly dressing gown worn over day clothes that might have come from an Oxfam shop".
On the other hand The Independent gives the most positive review: "a marvel of comic brio and farcical panache" and praises Alex Jennings, who "draws on similar talents and surpasses them. There's the electric wit and stage-filling charisma, as well as the boyishness that makes people want to mother and strangle him".

Better stop now, but I'll stick the weekend reviews on as well later.

Philistines - Cast Interviews

It does exactly what it says on the tin!

You can find a short film of four cast members talking about Philistines on YouTube, or on the Philistines page at the National Theatre site.

Why they filmed Ruth and Rory in Black and White, I have no idea!

Enjoy!

p.s. I did finish that script writing assignment in the end, and I got 86%, very chuffed!

Philistines Workpack

There is a lovely interview with Ruth, among a lot of lovely, detailed and interesting information about Philistines, in the National Theatre Workpack for the play. That is where the above lovely photo comes from.

Click here to open or download (it's a pdf document): Philistines Workpack.

Philistines Review and Online Trailer

I was going to do a roundup of the reviews for Philistines, but as jellybean has done this, I urge you to check out her blog, which also has many lovely photos of Sam West, which you can never have too many of really.

The National now has the Philistines trailer up, in which Ruth does appear and I have made a few screencaps:



Enjoy!

Backstage at the National Theatre

I went on a backstage tour of the National Theatre on Friday and I very much enjoyed it!

It was very interesting to see the three very different performing areas that the National Theatre has.


The Cottesloe theatre is basically a small black box with a very adaptable stage (in Goldilocks terms, this is Baby Bear), the Lyttleton has a proscenium arch (Mummy Bear):


And the grand and impressive Olivier Theatre (very much the Daddy bear).


You get to have a look at the some of the props that were used in previous performances, and a feel of a severed head, which I was reliably informed by the well informed guide that was the exact weight of a real severed head! I'll have to take her word for it. And we were introduced to Pat the tortoise, whose animatronic twin nearly upstaged Simon Russell Beale during a play.

To get a chance to go, if only fleetingly, backstage of a working theatre it's pretty good. While in the Olivier auditorium, I saw some of the set for A Matter of Life and Death and a man started to play a double bass for some reason while we in there and we saw Gisli Örn Gardarsson, who plays the Norwegian Conductor, but he's actually Icelandic.

They are still building the set for Philistines, which looks very sleek. I was very impressed that one enterprising set builder managed to keep hammering for about fifteen minutes straight with out a break while we were there. The set for Rafta, Rafta was glimpsed tucked away behind the Lyttleton and it looked phenomenal. It's like a huge dolls house that has been cut in half and dressed like a real house.

Philistines of course stars Ruth Wilson as Tanya, and the website has a little bit of blurb about it here.

The flytower of the Lyttleton theatre not only has a teetering Anthony Gormley statue balanced on top of it, but it is currently covered in real, growing grass. I saw a man watering it. If your click on the link above, you'll be able to see a video of how they did it: lots of grass seeds in clay basically.


I recommend the National Theatre (http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk) website as a great site to go to for info on plays at the National, but it does also have workpacks for some productions, where the plays are discussed a little which are very interesting and informative.