at
Colchester Mercury
23.05.13
The sixth show of the Made In Colchester season, and it's a superbly realised production of Alan Bennett's unlikely hit of 2004.
That
improbable Sheffield Grammar now has an improbable Latin song, though
the backdrop photograph suggests an institution founded, like the
real King Ted's, in 1905.
Ignatius
Anthony is entirely believable as the geographer from Hull, the Head
obsessed with league tables and scholarships, who twice savagely
dismisses art, literature, history and other such silliness. Mind
you, he clearly has staffing problems.
Mrs
Lintott [Liza Sadovy] is a traditionalist, thorough but dull, prone
to cynical outbursts. The callow supply teacher he drafts in to help
coach the Oxbridge hopefuls of the title is keen but woefully
inexperienced. And law-unto-himself Hector is a liability, his
lessons "not curriculum-directed at all …".
As
young Irwin, Freddie Machin catches the social ineptitude behind the
academic carapace. He is less convincing, perhaps, later in life, as
the spin doctor or the TV historian, based, it is surmised, on Niall
Ferguson.
Stephen
Ley's Hector is a shambling figure, given to florid histrionics, but
clearly a much-loved inspiration to the boys, despite his lack of
focus and his predatory fumblings. The subtext, as elsewhere, is
elegantly suggested: his Drummer Hodge dialogue with Posner, a hand
proffered and almost taken, suggests a deeper "diffidence or
shyness" [The Mikado, as Hector might have pointed out in
different circumstances]. His numbness when arraigned by Armstrong is
deeply moving.
Daniel
Buckroyd's staging has no pounding Eighties score, no fancy filmed
inserts. Instead we have Scripps vamping till ready, and just the two
slides: the school and Rievaulx. Buckroyd himself plays the Director
in the film, though as a voice off. There is a simple revolve,
smoothly revealing the classroom, its walls distressed with names from desktops, and, as necessary, the Head's
study, the staffroom, a corridor with pigeon-holes.
The
music is excellently done. Supervised by Richard Reeday, the segues
reference the songs and the artistes from the script. Scripps [Max
Gallagher], a pale, earnest Anglican, plays the piano, notably for
Posner, the odd boy out, denizen of dictionary corner, Hector's
greatest fan, the only loser in the game of life, brilliantly played
by Philip Labey. His "love and understand me" is laden with
longing, his Sing As We Go was greeted on the first night with awed
silence.
All
the boys inhabit their roles with sincerity and enthusiasm – Oliver
Llewellyn-Jenkins' rugger-mad Rudge, Scott Arthur's cocky Dakin,
James Dryden – in his professional début – as the life-and-soul
Timms.
And
the classroom scenes feel natural and improvised. The "tosh",
the old movies, the French class, the shared passions. Bennett's
school is a strange mixture of the modern and the Secondary Modern –
the Headmaster would surely be harder on uniform infringements than
Hector – and the wide cultural sweep is symbolised by Timms' Nike
bag and Posner's satchel. The original play is very long, but I still
miss many of those lost lines [Mrs Lintott particularly pruned], the
Seventh Veil and the knock at the door …
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