THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Antic Disposition
at Gray's Inn Hall
22.08.2016
for
The Reviews Hub
Sir Francis Walsingham, Good Queen Bess's Spymaster, was not amused. Sitting (for his portrait) in the back of the audience, he stared impassively at the frantic antics of the farceurs charging around the ancient hall. The very space, in fact, where Shakespeare's briefest play was first performed, by “a company of base and common fellows” back in 1594.
The rest of the capacity crowd, though, enjoyed this fast-paced and physical musical version of the Comedy of Errors, drawing its inspiration from the 1959 classic Some Like It Hot.
Not the first time it's been given the song and dance treatment, of course, notably in Stratford some forty years ago, and on Broadway before the war.
This new version, directed by Ben Horslen and John Riseboro, with Nick Barstow in charge of the music, is energetically done by a fine team of actor/musicians. The setting is the Bay of Ephesus Hotel in the 20s, with the movable door to “The Phoenix Suite” the only piece of scenery.
Its mafioso owner, Solinus, is deliciously played by Philip Mansfield, who also gives us the hopeless cabaret “conjurer” Doctor Pinch. The hotel's manager – Antipholus of Ephesus – and his bell-hop servant Dromio are the fine comedy duo of Alex Hooper and Keith Higinbotham, their banter during the warm-up a hint of delights to come. It seemed as if Higinbotham's performance would be hard for his twin to match, but Andrew Venning steps smartly up to the mark with his brilliant kitchen wench stand-up routine.
A good pairing too, of Ellie Ann Lowe's long-suffering Adriana and her bespectacled sister Giovanna Ryan, though when things get really lively the shrieking tends to blur the words. Louise Templeton (ukulele) is the nun Emilia, as well as Pinch's glamorous assistant, and the Marilyn Monroe role (the Courtesan of the original) is beautifully taken by Susie Broadbent, singing – how could she not – I Wanna Be Loved By You.
The other Antipholus twin, amusingly confused by his reception in Ephesus, is William de Coverly, and Paul Sloss brings a touch of bling to his camp goldsmith Angelo. Paul Croft has the long exposition as old Egeon – also the smartly uniformed Officer - and Scott Brookes is “Joey Merchant”, Solinus' sinister side-kick.
And they all make up an impressive jazz band, with the sax obbligato in Through With Love a particular highlight. But before the two Dromios touchingly walk off sideways through the doorway and the band take their calls to a final reprise of Running Wild, we have a crazy chase, the hotel changing magically to the chapel, and even a fleeting moment with two men cross-dressed in coats and cloche hats ...
production image: Scott Rylander
HENRY V
Antic Disposition at
Middle Temple Hall
30.03.2016
for The Reviews Hub
This unique staging premièred last year in the Temple Church. Now, before setting off on a tour of English Cathedrals, it's moved round the corner to the equally evocative Middle Temple Hall, one of the very few performance spaces still in use that Shakespeare himself would have known.
It is a powerful and timely adaptation. It blends the Bard with Housman, Shakespeare 400 with Antic Disposition's 10th birthday, the Great War with Agincourt, fought over the same fields of Northern France 500 years earlier.
In this Elizabethan auditorium, it's an intimate, minimalist experience. Munition crates for furniture, ration cans for crowns, Croix Rouge cardboard mitres, bandages for tennis balls. Set in a field hospital, it begins stunningly with glimpses of frenzied activity in the wood-panelled corridors outside as the wounded are rushed in for treatment. At such close quarters, there's no room for artifice; the costumes and the performances are all totally convincing.
The central concept – that a mixed ward of French and British soldiers collaborate to mount a production of Henry V – is very strong, bringing fresh insights into the play: not only the nationality thing, but the thankless, unsung role of the Poor Bloody Infantry in both conflicts.
The Chorus's prologue – there'll be much work for our “imaginary forces” in the next two hours – is shared between the two camps. The traverse staging often reminds us of the gulf between, “fire answers fire” …
A superb company of actors from both sides of the Channel. Freddie Stewart makes a compelling, very youthful, king – mischievous with the glove, thrillingly inspired in the Breach scene – wonderfully staged – and caught up in his own oratory in the Band of Brothers speech.
Amongst a uniformly excellent company, James Lavender, reminiscent of Bairnsfather's Old Bill, begins as an awkward amateur actor [the Salic Law survives the scissors] and is also a marvellous Pistol. His wife, Mistress Quickly, is touchingly done by Louise Templeton, who also gives a superbly bilingual Alice, waiting woman to Floriane Andersen's engaging, amusing Katherine. One of the most moving moments comes just before the interval, when James Murfitt's Bardolph, about to be shot for looting, confuses the theatre with the grim reality of the trenches and suffers a total breakdown. The King calls him by his name - “It's not real ...”, the nurses try to calm him, the company gathers round to sing Housman's White in the Moon.
The Shropshire Lad settings by Butterworth, killed in action in 1916, were one of the inspirations for this production. The Lads In Their Hundreds is sung in the original, the rest newly set by composer Christopher Peake, at the upright in the performance. They are a constant reminder of the futility of war, from the jaunty, jingoistic Leave Your Home Behind Lads, to I Hear The Bugle Blow as the men stand restless – greyhounds in the slips – till the whistle sends them over the top.
And at the end, the Lads in Their Hundreds again, bitterly barked out as the men are recalled to the front. “The lads who will die in their glory and never be old.” The play is done, the actors have muttered modest congratulations, the French and English march their separate ways, and the two women are left alone, Nurse Katherine still clutching her bridal bouquet of poppies.
Production Photograph by Scott Rylander
