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“Till The Stars Come Down” at the Theatre Royal Haymarket

If you put three sisters at the heart of your play, as Beth Steel does, then your audience is likely to think of Chekhov. Add a community in some kind of decline (in this case, a former mining town) and a new group on the rise (here, Polish immigrants) and more bells ring. The comparisons prove interesting but might not be complimentary. Steel’s play is funny, but its humour isn’t subtle. There’s a lot of drama, but it often approaches soap opera. What impresses, though, is that the trio of siblings prove strong enough to stand on their own – powerful characterisation and excellent performances make the show.

We join Hazel, Maggie and Sylvia on the latter’s wedding day. There’s a lot of stress as well as fun, and it’s clear from the start these are fine roles for Lucy Black, Aisling Loftus and Sinéad Matthews, who all do a great job. Tensions in the family are skilfully revealed, with the women’s father, a cheating husband and a frustrated groom providing more strong turns from Alan Williams, Adrian Bower and Julian Kostov. The men aren’t as well written but, with trouble brewing because of the new groom being Polish and Hazel’s marriage breaking down, the play is action packed.

Steel has a lot of interests. It’s a shame that a sense of community, and its problems, aren’t conveyed in more depth. The sisters’ grief for their recently deceased mother is hazy, too, although Williams helps here. Much better is a concern for time and memory, highlighting the joys that make life worth living – a child playing with a toy, a recollection of shopping as a family or a moment in the rain. Director Bijan Sheibani stages these impeccably (with help from lighting designer Paule Constable), creating theatrical moments that lead to goosebumps.

Dorothy-Atkinson-in-'Till-the-Stars-Come-Down'-credit-Manuel-Harlan
Dorothy Atkinson

Steel has further success with another character, the sisters’ aunt, a terrific comic creation that Dorothy Atkinson excels in – full of wit, wisdom and convincing depth. This wedding day is not a happy one as the final moment shows the family breaking up. If the plot here isn’t exactly a surprise, it’s handled with sensitivity and an impressively even hand. There are sensational touches including, perhaps, too many shouting matches. Yet Steel and Atkinson manage to get laughs in the darkest moments, balance excesses and shows the skill of all involved in a play that is interesting and entertaining.

Until 27 September 2025

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

Photos by Manuel Harlan

2018

“Absolute Hell” at the National Theatre

It’s a brave actress who takes on a role made famous by Judi Dench but as Christine, the alcoholic autophobic landlady of Rodney Ackland’s play, Kate Fleetwood brings her usual consummate skill to the job. Like her club, which remained open throughout the Blitz, Christine is falling apart just as World War II ends and most people are starting life again. Acclaim should be shared with Charles Edwards as Hugh, a too-regular-regular and once promising author who remains sympathetic despite his scrounging and whining. The couple’s love lives and drunken desperation power the play into a dark territory that makes this a fascinating piece.

Charles Edwards and Jonathan Slinger
Charles Edwards and Jonathan Slinger

The members of La Vie En Rose club create the kind of ensemble show the National Theatre excels in, and the size of the cast alone is impressive. Sinéad Matthews does well as the louche Elizabeth, carrying on an affair in front of her long-term partner Siegfried (Danny Webb), while Jonathan Slinger’s gloriously camp film director Maurice Hussey attempts to live up to his name. If Martins Imhangbe doesn’t quite convince as the object of all affections, the fault lies with the writer – the earnest GI’s sincerity has no place amongst all this narcissism and nastiness. Which isn’t to say you won’t enjoy watching the club’s habitués: there’s a strong collection of comic cameos, including Liza Sadovy as an heiress dubbed The Treacle Queen, and Lloyd Hutchinson’s mad artist.

Everyone is escaping, and it’s a theme Ackland is less than subtle with. The play’s first incarnation was in the 1950s and overtones of Existentialism overpower it. Director Joe Hill-Gibbons decides not to restrain the piece and excesses occur, including poor Rachel Dale as local prostitute Fifi forced to walk around the stage all night – surely a little too literal? Lizzie Clachan’s set design does not serve the play well. There’s a lot of coming and going here and using the whole of the Lyttleton stage as well as giving the club three flights of stairs makes it all rather exhausting to watch.

Both play and production make up for problems with the humour on offer. Above all, it’s startlingly original. This cruel look at war-time Britain isn’t the kind of thing we are used to – no wonder it shocked so soon after the events depicted. As a satirist, Ackland is a harsh master. As insult and faux pas fly, characters become increasingly diminished in the audience’s eyes. Is there anyone to root for here? There are certainly no failings that aren’t ruthlessly exposed. The humour is out-and-out biting, vicious and extreme. And, by delivering absolutes, the play becomes heaven rather than hell.

Until 16 June 2018

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

Photos by Johan Persson

2017

“Loot” at the Park Theatre

Don’t simply label this as a farce: Joe Orton’s 1964 masterpiece has a superb revival under the capable aegis of director Michael Fentiman, who has a careful eye on the play’s complexity. The crazed mix of Wildean epigrams, social satire, viscous comment and, OK, farce, are all present, correct and very funny.

Set on the day of a funeral, and just after a bank robbery, events descend into chaos orchestrated to show authority as absurd and human nature as venal. Ian Redford plays an innocent mourning husband and Christopher Fulford a bizarre police inspector who comes calling. They deliver the dense lines well, although both have the challenge of elevating their roles above stock characters – the play’s diabolical overtones arrive late, but there’s plenty of fun along the way.

An unholy trinity of characters is the play’s real focus. A genocidal nurse, fanatical in her Roman Catholicism and acquisition of husbands, makes a great role for Sinéad Matthews, who appreciates how broad the part needs to be played. San Frenchum and Calvin Demba produce great work as partners-in-crime Hal and his “baby” Dennis: the chemistry between them is electric and they manage to be at once clueless and callous. Bad enough to keep a priest dispensing penance for 24 hours, their stolen cash, destined for investment in a brothel, ends up stashed in Hal’s mother’s coffin. Which means treating the corpse – performed by Anah Ruddin, who deserves her applause when she rises from the casket to take a bow – with a still-shocking disdain.

Fentiman preserves Loot’s 1960s feel, conveying an anarchic streak that belies the sophistication of the text. Of course, Orton’s play can’t shock as it once did (our cynicism towards the establishment is set in stone, although a couple of comments about women and Pakistani girls did draw intakes of breath), but the sense of confrontation is bracing. Both play and production are, appropriately, “perfectly scandalous”.

Until 24 September 2017

www.parktheatre.co.uk

Photo by Darren Bell

2010

“The Glass Menagerie” at the Young Vic

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Joe Hill-Gibbins’ production of Tennessee Williams’ ‘memory’ play, The Glass Menagerie, is one you won’t forget. Introduced as a play that gives “truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion”, Hill-Gibbins and designer Jeremy Herbert develop Williams’ emphasis on the theatrical with crystal clarity.

With a curtain that goes down as well as up and musicians integrated into the action, the workings of the story are exposed to all, entrancing us with its telling.

Not that this illusion is really all that pleasant. Our narrator Tom relates the tale of his escape from home but never disguises the fact that he is abandoning his mother and sister. Leo Bill plays this unsympathetic character, who haunted from the start. It is a surprisingly physical portrayal with a palpable sense of anger and despair.

The urgency of Tom’s leaving is well established by Deborah Findlay and Sinead Matthews in the roles of his mother Amanda and sister Laura. The danger of their self-illusion is subtly conveyed and is all the more powerful for the way it creeps up on you.

Even in Williams’ day, the chivalry of the South was a thing of the past. Nowadays, Amanda’s delusions and Laura’s timidity can seem not just deluded but silly. Findlay does well to establish her character’s ideas without alienating the audience. This is a lesson Matthews has chosen to ignore. Some actresses play Laura with a stubbornness about her fantasy life that is missing here. But, in neglecting this, Matthews is all the more moving and as fragile as the glass animals she collects.

The play’s fourth character, Jim the gentleman caller, is “an emissary from the world of reality” and arrives through a door marked with a star. Kyle Soller gives an excellent performance, fitting Tom’s description of him perfectly and adding a sincerity that cannot fail to move. He becomes central to Hill-Gibbins’ sensitive direction of this masterpiece and in bringing emotion to the fore leaves us as haunted as the characters left abandoned in their fantasy world.

www.youngvic.org

Until 15 January 2011

Photo by Simon Annand

Written 22 November 2010 for The London Magazine

2010

“Eigengrau” at the Bush Theatre

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Penelope Skinner’s new play, Eigengrau, is set in a London with no sense of community. It’s a city we hope we don’t experience but we all know exists. A group of twenty year olds are all alone and searching for love and friendship. It could be depressing stuff but in this play it is very, very funny.

Feminist activist Cassie has a flat share that isn’t going well. She had to advertise on Gumtree and found Rose, a ditzy blonde who has never heard of sexual liberation. Rose’s ‘boyfriend’ Mark works in marketing and is instantly offensive to Cassie. His flatmate Tim has problems too – he is recently bereaved, overweight and works in a friend’s chicken store. (Writing for The London Magazine, I have to point out that what these people need is a reputable lettings agent.)

In the interaction between these characters Skinner deals with pretty much every taboo of polite conversation and gets great laughs out of them all. Never talk about religion? Rose is a believer and happy to proselytize. She has proof fairies exist, oh, and dwarves as well. Sex and death? The cynicism and romance of casual encounters and falling in love cross over hilariously. Meanwhile Tim mourning his grandmother becomes grotesquely hilarious as her ashes are used to great comic effect. There is politics as well: Mark is surprised to learn people still ‘do’ feminism, and of course there is talk of property, that very London obsession.

With this comic potential the show has plenty of laugh out loud moments but as you might predict with humour this dark, it sometimes crosses a line. Where this lies is personal and, partly, the point of such black comedy. A loose grip on reality is often endearing but as this becomes dangerous it is disturbing. The women in the play debasing and mutilating themselves are dealt with ironically, but also horrifically. A long scene of oral sex, where the lights are cleverly raised, makes watching fellow audience members frankly more entertaining than what is happening on stage.

Yet all the cast show great skill in treading the fine line between humour and bad taste. It is impossible to say who gets the most laughs – there are so many of them. Geoffrey Streatfeild’s Mark is revolting – as smooth as they come and too clever for his own good. It takes real talent to turn an audience off a character that quickly! John Cummins’ Tim is utterly charming. He is a sensitive soul who is lost but still sees further than most. The women have slightly meatier roles, allowing Sinead Matthews and Alison O’Donnell to shine – their disappointments in love are moving as well as hilarious. The cast are clearly confident in the hands of director Polly Findlay. This is all heady, heavy stuff and the bold traverse design from Hannah Clark makes for an intimate, yet potentially intimidating space.

The journey our intrepid Londoners take is one worth making with them. Eigengrau is the colour seen by the eye in perfect darkness, a kind of grey that the optic nerve generates. There is plenty of blindness in the play. As the characters grope around, it becomes clear they aren’t going to find happiness through money or causes but need to search within themselves. Politics or success won’t help them but maybe, through fantasy at least, they will be able to laugh along the way.

Until 10 April 2010

www.bushtheatre.co.uk

Photo by Manuel Harlan

Written 16 March 2010 for The London Magazine