Top Ten Theatre Performances of 2017

So I’ve already told you what my Top Ten shows were this year, now let’s do some detail and talk acting (the sexiest bit of the theatre, let’s be honest).

But first, some ground rules. Well a ground rule: only two performers, one male and one female, from any one production are allowed in this list. This may seem really arbitrary, and it is, but blame Angels in America. You see, thanks to the embarrassment of riches that was the Angels cast when I originally wrote this list down it was essentially just Angels cast. And that’s a bit boring, however justified it may be. So, with apologies to Andrew Garfield, James McArdle and Russell Tovey in particular, I have my rule and I’m sticking to it. 

Onwards!

1. Nathan Lane 

Roy Cohn, Angels in America

No one else was ever coming close to the top of this list. As I seem to recall writing in my review, it’s not that Lane’s performance in Angels is in a different league to everyone else, he’s playing an entirely different sport. Peerless.

2. Bertie Carvel 

Rupert Murdoch, Ink

A joyously old school, physical, intricately detailed piece of work. The joy of Carvel’s Murdoch is two fold: 1) he makes you forget everything you think you know (or feel) about Rupert Murdoch and 2) he simultaneously makes you forget you’re watching Bertie Carvel. No mean feat. Still my favourite actor. (Also his eyebrows in this production deserve an award all of their own.)

3. Paddy Considine

Quinn Carney, The Ferryman

In an ensemble piece like The Ferryman it’s difficult for a single performer to stand out but Paddy Considine absolutely did with his controlled and naturalistic Quinn. Basically impossible to believe that this was his stage debut.

4. Imelda Staunton

Sally Durant, Follies

I mean, it’s Imelda Staunton in a Sondheim show so you know it’s good. The tender sadness Staunton put into her Sally was so beautiful. Her rendition of Losing My Mind is a standalone highlight of my 2017 theatrical year.

5. Omid Djalili

Tevye, Fiddler on the Roof 

The speed with which Djalili convinced this sceptic that his casting was not only 100% correct but indeed there was literally no one else that could play this part was frankly alarming. His If I Were a Rich Man is now my brain’s go to version.

6. Tracy-Ann Oberman

Golde, Fiddler on the Roof 

A first rate Tevye deserves a first rate Golde and Djalili found his in Tracy-Ann Oberman. The second half of Chichester’s production was entirely hers and dear god she broke my heart. Possibly the most I’ve ever cried in the theatre, which is going some. 

7. Cyril Nri

Emmanuel, Barbershop Chronicles

Beautiful, sad, nuanced and completely controlled. Cyril Nri has been great in everything I’ve seen him in but really lit up the stage here. And, yes, I’m still crying about his last scene. 

8. Susan Brown

Hannah Pitt (amongst others), Angels in America

Brown seemed to be everywhere all at once in Angels, but it was her deeply moving performance as Hannah that’s really stuck with me. It takes a very special actress indeed to take a role played by Meryl Streep on screen and improve on it. Brown did exactly that.

9. Ciaran Hinds

Nick, Girl from the North Country

The non-singer in a musical could have been a very unsatisfying part but Hinds made it into something incredibly effective and affecting. A haunting study in loneliness and regrets. 

10. Clare Halse

Peggy Sawyer, 42nd Street

I’ve never seen a triple threat like Clare Halse in real life before. I sort of thought they only existed in Hollywood’s collective imagination to be honest. An absolute superstar in the making if there’s even an ounce of justice left in the world.

Theatre Review: Ink

Sometimes the heavens align in theatreland and you find yourself watching a production written by your favourite playwright, starring your favourite actor, directed by one of your favourite directors and staged in one of your favourite venues, and it makes everything right with the world.

Ink is a play about the birth of The Sun newspaper under the considerable personalities of its founding editor, Larry Lamb, and its owner and proprietor, Rupert Murdoch (perhaps you’ve heard of him). A juicy enough prospect in itself. When you throw the fact that it’s written by James Graham, stars Bertie Carvel as Murdoch, is directed by Rupert Goold and staged at the Almeida into the mix it becomes positively orgasmic. Pass me a cigarette because I’m done.

There shall be no beating about the bush here. I fucking loved this play and this production of it is about as good as it gets.

Ink is the second of five James Graham plays I will see this year, following on from This House which regular readers will recall I had some Strong Feelings about, and it’s increased my enthusiasm for his work no end. It is whip smart, very funny and pleasingly non-judgemental. There’s a real enthusiasm for the topic and a level of humanity in Graham’s writing and characterisation that is so refreshing - especially given the people and the institution involved here, about which it’s difficult not to have an opinion.

The whole approach to Ink is so fresh and exciting. It presumes no prior knowledge, it offers no moral judgement, it is in no way an issue play. It simply tells the story brilliantly and asks some vital questions about the role of the press in a modern society; it is for the audience to provide their own answers. The parallels here with the mode of storytelling that Lamb and Murdoch set out in the play’s opening scene are presumably not accidental. It is also a relief that contemporary references are not overdone, as must have been the temptation, so that when they are used they are much more impactful.

It is, in short and like This House, an absolutely fantastic play. It would be worth seeing even in a crap production. That the Almeida’s production is anything but crap is an added joy.

‘Anything but crap’ is a bit of an understatement too. This is a production every bit as good as its play. Rupert Goold’s direction is pacey, fluent and honest (though if I do have a criticism of this production overall it’s that it could stand to be ten minutes shorter). Bunny Chrstie’s set, a muddle multi-storey mess of a newspaper office, is evocative and functionally brilliant, bringing a sense of anarchy and excitement to proceedings. The lighting is great, especially the use of my old favourite, the bright white spot, as a highlight at key points. The choreography and music, sparingly used, is incredibly effective and is becoming one of my favourite features of James Graham shows.

The characterisation is one of the areas where Ink is most different from This House. Whilst the latter was a big ensemble thing, Ink is pretty much a two man show. The ensemble in Ink is certainly less crucial than their Westminster equivalents though they are excellent, the women in particular - Sophie Stanton as Joyce Hopkirk brings real heart to the table whilst Pearl Chanda is spunky and strong as Stephanie Rahn. (That Graham writes fantastic parts for women is yet another reason to love him.)

Richard Coyle takes the biggest role in terms of stage time, though I would argue not the lead role, as Larry Lamb and uses every minute extremely well. His Lamb is complicated, conflicted, slimey and ultimately sympathetic. He is particularly good at portraying the pressure that Lamb is under from all quarters, especially as the action ramps up towards the end of act two. And he leaves enough shades of grey in his performance to allow the audience to ask interesting questions of his motivations, chiefly why is he really so obsessed with beating The Mirror’s circulation figures? It’s a brilliant, nuanced piece of acting which does a lot to shake up the perception of a man who, one suspects, an Almeida audience is not predisposed to like.

Speaking of which, playing Rupert Murdoch to an Islington audience - or any audience for that matter - and presenting them with someone they don’t hate is surely deserving of some kind of special award. Certainly it takes a special performance from a special actor. From my previously expressed sentiments, it should come as no surprise that I rank Bertie Carvel squarely within that category. His Murdoch is a genuinely fantastic performance: physically unrecognisable, perfectly accented and utterly surprising in its characterisation of the man as socially awkward and kind of shy but utterly and completely driven. He’s not physically on stage that often (to my chagrin) but he is on stage at all times. That takes some doing. As ever, there’s a joyously old fashioned physicality to what he does which is as fascinating to watch as it is effective. He doesn’t so much walk the stage as stalk it, slightly hunched over, suggesting a barely suppressed rage that is allowed to burst through only once and so feels even more dangerous the rest of the time as a result. He achieves something completely remarkable, ultimately: not only do you forget that you’re watching him as an actor, you also forget that you know who Rupert Murdoch is as a person. It’s fantastic and a thrill to watch. Why he isn’t everyone’s favourite actor is a fact that continues to baffle me.

Ink is a fantastic production of a fantastic play. It’s relevant, timely, achingly well written, without an iota of judgement or preachiness. It is superbly staged and home to some of the best, most fascinating acting you will see. And, perhaps most importantly, it is further proof that my Bertie Carvel obsession is justified (and also growing).

Ink is at the Almeida until 5th August (day tickets and returns only at this point, deservedly). Rumours of a West End transfer for the autumn abound.

Theatre Review: Strife

An annual pilgrimage to the Chichester Festival Theatre is one of the highlights of my summer these days.

Last year it was big glossy musical Mack and Mabel, this year a rather different kettle of theatrical fish: Strife, a gritty Edwardian political morality play.

Image source.

Written by The Forsyte Saga’s John Galsworthy, Strife tells the story of a strike at a South Wales tinplate works. The mine’s board, shareholders, Trade Union and many of the workers want the strike to end but this would mean compromise and to both the company’s owner John Anthony and strike leader David Roberts that is worse than failure. Compromise, as it inevitably does, eventually wins out. No one tell Jeremy Corbyn.

There is so much that is contemporary in this play, something which this production is slightly too at pains to stress, but neither the ideas it plays with nor the analysis it offers are particularly exceptional. Neither really are the characters, none of whom are fleshed out beyond their role in the strike. And the attempts at ‘Welsh dialect’ - ie adding the phrase ‘look you’ onto the end of every third sentence - are so ridiculous to my (Welsh native and therefore biased) ear that they made me laugh.

That said, look you, there is some lovely writing on display, mostly given to Roberts and the other workers, and actually this is a much more subtle play than many of its contemporaries - god awful Waste, for example - in that there is relatively little judgement meted out on either side. The added dynamic of men vs Union is also an interesting touch, one which any production of this play could benefit from examining more closely. It’s a much more interesting theme than labour vs capital for my money. I also enjoyed the frequent statements about how the middle class is terrible, something which would feel quietly radical being said in any British theatre but in Chichester is positively revolutionary.

But let’s be honest here, the play itself was approximately 0% of the reason I came to see this production. Approximately 100% of that reason was sat in the director’s chair: Bertie Carvel, making his directorial debut. And though I may disagree with his choice of play, there aren’t many more of his decisions in this production that I would question. Biased as I undoubtedly am, this is a terrifically assured, technically impressive and subtly distinctive piece for any director to have under their belt, debut or otherwise.

There is definitely the beginnings of a Carvel style on show during this production and it’s a very interesting one. This comes across most strongly in the aesthetics. Chief amongst the things that make this production work is the bleak but beautiful design (courtesy of Robert Jones). Vaguely reminiscent of The Hairy Ape in its sparsity and harshness, and also in its use of all of the senses to conjure an atmosphere, there are a number of very memorable, visually arresting scenes. The majority of these rely on one very clever and very multitasking prop: a giant slab of molten metal which is transformed first into the boardroom table for the mine’s owners’ meeting and later into a platform for the men to stand on whilst speaking at their meeting (this latter scene enhanced by liberal use of fake snow). As both an image and a metaphor, set against an all grey and empty performing space, all of these uses work so well. Director, designer and large slab of metal can justly consider themselves the stars of the show. (Though hopefully the latter is not sentient enough to do so.)

This is doubly true since the quality of the acting is frankly a bit patchy. Whilst the actors in lead roles are generally excellent, particularly Ian Hughes and his amazing moustache as a principled-without-caricature Roberts and Tomos Eames as his firey-est critic from amongst the men, a proper scenestealer of a performance actually, the quality in the smaller parts and ensemble isn’t always so high.

Ultimately Strife is a play that was unlikely to ever get me that excited but this production is very definitely worth your time and money, even if you only go for the near faultless visuals and impressive direction. And here’s hoping this is the first of many for actor/director Bertie Carvel too. It certainly deserves to be.

Strife is at the Minerva at Chichester Festival Theatre until 10th September.

Theatre Review: Sunset at the Villa Thalia

It does not bode well for a piece of theatre when the most exciting and memorable thing about it is someone in the audience.

So it was with Sunset at the Villa Thalia, currently playing at the NT’s Dorfman theatre (aka the theatre with the worth sightlines in London). A new play by Alexi Kaye Campbell, of The Pride fame, Sunset is one of those slightly irksome plays in which nothing actually happens. And, in this case, it happens particularly poorly.

Image source.

Now I don’t mind plays that are just people talking about stuff per se, as long as they have something interesting to say about the stuff said people are talking about. And this is the problem with Sunset: it just doesn’t. Its attempts at profound thinking include the observations that sometimes American foreign policy is not always completely altruistic and that a capitalist economy is not always 100% fair. Its views on the Pope’s religion were sadly omitted.

Structurally, the play seems to work very hard to actively expose its lack of depth. After a reasonably fun and breezy first half that I actually quite enjoyed, the second half is where all the ‘serious analysis’ tries to happen. It makes for one of the least subtle, most heavy handed and least engaging hours of theatre I’ve seen this year. The exchanges on American foreign policy (the lead character is a foreign operative for the Us Government) in particular are cringeworthy in their lack of sophistication. It’s like a particularly poorly written Guardian opinion piece made flesh.

The writing is ok, though again the first half is stronger, with some decent jokes and pithy observations. But again the ‘serious’ bits are weak and lightweight. Maybe someone should have upgraded the playwright’s GCSE history of Latin America textbook to an A Level one at least. This flows into the characterisation too, where portraits are very broad brush (bohemian British playwright and leftwing yummy mummy wife vs scheming American and drunk trophy wife) and motivations are almost always left unexplained. This means where character development is attempted, rarely, it really doesn’t make that much sense.

The production does have a redeeming feature, and it’s a considerable one in the shape of the reliably excellent Ben Miles in the lead role. His part - Harvey, the scheming US Government man - is by far the best written and realised and Miles is, reliably, excellent in it. He manages to make Harvey a far more relatable and sympathetic character than he really should be, even managing to pull some of the historio-political nonsense back from the brink. To continue a theme, he is even better in the first half when Harvey is at his most fun and charming. Elizabeth McGovern is fun too as his boozy wife June, the only problem being that I don’t really understand what her character adds to the play - she’s fine when she’s just providing comic relief but attempts to round her out into something fuller are at best of limited success. Simon Godwin’s direction is also, as ever, very good and mercifully pacey. I’m not sure I could’ve stood this production being much longer.

Overall, then, Sunset at the Villa Thalia is one you can afford to miss. Ben Miles being his usual excellent self isn’t enough to justify the price of a ticket, especially given the price point for an unrestricted view in the Dorfman.

And if you were wondering, it was Bertie Carvel in the audience. Regular readers will be unsurprised to learn that I therefore consider the price of my ticket was entirely justified.

Sunet at the Villa Thalia plays in the Dorfman at the NT until 4th August.

Theatre Review: The Hairy Ape

Here's a dirty confession for a theatre fan: until recently I'd never seen a Eugene O'Neill play.

I know right? I'm awful.

Fear not though. Thanks to The Old Vic's The Hairy Ape I have now remedied that situation and remedied it in some style.

Image source.

The Hairy Ape tells the story of Yank, a stoker on cruise liners, whose unshakable belief in his own self worth and place in society is destroyed when some rich bitch daughter of a steel millionaire calls him a filthy beast. His attempts to get his revenge on her and her whole social class are repeatedly thwarted until, broken, he seeks solace with a literal ape at the zoo. Hilarity does very much not ensue.

At this point I want to give a bit of a health warning for the rest of this piece: I have absolutely zero chill about this production. It’s amazing, I love it and everyone in the world should see it. So if you’re short on time, stop reading and go book tickets immediately. The other thing I should probably say is that, for the above stated reasons, I saw it twice and this review is my collected thoughts (‘incoherent fangirl ramblings’ might be more accurate) on both performances. 

The major drain on my chill here is Bertie Carvel whose central performance - and this is basically a one man show - as Yank is just phenomenal. The fact that, as discussed in a previous post, I very much have A Thing about Bertie Carvel notwithstanding the combination of brute physicality, violence, bravado and vulnerability he manages to pull off is genuinely astonishing. It’s a pretty boring observation to make at this point of his career, but fuck me is that guy versatile. It’s very hard for my tiny brain to compute that lumbering, angry, seemingly 7 foot tall (how do you act taller? how does that even work?) is deranged, broken Agave is tender, slightly nuts Jonathan Strange etc etc etc. And that’s amazing if you stop and think about it for even the briefest of moments. 

In this performance it’s first of all the physical transformation that’s strikingly impressive. Apart from somehow adding a foot to his height, the power Carvel's Yank has is frightening wherever you're sat. His gait, his stance, his movements are all slightly simian and all convey such pent up anger that you sort of want to leave the theatre because clearly bad shit is going to happen and this guy is going to be at the centre of it. (Also, aesthetically, WOW. Any semblance of my remaining chill was powerfully lost the second his shirt came off.) What’s less obvious but more impressive though is how, behind all of that, there’s an instant and heartbreaking vulnerability. Even though you sort of know where this play is heading, you root for Yank so hard and it’s because Carvel’s performance let’s you into this guy’s head to an extent that I doubt many other actors could manage. The scene where he’s rejected from the trade union he tries to join just broke my heart and the last scene (no spoilers) gave me such a physical reaction that I could feel my heart beating almost out of my chest both times I saw it. I don't remember reacting that way to any other performance before.

With this masterful central performance dominating the stage for basically the whole evening - the one scene that Yank isn’t in felt boring by comparison - there’s not much for the rest of the cast to do but they all do it well. Steffan Rhodri is particularly enjoyable as a nostalgic Irish drunk whose romanticism Yank can’t stand (and also delivers the play’s few funny lines, “I’m never too drunk to sing” being a favourite) and Phil Hill gives an amazingly charismatic performance as the ape, one that gives Andy Serkis and his Hollywood mo-cap magic a run for its money for sure. And the guys who get naked in the shower scene are a very welcome addition. Just saying.

The production looks stunning too, very modern in its black and yellow minimalism. The yellow storage container that serves as almost all the sets in various guises is such a clever, claustrophobic device and, more basically, it just looks quite frightening. One of the few scenes that lets the action out of the box and puts it into Fifth Avenue is also really effective and really fucking creepy, especially when the anonymous, masked posh people start doing an almost musicless, twitchy charleston. And thrusting Yank into the middle of this weirdness only makes it weirder still.

Now, there was a criticism in some of the proper grown up reviews that much of the dialogue, particularly in the first half hour or so, is difficult to make out and I think that is a valid point. Even on second viewing (/hearing) it took me a while to get my ear in and be able to fully understand the thick New York accents everyone uses and indeed are actually written into the play text. But then I have the same problem with people from Newcastle when I’ve had a few drinks and have never found it impairs my ability to enjoy their company. And so it is with this play; much like drinking with a Geordie or watching a Shakespeare you’re unfamiliar with, you may not pick up absolutely every word but neither do you for one moment lose the sense of what’s going on.

So, yeah, in summary see this show, see it now and see it repeatedly. And also go say hey to Bertie Carvel at the stage door because as well as being sickeningly talented he is also sickenkngly lovely, adorable human being. I sort of want to hate him but am physically and psychologically incapable of doing so.

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The Hairy Ape plays at The Old Vic until November 21st. Get your skates on.

Theatre Review: Bakkhai

This may come as a surprise to you but I am not a cool person.

I know how shocking this revelation is so I’ll give you a moment to recover.

…

Ok? Good. 

Not being a cool person makes me very suspicious of places like Islington, where I believe that at least one type of cool person tribe lives. Consequently I’d never been to The Almeida theatre before this week.

The Almeida is definitely a cool person’s theatre. Teeny tiny and with the apparently currently cool aversion to armrests (seriously, I'm getting so sick of the War on Armrests that some London theatres seem to be intent on waging. What did the poor armrest ever do to us except make sitting down more comfortable?), The Almeida is currently home to a season of ancient Greek plays, the latest of which is Bakkhai.

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For reasons, well a reason, that shall become apparent I desperately wanted to love Bakkhai. But I just couldn't. Not all of it, anyway.

You see, there’s a really good piece of theatre trapped within this production that just isn't given the chance to escape. And the thing trapping it is the interminable sung Chorus, done in traditional ancient Greek style as a group who speak and sing all of their lines in unison. 

Whilst technically impressive - and there should be no question that getting a reasonably sized group of diverse voiced women to sing in complete unison without a conductor is impressive - there’s just too much Chorus in what is a very short play by modern standards. Like, way too much Chorus. I would say at least 70% too much Chorus. The songs they sing are instantly forgettable (there was one about nets I think? Possibly I'm making that up but I'm running with it for the rest of this post), excessively long and frustratingly impenetrable - a particular shame given how clear this updated version of the classic text is otherwise. There are also far too many songs. They become boring very quickly, to the extent that I realised reasonably early on that I would happily give up Dionysus’ best invention (wine; lovely, lovely wine) forever if it meant that the Chorus would shut the fuck up. The man sitting next to me fell asleep whilst they were singing. Twice. Seems I wasn't the only one who wasn't a fan.

It’s a real shame that the Chorus kill this show so quickly and entirely because there is something quite special going on at the heart of it, and it’s called Bertie Carvel. 

Now look, I fucking LOVE Bertie Carvel, the latest recipient of my obsessive affections (see also: Kenneth Branagh, Michael Ball, Dominic West), and so I recognise that I’m biased. But, man, he is extraordinary in Bakkhai. I use the word extraordinary in both senses: 1) very, very good and 2) very, very weird. Doing double duty as shrewd politician Pentheus (both in and out of drag, and my personal thanks to the costume person who bought the slightly too tight shirt that Pentheus wears initially because WOW) and his unhinged, Dionysus-following mother Agave, he is quietly electrifying whenever he is on stage. His performance is a masterclass in understatement. His Pentheus is so still and controlled, at least at first, that he is instantly much more frightening than anything more bombastic would be. Even the drag sequence (where once again I come face to face with a man who walks in heels better than me) is played quietly and with some incredibly well attuned interaction with the audience. His Agave is heart rending, and again so subtly - and unexpectedly - played. There must be a serious temptation to play Agave, who *spoiler alert* has just brutally murdered Pentheus in a fit of Dionysian madness, as a raging screaming madwoman but this temptation is neatly side stepped in favour of a quiet but consuming grief and despair which is surprisingly beautiful. Almost as beautiful infact as Bertie Carvel’s shoulders which are displayed to great effect in Agave’s silk slip. But that’s by the by. This is great performance (performances?) that is definitely worth the ticket price and, more importantly, sitting through many lengthy songs about nets. And frankly I think any actor who is prepared to go on stage every night and murder himself deserves our support. Imagine the existential crises this must induce. 

For my money Bertie Carvel’s performance is far more interesting than top billed star Ben Whishaw’s, who plays more parts but with less variation. His Dionysus is great, with a creepy sensuality that’s a great foil for straight laced Pentheus and that dissolves to reveal a frightening fury in the final scenes, but his other parts (he also has old seer Tiresias and Pentheus’ slave who reports his death, Basil Exposition in Austin Powers style) are more forgettable. To put it another way, I was still thinking about Pentheus/Agave two days after seeing the show (and not just because of Bertie Carvel’s shoulders and too tight shirt) whereas I don’t think I've given Dionysus a second thought.

I suppose my overall feeling on this production of Bakkhai is that there’s a great play, fantastically acted, trapped within a mediocre musical. If you want a musical about Dionysus, check out Stephen Sondheim’s The Frogs which is all kinds of awesome. It you want to see some top class acting (and shoulders) and don’t mind sitting through some songs about nets, then this Bakkhai is for you. But you’ll have to move quickly as it's almost sold out and finishes next week. Sorry about that.

Bakkhai is on at The Almeida until 19th September.