SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE

at the Noel Coward Theatre

16.07.14

Too much Shakespeare ? Too much love ? Lee Hall's light-touch reworking of the original Stoppard/Norman screenplay gets the balance about right, with plenty of sly references to the Bard and his works, but a strong [and vaguely Shakespearean] romantic intrigue between young Will and the tomboy Viola de Lesseps [Lucy Briggs-Owen].

The setting [Nick Ormerod] is heavy wooden galleries, based loosely on Henslowe's Rose. Three levels, a wooden stage floor, and a mobile central section which lets us shift in an instant from backstage to front of house, from bedroom to bawdyhouse.

Some moments work very well: the opening writer's block [“Shall I compare thee to a … mummers' play”], or Kit Marlowe [David Oakes] prompting the amorous Will [Tom Bateman] like Cyrano from the shadows beneath the balcony. Our conviction that Marlowe was the genius behind the Stratford man is gently nurtured throughout.

In Declan Donnellan's warm-hearted production there's much music, perhaps too heavily amplified – especially that strident alto – witty dialogue and courtly dancing [sometimes simultaneously], cross-dressing, a trap-door, a delightful dog and some superb performances from the huge company: Alistair Petrie's blustering Wessex, Anna Carteret's virgin Queen, David Ganly's “pedlar of bombast” Burbage [of Blessed memory], Abigail McKern's Nurse and Paul Chahidi's harassed Henslowe.

Everyone's favourite moments from the film are preserved, of course – the boatman [Thomas Padden] and young Webster [Colin Ryan] his role much enhanced here.

The ending, with the stage of the Curtain expanded to fill the space, is magical, as the doomed love story, and Shakespeare's writing career, are ingeniously entwined.

PRIVATES ON PARADE

PRIVATES ON PARADE

Michael Grandage season at the Noel Coward Theatre

12.12.12

No easy task, stepping into the stilettos previously worn by Denis Quilley and Roger Allam. But Simon Russell Beale is a singer, and has danced in drag before, if you count his delightful Duchess for the Royal Ballet's Alice in Wonderland.

Peter Nichols' Privates on Parade is based on his own experience with a troupe in Combined Services Entertainment. There is much fun to be had with the songs, dances and the magic, but there is a darker undercurrent which has to do with the end of Empire, insurgents and the prosperity that independence will bring to the native population.

Russell Beale has a ball with the frocks, the frou-frou and the camp badinage – buxom, flirty and full-lipped he has a touch of the Mrs Fox [Pam Cundell] about him. His Noel Coward number is perhaps the finest, witty, acerbic and impeccably delivered. But he is the figurehead of a very fine ship – the "outré establishment" of SADUSEA is manned by a variety of military personnel: Mark Lewis Jones is excellent as the sadistic ex-copper, Joseph Timms is the innocent abroad [Nichols himself, perhaps] and Brodie Ross plays the conjuror and butt of many jokes, Eric Young-Love. Terri Dennis doesn't have a monopoly of the best numbers; there's a strangely moving Flanagan and Allen duet from Harry Hepple and John Marquez as an ill-matched but loving couple. Angus Wright is superb as the blinkered officer in charge, a Bible on his desk, a snapshot of his wife between its pages. And there's a touching performance from Sophiya Haque as the Indian/Welsh girl who's the only female in this troupe. There's a lovely moment when the Black Velvet number segues into Greensleeves on her wind-up gramophone. Chris Chan and Sadao Ueda are the native servants who eavesdrop on briefings, play cards on the Union Flag-draped coffin, and appear at the end in immaculate Singapore suits ...

The band is tucked away stage left. The musical numbers are often fantasy rather than part of the SADUSEA stage show, and in this production they are allowed to grow out of the realistic action, rather than flagged with lighting changes or whatever. The set, massive [?] concrete structure with corrugated iron shutters at the back [that door has graced many productions, I think], is effectively lit, and there's a torrential downpour, though the ablutions are offstage.

Not the first time Grandage has revived this very enjoyable "play with songs" – the Donmar production in 2001 [with Allam in drag] was his too. Some of the lines, the gags, the cultural references have not worn well – who now remembers Churchmans – and Russell Beale wisely resists the temptation to get a laugh on every line.

But the warm heart and the uncomfortable truths of the piece are beautifully put across in this, the first of what promises to be an impressive Grandage season on St Martin's Lane.

ENRON

Noel Coward Theatre

10.02.10

It's Monopoly money – trading in a virtual realm far removed from reality, until the house of cards collapses and ordinary people, loyal employees, lose everything.

The Enron affair should have been a wake-up call. But this revival serves to remind us that this year's crunch, today's collapses, are nothing new.

Lucy Prebble's ground-breaking piece, premièred in Chichester last year, coming to the West End via The Royal Court, shortly to cross to Broadway, is a triumph to compare with Enron's own soaraway success.

It makes its points with a heady mixture of didacticism, metaphor and Greek Tragedy. Sometimes we are just told stuff – we are the innocent child in the play. Dollars become seconds; Enron is “worth” $60 billion dollars; each billion is 32 years.

The metaphors – the light sabres and raptors of Fastow's geeky imagination – become real on stage. And the familiar characters, father figure, younger brother, hubristic ruler, play out their tragic fate. There is song and dance, music, lighting and a break-neck pace – you dimly understand just how thrilling handling all this money can be. And slapstick, too, with the Lehman brothers conjoined in a vast overcoat.

Sam West is rivetting as the arrogant Skilling, physically changing from nerd to hero to paranoid failure. The real Skilling got 24 years, we should remember. These guys are not fictions. Amanda Drew is Claudia Roe, the female rival in a macho world. And Tim Piggott-Smith is totally convincing as the old-school CEO. One of the most effective scenes was also the simplest - “two guys in a room” as the financial alchemist Fastow [Tom Goodman-Hill] tempts Skilling down the slippery slope of fraudulent trading.

And I did wonder to what extent Rupert Goold's imaginative set-pieces – the trading floor, for instance – are essential to the success of the drama. I can imagine the whole thing as a more intimate, Arthur Miller-ish tragedy.

Nonetheless, an informative as well as entertaining piece, a roller-coaster ride through an alien world of cash and capital, and a lesson to us all. I wonder how it will go down on Broadway ….