Tag Archives: Anthony Ward

“Double Feature” at the Hampstead Theatre

John Logan knows a lot about the cinema. As well as plays, he’s written scripts for major movies including Skyfall and Gladiator. His new work for the theatre takes two older films, Marnie and Witchfinder General, and is a tricksy, witty, entertaining piece, with plenty going on.

The characters are two pairs of directors and performers from those films: Alfred Hitchcock with Tippi Hedren and Michael Reeves with Vincent Price. So, we’ve got big personalities to enjoy; Logan brings out these artists’ intelligence and gives them great lines. The performances from Ian McNeice, Joanna Vanderham, Rowan Polonski and Jonathan Hyde (in that order) are strong.

Keeping up with who is who and what they do? Well, hold on, despite meeting in different times and places, they are all on stage at the same time. All the action occurs on Anthony Ward’s gorgeous country cottage set.  It’s to the credit of the cast and director Jonathan Kent that this isn’t confusing. While the idea elaborates the play’s themes, it doesn’t necessarily make them clearer.

Joanna-Vanderham-and-Ian-McNeice-in-Double-Feature-credit-Manuel-Harlan
Joanna Vanderham and Ian McNeice

The four are, ostensibly, rehearsing. Although both meetings have darker agendas that provide drama. Going behind the scenes is often interesting; you might consider current hit The Motive and the Cue as a parallel. If you like movies, Double Feature has built-in appeal, there’s a lot of insight here. It’s interesting to see how the directors explain how they work, how they storyboard in their heads. How there’s more than a little snobbery from both Hitchcock and Reeves. And how insecure both actors turn out to be.

Jonathan-Hyde-and-Rowan-Polonski-as-in-Double-Feature-credit-Manuel-Harlan
Jonathan Hyde and Rowan Polonski

The link between each director and their star is clear, the relationships explored in depth leading to powerful moments. In tandem with questions about celebrity (pinning that down is as fickle as fame itself) there’s an exploration of power as well as age and youth – Hitchcock and Price are senior and worried about being “foolish old men”. Everyone reveals a vulnerable side, although Reeves’ poor mental health needs elaborating. It’s Vanderham who steals the show: a horrible #MeToo moment, made viscerally moving, gives way to Hitchcock’s muse turning on him in magnificent style. I felt like bursting into applause.

Maybe, the cleverest part of Double Feature is how much both theatre and film reveal about each other. There’s plenty of talk about honesty and reality, made urgent with Polonski’s cineaste character. He thinks a movie has an advantage here, but this play asks you to think again. There’s a lot of talk about shallowness and substance, with performers simply a face or a big name to be used. But with four on stage, and the text weaving between them, it’s easy for us, if not Hitchcock, to see how collaborative the performing arts have to be. While Kent directs with precision, Hyde’s brilliant Price points out to us how the theatre controls less and demands more. A play becomes a great way to say a lot – the stage does Logan proud. 

Until 16 March 2024

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Photos by Manuel Harlan

“Blithe Spirit” at the Harold Pinter Theatre

Richard Eyre’s revival of Noël Coward’s supernatural comedy has bells and whistles as well mentioning smells. Funny, polished and proficient, it is enjoyable”. But despite the star casting of Jennifer Saunders, the production doesn’t quite manage to sparkle.

There is plenty to impress. Anthony Ward’s grand set and illusions by Paul Kieve emphasise the spooky as Charles and Ruth are haunted by his dead wife Elvira. There are bangs, flashes and smoke. And some strange music.

As for the smells, Jennifer Saunders gives us a flatulent Madame Arcati! As the spiritualist whose séance coincides with the return of Elvira, this key role gets the over-the-top performance it deserves. And some big eyebrows. You don’t need to be a psychic to predict Saunders will do well: she proves value for money with an impressive physicality that energises the character.

While other performances are accomplished, they are less inspiring. Geoffrey Streatfeild is surprisingly flat as novelist Charles Condomine. It’s easy to see his character as a stand in for Coward himself, but there’s little sense of complexity to the part. It comes as a surprise when either wife gets vicious – he just seems amiable and there should be more.

Both wives are more interesting than Charles. There’s no shortage of stage presence. But Eyre’s direction curbs the performances: Madeleine Mantock spends nearly all her time as Elvira on tiptoes while Lisa Dillon’s Ruth makes silly noises to get laughs. Delivery of the lines is very fast. And while this is impressive technically, it means Coward’s wit is poorly served. There are jokes that are just abandoned for the sake of speed.

Rose Wardlaw in Blithe Spirit
Rose Wardlaw

Thankfully, the production isn’t just the Jennifer Saunders show. However loved, focusing on one performer doesn’t make for good theatre. Rose Wardlaw’s turn as the Condomine’s maid, Edith, is a real crowd-pleaser. Again, the comedy is physical and there’s a great spooky moment for her. Saunders and Wardlaw make the show fun if not quite as fantastic as it should be.

Until 6 November 2021

www.atgtickets.com

Photos by Nobby Clark

“The Height of the Storm”at Wyndham’s Theatre

The new hit from French playwright Florian Zeller, translated as usual by Christopher Hampton, treads familiar ground. It intelligently manipulates audience expectations and is expertly theatrical– to his credit, you can’t imagine Zeller’s work in any other medium. As with hisprevious play, The Father, dementia and the impact on a family of that awful disease are the subject matter. But the love story of a devoted couple, André and Madeleine, one of whom dies, means The Height of the Storm can mine the  depths of even more emotion.

Zeller’s writing seems a gift to directors, and Jonathan Kent’s work here is faultless and attractive to performers. Amanda Drew and Anna Madeley play the daughters of the piece impeccably, never overstating their characters’ differences. And there are two strong performances from James Hillier and Lucy Cohu as strangers who flit between supporting and threatening the family. But the play belongs to André and Madeleine, played by Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins – two masterclasses not to be missed. Pryce gives a tender performance detailing the fears of old age, while Atkins magnificently develops her role’s carefully revealed depths. Together their devotion as a couple is utterly convincing and incredibly moving.

While set in Zeller’s typically sophisticated milieu (André is a man of letters and Anthony Ward’s design of his house is retro-boho-chic), the rawness of grief removes us from the urbane characters that can sometimes feel foreign in his plays. The twist is a painful one – we don’t really know whether it’s André or Madeleine who has died. The confusion isn’t just because of André’s dementia. When the couple talk to one another it isn’t clear if the scene is a flashback or a grief-stricken fantasy, and they both refer to the other dying. So, Zeller presents us with both scenarios and the awful question of what would be ‘best’ arises – for you or your partner to die first? And which of your parents could cope best on their own?

Some may find Zeller’s approach opaque, but his skill at crafting the confusion is brilliant. The Height of the Storm opens up a debate about the end of our lives that is urgent and, in privileging the perspective of the elderly, an important contribution. We are taken to the heart of the drama and the issue at the same time and asked to confront both in a personal fashion. The finale emphasises the couple’s love. It reminds us of their agency as well as what is at stake. And, if you haven’t been crying already, you will be by the end.

Until 1 December 2018

www.theheightofthestorm.com

Photos by Hugo Glendinning

“Gypsy” at the Savoy Theatre

Believe the hype. Jonathan Kent’s triumphant revival of Gypsy, coming from the Chichester Festival Theatre, deserves every one of the many stars critics have lavished upon it. And, as for stars, Imelda Staunton’s much lauded performance in the lead really is a triumph, attracting every superlative imaginable.

Of course, it helps that the musical itself is wonderful. Jule Styne’s score has hits and a satisfying coherence that builds power in a symphonic fashion. Arthur Laurents’ book is perfection: powerful family relationships and fundamental emotions elaborated through the story of a pushy showbiz mother, touring America’s dying Vaudeville circuit, and the bitter success of her daughter becoming the burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee. Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics are justly legendary, from ‘Have an Egg Roll Mr Goldstone’ to the phenomenal ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’.

This production of Gypsy has the highest standards. It feels like a bit of Broadway in the West End. Kent’s handling is loving – he knows he’s crafting a gem and creates a tremendous energy. The show sounds gloriously brassy, which is just right, while the detailed, mobile sets from Anthony Ward embody a ‘Hi, ho the glamorous life’ of travelling performers. There are strong performances from Gemma Sutton and Lara Pulver as Momma Rose’s long-suffering daughters, especially Pulver and she blossoms into the striptease sensation that is Gypsy.

Against this flawless backdrop, Staunton excels as Momma Rose. Surely there can be few roles more daunting – remember, the critic Frank Rich described the part as musical theatre’s unlikely answer to King Lear. And think of what big shoes there are to fill. Staunton’s comedy skills are the best around and, in Gypsy, her acting shines. When Staunton wants a laugh – she got it. But Momma Rose is grown with subtlety, her fragility well established before her final breakdown. This makes the famous scene of ‘Rose’s Turn’ startlingly brave and painfully real.

Curtain up until 28 November 2015

www.thesavoytheatre.com

Photo by Johan Persson

“King Lear” at the National Theatre

The National Theatre has rolled out the big guns to start 2014 – Simon Russell Beale as King Lear directed by Sam Mendes. It doesn’t matter what the weather is doing, or what your budget is like, make a resolution to see this one.

It’s a grand production in many ways. Star director Mendes was widely rumored for the top job at the National Theatre (it went to Rufus Norris), and is clearly at home here. Behind Anthony Ward’s deceptively simple design, the Olivier auditorium is used for all it’s worth. The sense of space is appropriately magisterial and the endlessly revolving stage reflects the play’s conceit of a wheel of fortune. Lear’s kingdom is a noirish nightmare inhabited by gangsters, militia and Blackshirts.

It isn’t just the superb spectacle that makes this Lear memorable. Simon Russell Beale gives the first unmissable performance of the year. His physical transformation is striking – he seems to shrink into the role in a degeneration that accelerates before your eyes. Always an intelligent performer, Russell Beale’s frequent work with Mendes shows how well he interprets the director’s powerful vision. This Lear is scary, a potent psychopath and giving up his throne is acknowledged as inexplicable. It’s a strategy that makes sense of his rages and fills the stage with fear. In a bold move, Lear kills Adrian Scarborough’s thought-provoking fool (in this production he’s even occasionally funny) in an agony of anger.

Matching him in menace, Lear’s daughters are clearly from the same mould. Fantastic casting is made the most of with Kate Fleetwood’s Goneril and Anna Maxwell-Martin’s Regan stealing many of the scenes they are in. Vampish and vicious, they are full of manoeuvres. Olivia Vinall’s Cordelia is also defiantly active, donning army fatigues as she leads an invading force to rescue her father. This Lear is action packed throughout. The plot fuels the tragedy in a way that emphasises that justice isn’t abstract, or the twisted sport of a divinity, but the work of man. From this, the end is even more tragic than usual, with a near unbearably moving performance by Russell Beale.

Until 25 March 2014

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

Photo by Mark Douet

Written 27 January 2014 for The London Magazine

“Sweeney Todd” at the Adelphi Theatre

Arriving in London from rave reviews at the Chichester Festival Theatre, Jonathan Kent’s production of Sweeney Todd is the must-see show of the summer. Arguably Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece, certainly his most famous work, it’s a musical that’s as intellectually stimulating as it is approachable.

Kent and his team make the most of each show-stopping number: almost to the production’s detriment as the evening is in danger of turning into a collection of hits rather than flowing as the excellent book by Hugh Wheeler intends it to. To be fair this really isn’t Kent’s fault – the audience response is rapturous, the atmosphere fantastic.

There is plenty to applaud. Michael Ball is remarkable in the title role. His transformation into the demon barber of Fleet Street makes him unrecognisable. More to the point, he gets to show what a fine actor he can be and remind us what a great voice he has. He does justice to Sondheim’s challenging score and embraces Sweeney’s tragic predicament in a stark manner that avoids camp.

Sweeney’s partner in crime, Mrs Lovett, is a role to kill for and Imelda Staunton has a great deal of fun with it. Her comedy is spot on and her voice strong. In love with Sweeney, Lovett’s descent into crime is swift, inevitable and wickedly funny, giving the production great pace. Staunton’s is a cracking performance that never slows and continually impresses.

Several recent productions of Sweeney Todd have been performed by opera companies reverent towards the score and resourced in a manner you might miss here – the chorus seems small and at times unsatisfying. There’s also a suspicion that Anthony Ward’s set feels a little lost on the large Adelphi stage; Sweeney’s London hardly teems with people, even if Mark Henderson’s lighting design creates atmosphere in abundance. But such cavils certainly won’t stop you enjoying the evening. This isn’t the perfect production of Sweeney Todd but it’s within a whisker of it.

Until 22 September 2012

Photo by Johan Persson

Written 23 March 2012 for The London Magazine