Backstroke

by Anna Mackmin

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 6 March 2025

Anna Mackmin directs Tamsin Greig as Bo, Celia Imrie as her mother Beth with Lucy Briers as Carol and Anita Reynolds as Jill (two nurses) and Georgina Rich as Paulina (a consultant) in her own play about a complex mother-daughter relationship further complicated by the mother's advancing dementia and physical incapacity after a stroke.

After a brief depiction of the medical emergency that brought Beth to the hospital, she is immobilised and apparently unconscious as the panicky Bo tries to deal with the consultant's overworked briskness and Carol's old-style nursing approach (that one does what is best for the patient even if the intervention is said to be unwelcome). Unfortunately without the legal authority to impose end-of-life preferences Bo is immediately in a false position in attempting to assert her mother's views on the subject.

The situation is rendered more fraught by Bo's other responsibilities: her daughter is evidently causing disruption at school, and the drive to visit Beth takes several hours, so Bo has to keep appealing to Ted (her partner or husband) to interact with the school. Everything rapidly becomes a burden because too much is happening at once.

Fortunately Celia Imrie is not bed-bound for the entire performance. The often harrowing hospital situation is frequently interspersed with flashbacks in which she is a lively if wayward and self-obsessed single mother, having emerged at some point from communal living to bring up Bo according to her less than conventional principles. But there is an unhealthy co-dependency as it is impossible for Beth to be left alone: clearly many school days were missed (or perhaps Bo was entirely home-schooled), and as Bo prepares to leave for university the emotional blackmail is turned up several notches until she takes her mother with her.

Unsurprisingly Bo is exasperated nearly all the time, and almost unable to cope with her mother's sudden decline. The suffocating constrictions of her upbringing range from being forbidden to call Beth 'mummy' or 'mum' ("I have a name!" Beth insists), to being utterly unable to reach out to her physically in this current emergency. Bo's hand hovers above Beth's shoulder or face without daring a caress a painful number of times during her rushed hospital visits, a mute manifestation of her inner torment.

In an all-purpose setting (designed by Lez Brotherston) the hospital room is at the back of the stage and slightly raised, while in front is the memory room of Bo's adolescence and younger adulthood: a table and chairs to one side and an Aga to the other. Through the flashbacks we learn of the prickly relationship between the two women, usually involving snarky banter but occasionally exploding in rage or frustration. Bo's daughter, it transpires, is adopted, and the action is punctuated with short videos of her night terrors and tantrums. The indications of Beth's dementia creep in as they do, with increasing fumbling with words and repeated comments. The end cannot be anything but sad, despite Bo's extraordinary eulogy of her mother.

The title of the play seems to be connected to one flashback to a happier time in which the half-scared half-excited six-year-old Bo was taught by her mother to swim; this is linked to a gentle gesture (at last) of letting go which, while satisfying in its moment, is perhaps just a shade unlikely as a resolution to a lifetime of frustrated love.

The two central performances are extremely good, but the overall structure requires considerable concentration, and the minor characters are not deeply drawn. The decision to present Bo's own role as a mother largely through projected videos makes for clunky interruptions to the main matter of the play, which is so finely observed between the two women.

Churchill in Moscow

by Howard Brenton

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 3 March 2025

Tom Littler directs Roger Allam as Churchill and Peter Forbes as Stalin, with Julius d'Silva as Molotov (Soviet Foreign Minister), Alan Cox as Archie Clark Kerr (British ambassador to the USSR), Tamara Greatrex as Svetlana Stalin, Jo Herbert as the British interpreter Sally Powell and Elisabeth Snegir as the Russian interpreter Olga Dovzhenko in Howard Brenton's play concerning the meeting Churchill had with Stalin in Moscow in August 1942. (The main characters are historical, but the two interpreters are fictional).

The principal reason for Churchill's journey was to inform Stalin personally that the Allies had decided that it was impossible to launch an invasion of western Europe immediately: it would have to wait until at least 1943 (in the event, the D-Day landings and the invasion of Italy did not take place until 1944). He felt that a face to face meeting was essential to deliver this bad news in good faith, rather than relying on telegrams or telephone calls. But it was of course a delicate matter, as the German invasion of the USSR had begun and the battle of Stalingrad actually began while Churchill was in Moscow.

Brenton makes good use of the interpreters he has chosen to invent. At the opening of the play Stalin speaks in Russian, requiring the audience to wait until Olga translates into English before understanding. In an inspired move, Churchill then speaks in complete gobbledygook, so that once again we must wait for Sally to interpret before we understand his response. This technique is used sparingly; most of the time English is spoken throughout, though the business of interpreting continues unobtrusively except when either Station or Churchill mistrusts what is being said or requires (or impatiently dismisses) immediate clarification. The interactions of the wider delegations are suggested b y the occasional presence of Molotov and Kerr, while the teenage Svetlana wanders around practising her English by reading David Copperfield until she is briefly introduced to Churchill during a late-night confab between the two leaders.

This was of course an extremely consequential meeting; the seriousness of the issues is always before us even as the outsize personalities of both the leaders dominate the stage. Wisely neither actor simply imitates the historical character. Roger Allam has something of Churchill's awkward gait and rhetorical flair, and his curious dress sense (for much of the time he is in a boiler suit, except for being in a nightshirt one evening and formal wear for the reception the next). Stalin, in his usual military style dress, speaks with a West Country accent, cleverly indicating the Georgian provincialism sneered at by the urban Russian elites.

The presence of the interpreters not only provides some comic relief arising from their tasks. They also have a brief interaction outside their official capacities injecting a slight nod to the anxieties and prejudices of the ordinary people enduring the war and the volatile political tensions surrounding them. And Brenton uses the idea of interpretation and the responsibility of the translating staff to be accurate - whether literally or thematically - as an intriguing emollient to the fractious and potentially disastrous rift which otherwise seems impossible to bridge. Despite their qualms, it seems that the interpreters saved the day.

A thoroughly enjoyable insight into what to many (myself included) is a little-known meeting.

The Girl on the Train

by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel

seen at the Chichester Festival Theatre on 28 February 2025

Loveday Ingram directs this adaptation from Paula Hawkins's novel and the subsequent film, starring Giovanna Fletcher as the troubled Rachel Watson, a divorced alcoholic still obsessed with her husband Tom (Jason Merrells) who is now married to Anna (Zena Carswell).

When Megan Hipwell (Natalie Dunne), a near neighbour of Tom and Anna, disappears, Rachel's propensity to loiter near her old house, and to leave increasingly incoherent messages on Tom's phone, inevitably leads to her being questioned. It becomes clear that she has seen the neighbour when travelling by train, and in her befuddled state imagines that she has some sort of connection with her, leading her to introduce herself to Scott Hipwell (Samuel Collings) as a 'friend' of his missing wife.

The situation is increasingly claustrophobic, with Rachel's misery spiralling out of control and potentially compromising any attempt to solve the mystery of Megan's disappearance, particularly as Rachel has been seen near where Megan was last seen, but she has no clear recollection of what she was doing at the time. The gaps in her memory provide a convenient means of heightening the tension and frustration surrounding the police investigation, and alienating her ex-husband, his new wife, and also Scott.

Much depends on Giovanna Fletcher's skill at portraying Rachel as an unreliable and deeply distressed woman; at times the misery and confusion seem to exist only on one aggrieved note, but on the whole her gradual movement towards clarity and responsibility (though agonisingly slow) is believable. The supporting cast fulfil their roles despite some melodramatic moments, and it takes some time before the true course of action on the fateful night becomes clear. A couple of flashbacks to Megan's session with a psychologist help to fill in her troubled backstory.

As a variation of the theme of a bumbling amateur helping to solve a mystery, Rachel's incapacity to remember clearly what would immediately solve the problem is a clever device which allows for a satisfying pace in revealing to the audience all the relevant information. The result is a highly entertaining thriller. The technical production, envisaging several locations both indoors and out, provides an excellent physical background to the developing story.

 

Richard II

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 27 February 2025

Nicholas Hytner directs Jonathan Bailey as the eponymous king with Royce Pierreson as Henry Bullingbroook (sic.) in a production designed by Bob Crowley and lit by Bruno Poet.

This is the fifth production of Richard II I have seen since beginning this blog and, true to form, it is quite different from all the others: proof, if any were needed, of the capacity for intelligent reinterpretation afforded by many of Shakespeare's greatest plays.

Performed on a long thrust stage initially bare, but with parts of the floor able to be sunk in order to set and remove furniture as required, the production is in modern dress, entirely subdued in greys and blacks. Stripped of the gorgeous medieval finery often used in honour of the Wilton diptych (which features a portrait of Richard II as a sacral king), all attention is on the language and on how the characters relate to one another in political and personal terms. The result is fascinating, the power plays surprisingly modern, and Richard's self-absorption entirely credible, rarely descending into self-pity.

Jonathan Bailey is a superb Richard, speaking the verse with unerring musicality, and he is surrounded by an excellent supporting cast even if none of the others quite rise to his level of delivery. Bullingbrook is something of a cipher, not obviously irritated with his cousin's theatrics in the deposition scene, but instead impassively prepared to indulge him. But he upholds his rights earlier in the play with conviction and hence gains the support he needs to press his claims and ultimately to become the new king.

Two of the major scenes involving women have been cut: the dialogue between John of Gaunt and his widowed sister-in-law the Duchess of Gloucester; and the famous "gardener" scene in which Queen Isabel overhears commoners discussing the disaster befalling her husband. This streamlines the play, and puts heightened emphasis on the poignant but brief scene in which Richard and Isabel are parted. The only other woman featured is the Duchess of York (Amanda Root); her frantic support for her errant young son Aumerle (Vinnie Heaven) is beautifully staged, providing some light relief from the increasing tension without tipping over into parody. (The Bishop of Carlisle here was female, the only concession to gender-blind casting, which in the modern context was effective.)

The staging was excellent; from the gallery to one side I never felt that I was being deprived of good views of the actors or being presented with a badly skewed vista of the production - indeed it would be interesting to see the play from the front as it were, to gauge whether there was a significantly different effect: in the deposition scene, conducted like a commission of enquiry or a court hearing, Bullingbrook sat for some time with his back to those sitting at the 'front', rendering him even more inscrutable at this point.

In the modern setting there were some clever adjustments. The joust between Bullingbrook and Thomas Mowbray is prepared for in all its formality, but rather than being a cumbersome affair in full armour (possibly on horseback) it is re-imagined as a bare-knuckled fight - bare-chested too - in a pit conveniently created in the versatile stage floor. The visceral rivalry between the two noblemen is thus given a macho physicality barely contained when Richard intervenes to stop the fight.

Richard himself speaks with authority but comes dangerously close to losing face as he interrupts the 'joust'. His fitness to rule is more seriously put into question for us in the scene with his favourites, who are lounging together and snorting cocaine, a very modern but all too plausible indication of their unfitness to govern the realm. They and Richard are obviously still high when visiting the dying John of Gaunt, so that the king's assumption of Gaunt's revenues is enacted in a drug-fuelled haze as the king lolls on the old man's vacated sickbed. Yet despite the hedonism, the king is for the moment still the king and none can gainsay him.

Richard in his last scene is contemplative and vulnerable. As part of the editing of the play for this production, his murderer was evidently Bagot (a former crony) rather than the named new character Exton, but nothing was made of this being a final example of betrayal. At least this was a more credible directorial choice than having Aumerle (a cousin of the two kings) perform the deed, as has been done elsewhere, something that would have been beneath him. Shockingly the corpse was presented to Henry IV in a body bag, undisclosed but a fateful reminder of the guilt which would overshadow the new king in the subsequent plays.

 

Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of)

by Isobel McArthur

seen at the Chichester Festival Theatre on 15 February 2025

Isobel McArthur directs a revival of her own irreverent adaptation of Pride and Prejudice featuring a cast of five actresses purporting to be 'the servants' narrating and acting out the story for us while occasionally being interrupted to perform their daily drudgery. (The programme lists eight actresses, but only five appeared on stage: perhaps there are rotations.)

It's an amusing variation on the perennial desire to adapt Jane Austen's novels, and in the wrong hands it could have all come unstuck. Happily we were in the right hands: the comedy is far broader (and often earthier) than anything Austen would have attempted, but the energy is fizzing and the seriousness beneath the satire still comes through, with convincing evocations of the attraction between Charles Bingley and Jane Bennett, and the far more complex dance of interest and repulsion between the proud Elizabeth Bennett and the prejudiced Fitzwilliam Darcy. There is also an intriguing and somewhat melancholic take on the career of Lizzie's friend Charlotte Lucas, who in this version marries the unctuous Mr Collins in despair of ever having her true feelings for Lizzie recognised by her oblivious friend.

With five actors taking all the parts there is plenty of opportunity for lightning costume changes (often a matter of swapping overcoats or shawls over all-purpose servants' dresses). The most clever is the minor adjustment to change from the engaging but dim Charles Bingley to his snobbish sister Caroline; the most brilliant is the transformation of one actress from the hysterical Mrs Bennett to the repressed Mr Darcy. In the meantime Mr Bennett is portrayed simply as a newspaper visible in a comfortable chair which always has its back to the audience: hysterically it proves possible to light a pipe for this non-presence. The device sacrifices some of Austen's best lines, but perfectly indicates the frustrating distance this father keeps from his whole family.

Spicing up the action and providing a brilliant commentary on proceedings is the liberal use of modern pop songs to underscore the narrative. Lizzie sings Carly Simon's "You're so Vain" to Mr Darcy, which perfectly sums up her initial reaction to his hauteur, while later in desperation he takes the microphone to sing the Partridge Family's classic "I Think I Love You!") to her. Meanwhile Mr Collins is more than happy to extol his patroness Lady Catherine de Burgh (suitably costumed) with a version of "Lady in Red", mischievously ascribed to a 'distant relative' of hers, one Chris de Burgh.

There's another sneaking anachronism when Mr Darcy first appears in Pemberley to the consternation of Lizzie and the delight of her aunt Gardiner: the servants are mystified that he appears to be quite dry. No-one can now resist a reference to the famous 1995 TV adaptation in which Colin Firth's Darcy appeared to Jennifer Ehle's Lizzie having just swum in Pemberley's lake.

Karaoke-singing servants, snappy narration, inspired impersonations, and wonderful high spirits: all in all a great entertainment.

Macbeth

by William Shakespeare

live performance from the Donmar Warehouse (2024) screened on 11 February 2025

A chance to revisit the excellent production directed last year by Max Webster featuring David Tennant as Macbeth and Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth, with a supporting cast refreshingly speaking almost universally with Scottish accents (except for the children Fleance, the young Macduff, and the young Siward).

In the auditorium the audience was provided with headphones to listen to the entire play, which was performed without an interval to maximise the ongoing tension. In the cinema we heard the text through the normal speaker system, but it remained intimate and happily devoid of the jarring effect of listening in a different medium to voices projecting for the stage. The eeriness of the encounters with the weird sisters, and Macbeth's terror at witnessing Banquo's ghost, remained powerful; indeed the soundscape in general transferred well.

There were some aspects of the production that I had forgotten, but which the camerawork reminded me of. In particular a generic young boy was occasionally visible throughout the play, though generally not on stage - the back wall could be opaque or transparent as the lighting changed. This pointed up the unresolved question of whether Macbeth had a son or not (the textual evidence seems contradictory on this point); or perhaps it signified that he was betraying his personal innocence by pursuing his ambition. This culminated in a brief moment when Macbeth held the boy, perhaps MacDuff's son, in his arms only to pass him on to a murderer; and later, in grappling with the young Siward, there was another embrace in which the king broke the boy's neck.

As in the production at the Almeida, it appeared that Lady Macbeth was discussing Macduff's absence with Lady Macduff (it is the thane Ross in the text); but the link to Lady Macbeth's mental distress so powerfully evoked at the Almeida, where she actually witnessed the massacre of the Macduff family, was not pursued here. 

I had also forgotten the updated speech of the porter, who knowingly engaged with the audience, making some disparaging remarks about London audiences (as perceived by those north of the border), and complaining that he didn't have headphones so he couldn't hear what was being said. This was a clever adaptation of a long speech which, though vital to the dramatic shape of the play, often runs the risk of being tedious for a modern audience, since its references are 'topical' to the sixteenth century rather than our own.

All in all, this was a fine opportunity to revisit an outstanding production of the play.

(See also my review of the Almeida production from October 2021, and a paragraph in the "seen in 2024" post, to see how differently the two directors approached this plays problems.)

Firebird

by Richard Hough

seen at the King's Head Theatre on 8 February 2025

Richard Hough's play is inspired by the film Firebird, and both play and film are based on Sergey Fetisov's memoir The Story of Roman. Owen Lewis directs Theo Walker as Pte. Sergey Serebrinnikov, Robert Eades as 2nd Lt. Roman Matvejev, Shorcha Kennedy as Luisa Jannsen, and Nigel Hastings as Col. Alexei Kuznetsov.

The play is more stripped down than the film, with the narrative altered to intensify and simplify the story, but the result is extremely effective, with less circumstantial detail to allow the piece to be performed by only four actors. The basic shape of the story, the illicit affair between Roman and Sergey, and Roman's divided loyalties (he marries Luisa), remains the same. The link to Stravinsky's Firebird is pointed by the use of feathers rather than flowers as social gifts at significant points, and by Roman's explanation that the firebird is desirable despite bringing bad luck as well as good luck to the one who finds it.

The King's Head theatre's been transformed since my last visit in 2022 to see a highly adapted version of La Bohème. Now, rather than being in the back room of the King's Head pub, it is in a larger space adapted in the basement of the building behind the pub, allowing for more acting and audience space and more sophisticated lighting and sound. This chamber version of Sergey's story was well suited to the space, employing versatile scene setting to propel the story from army barracks to a Moscow flat.

The danger threatening the two men, since homosexual affairs were illegal in the Soviet military, was perhaps less immediately felt than in the film: talked about rather than shown. However, the personal predicament triggered by Roman's decision to marry was brought to the fore, and the denouement remained poignant and guardedly hopeful.

The cast were excellent, the three young people believable friends despite their different ranks (Luisa is also in the military at the beginning of the play), and the older colonel a somewhat crusty but intriguingly humane presence in both their military and later civilian lives. Robert Eades's Roman was perhaps a little too declamatory for the space, but it suited the character's deflection of his feelings into military service.