Feature: The Day I Met… Noël Coward

British playwright Noël Coward’s plays and musicals are in continuous production around the world, including Thea Sharrock’s current West End revival of Blithe Spirit at the Apollo Theatre, starring Alison Steadman.

Here, journalist and author Clive Hirschhorn remembers a meeting with the ‘Master’ in the 1960′s, an immodest encounter in which the man offered an opinion on just about everything.

The very first time I actually saw the Master in the flesh was at a first night at the Haymarket Theatre in 1964. The party he was with included his long-time costume designer Gladys Calthrop, his companion Graham Payn, and his personal secretary, Cole Lesley. Coward arrived in expansive mood and smiled graciously at the battery of photographers whose winking flashbulbs he took in his elegant stride. At the end of the performance he seemed to be in a hurry to leave the foyer. Just as he was about to step into a waiting limo outside, a rather effeminate young man rushed up to him and said: ‘Oh Mr Coward, when are you going to write us a new play?’ ‘Remind me next Thursday,’ said the Master without missing a beat, and stepped into his car. Seconds later he and his party were speeding down the Haymarket – probably to The Ivy Restaurant for dinner.

The following year I spent an hour in his scintillating company when I interviewed him in suite 411 at the Savoy Hotel for the Sunday Express. He had recently had an enormous success at the Old Vic with his production, for the National Theatre, of Hay Fever, whose celebrated cast included Dame Edith Evans, Maggie Smith and Lynn Redgrave. Dame Edith had just been replaced by Celia Johnson, and Coward was in town supervising the take-over.

The interview was set for 12 o’clock and I was told by Mr Lesley, who had arranged the meeting, that I would have precisely one hour, prior to a luncheon Coward was having in the Savoy’s Grill Room with Ian Fleming.

I arrived at suite 411 five minutes early. Noël Coward was on the telephone in an adjoining room and his voice, like a cultivated poodle, was elegant and clipped. Finally he emerged, dressed in a light-blue suit, blue tie and red carnation.

‘My dear boy,’ he said, extending a welcoming hand, ‘it’s been utter, utter chaos and confusion this morning. Do forgive me!’

With a pronounced stoop – as though he had all the problems of the world on his shoulders, he made his way to a settee, sat down, and with the studied grace of a ballet dancer, crossed his legs.

‘Do I look tired?’ he asked. ‘Well I am. I’ve just come back from that ridiculously phoney film festival in Cannes  - and before that I’d been filming with Larry (Olivier). And, my dear boy, the telephone hasn’t stopped ringing for a moment. Ghastly invention, the telephone – but terribly, terribly necessary.’

He peered at me, looking more like a Chinese Buddha than I would ever have imagined possible.

‘I suppose being inundated with telephone calls is the price one pays for fame,’ he said, and leaned forward to pour me a brandy and ginger ale. We drank to each other’s health and he said: ‘You’re very lucky, you know. I rarely give private interviews. But I was having lunch with Vivien (Leigh) last week and she assured me you were quite, quite charming.’ He lit a cigarette and sat back against one of the several cushions piled high on the settee.

Then he spoke about England. ‘I am England, and England is me. We have a love-hate relationship with each other. It’s everything I stand for, but day by day the place changes. I hardly recognise it anymore.’

But did he not think it was changing for the better, I asked? (We were, after all, in the midst of the Swinging Sixties).

‘Dear boy,’ he said. ‘Who can tell. If I said no, I’d be called a reactionary. And really, I’m a very modern human being. Really I am. I simply adore this country. But oh dear, it’s becoming more and more impossible to live in. And I’m not only referring to the ghastly income-tax situation, which is bad enough. People here have such huge chips on their shoulders these days. Why can’t we stop trying so self-consciously hard to be a “world force” and act a bit more naturally? Today, everyone here is so damn rebellious – and honestly, dear boy, I simply can’t think why.

‘Take modern youth, for example. All this insufferable long hair. Why? What on earth has the Englishman done to deserve this gross exhibitionism? Long hair is all very well if it hangs loosely on brocade, or silk, or velvet, but it seems all wrong when it’s supposed to offset some smelly sports shirt, don’t you think?

‘You can’t walk through Leicester Square these days without getting the decidedly uncomfortable feeling that you’re witnessing part of some nightmarish pantomime in which men and women are interchangeable.

‘We were such an elegant nation once,’ he said. ‘Now that is no longer the case. Which is such a pity, don’t you agree? I mean, take today’s women, for example. They really do look insufferable. When I was a youth – some 50 years ago, women endeavoured to look like women, with the result that the English “gel” was, probably, the most attractive creature in the world. But today that’s all gone and forgotten. Talk about your English rose! English weeds would be too much of a compliment.

“I mean, take today’s women, for example. They really do look insufferable.”

‘Femininity, it would appear, is passé,’ he said. ‘And so, for that matter, is masculinity in men. The youth of today go out of their way to look sexless, which is all rather depressing – and, need I say it, confusing? I’m 65,’ he said, ‘though 25 is the age I prefer to answer to because I feel no older than that. But dear me, most youngsters of 25 today are far too blasé and worldly for their own good.’

So why, in his opinion, were things taking such a turn for the worse?

‘Because today, we tend to revere youth out of all proportion to its worth. I know Shaw said youth was wasted on the young. But youth is a natural condition, not a privilege, and the sooner we return to treating our offspring like ordinary children and less like tin Gods, the better it will be for all concerned.

‘We’re just beginning to recover from two dreadful World Wars,’ he said, ‘in which we lost half our men, but this is no excuse to allow weakness to pass off for progress.’

Have we really changed all that much then? ‘Our system of values is all wrong, now. Elegance and style are dirty words.’

At the time (1965), Coward had homes in Switzerland and Jamaica. I asked him if he would ever return to Britain as a permanent resident.

‘I fear not,’ he said. ‘The taxes alone would cripple me, dear boy. I’m fairly comfortable today – not nearly as rich as some people think, you understand – just comfortable. But if I decided to settle here, I’m afraid I’d be rather hard up. I don’t know how people manage to remain wealthy in this country. I know people think I’m a millionaire, but I’m not. And believe me, if I lived here, I’d just be able to cope with my day to day expenses! And, as you can see, now I manage to live quite well. You know, hotel suites, chauffeur-driven cars, caviar. All as it should be, of course!’

I asked him whether it was a strain living up to his reputation as one of the world’s wittiest men.

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I’m a naturally witty man. I always have been. Also, I’m an enormously talented man and it’s no use pretending I’m not. My name was a household word before I was 25. Ever since the age of six I was brilliant. I have always had a natural facility for entertaining others,’ he said, ‘and this, no matter what the critics may say, has never deserted me. And of course, I’ve always had a highly developed sense of humour – and in my time, yes, I have said some exceptional and memorable things. But I have never felt obliged, like Oscar Wilde, to sit down at a dinner table and hold forth for a couple of hours non-stop. I’m not saying I couldn’t, mark you – but oh! How boring for the poor guests. It would be like listening to a joke book read aloud.

‘Wit,’ he said,’ is like caviar, it should be savoured in small, elegant portions and not spread about like marmalade. I have never felt obliged to make a conscious attempt at being funny. That’s for clowns and I’m not a clown. I’m a civilised human being with a great God-given capacity for humour.’

“How else can you account for the continued popularity of my plays amongst people who will never see the inside of tasteful drawing room?”

Do people still appreciate his kind of upper-class humour, I asked?

‘But of course! The lower classes like nothing better than to adore the upper classes. This is their goal in life. Surely the art of living is synonymous with the art of bettering oneself? If the lower classes had nothing to look up to and emulate, life would be unspeakably dull for them,’ he said. ‘How else can you account for the continued popularity of my plays amongst people who will never see the inside of tasteful drawing room? All people are dreamers, no matter what their walk of life. The lower classes dream of nobility and royalty – who, in turn, dream of the lower classes, no doubt! It’s a vicious circle.

‘People are always trying to be what they’re not,’ he said. ‘This is one of the axioms of life. That’s what the theatre is all about. We all need escapism, and you can stand on your head, but that’s an undeniable fact. I mean, how else can you account for the popularity of James Bond?’

At 65, what, I asked him, is the most valuable lesson he has learnt from life? ‘To take everything with a pinch of salt,’ he said. ‘Life is far too short to let it get you down. I don’t like what’s happening in Britain today, but I don’t let it get me down. If you have a big, generous heart, I’d say you can’t go wrong. Some cynics say that no good deed goes unpunished. This is not true. No good deed goes unrewarded, and the reward is self-satisfaction. And if this sounds smug – well, maybe it is.

‘I love human beings, and I’m not being corny about it. Life is nothing but what you and I, ordinary human beings, make it. I’m dedicated to making the world a better place to live in and therefore you can imagine how distressed I am when my efforts are labelled reactionary by some people and some critics who have only hatred in their hearts. Where is the wrong in bringing humour, warmth and goodness into people’s lives, particularly in view of all the sorrow we’ve endured over the last fifty years?

‘The British have always had a generous spirit,’ he said, ‘and that is why we have always been great. I find it almost suicidal that today people go out of their way to knock everything this country stands for. It’s so bloody perverse, and what are they putting back instead? Kitchen sinks, cockroaches, free thinking – which is always confused with unprintable smut – and gloom-strewn pessimism. This is not the stuff of greatness, and if we held our contemporary attitudes in 1940, we wouldn’t be here today. I continue to tell foreigners how great we are. Well, before I die, I truly would like to believe this myself.’

“I have always had a natural facility for entertaining others, and this, no matter what the critics may say, has never deserted me.”

At this point in the interview Cole Lesley appeared. The hour was up and Noël, he said, had to get ready for his luncheon with Ian Fleming.

Coward stood up, and just before leaving, I congratulated him on the success of Hay Fever.

‘Yes, it is gratifying,’ he said, ‘and now that dear old Edith – who was totally wrong for Judith Bless – has left the cast and Celia has joined it, the whole thing is far, far better,. At least you can understand what Celia is saying. And that, dear boy, is strictly off the record.’ Then he turned to Cole Lesley. ‘How very, very nice,’ he said, ‘to be interviewed by a non-journalist.’

To this day I’m not sure whether that was a compliment or not.

CLIVE HIRSCHHORN

A version of this article appeared in Applause magazine.

LINKS

Book tickets to Blithe Spirit at the Apollo Theatre in London

VIDEO: Maggie Smith and Anthony Nicholls in Hay Fever (1964) at the Old Vic

Further reading by Clive Hirschhorn

Noel Coward Estate

Noel Coward Foundation

Noel Coward Society

 

Applause Magazine – October 1996

Published between1996 and 1997, Applause was a newsstand and subscription magazine devoted to UK theatre.

Edited by Clive Hirschhorn, it was published by ticket agency Applause and aimed to provide theatregoers with informed comment, interviews, features, reviews, and gossip about the plays and players making news in both London and New York. It also provided special offers and discounts on West End shows and event.

CONTENTS

Issue 1, October 1996

Read Applause magazine, issue 1, October 1996

OFFSTAGE – News and gossip from the West End

KILLING WITH KINDNESS Matt Wolf asks if London’s theatre critics are too soft

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST – The biggest thing ever to hit the West End, Hal Lewis looks at Disney’s venture into Theatreland

HEATHCLIFF – Cliff Richard has been weathering a storm of criticism, Christopher Tookey assesses the situation

ONSTAGE – Clive Hirschhorn reviews some of the latest openings

NED SHERRIN – The musings of a wit and raconteur

APPLAUSE THEATRE CLUB – Great savings on many top West End shows

INTERVIEW – Comic actor Gene Wilder in conversation with Ronald Bergan

DICK VOSBURGH tracks down the lost Musicals

LONDON’S THEATRES – Ronald Bergan looks at the rebuilt Globe Theatre

PEOPLE WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE – Alan Ayckbourn has made one of the single greatest contributions to British theatre. He speaks to Clare Colvin

SPECTRUM – A look at the ‘other’ arts

CD REVIEW – Tom Vallance has been comparing the various recordings of Sondheim’s ‘Company’

BOOK REVIEW – ‘Speak Low’ is a collection of the letters from Kurt Weill to Lotte Lenya. Reviewed by Ronald Bergan

NED SHERRIN – Extracts from his book ‘Theatrical Anecdotes’

OFFSTAGE BROADWAY – More news and gossip from America’s theatre capital

SHOWS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE – Ken Livingstone and the show that made a lasting impression

READ

LINKS

PDF: Read Applause magazine, issue 1, October 1996

ISSUU: Read Applause magazine, issue 1, October 1996

Applause Magazine – March 1997

Published between1996 and 1997, Applause was a newsstand and subscription magazine devoted to UK theatre.

Edited by Clive Hirschhorn, it was published by ticket agency Applause and aimed to provide theatregoers with informed comment, interviews, features, reviews, and gossip about the plays and players making news in both London and New York. It also provided special offers and discounts on West End shows and event.

CONTENTS

Issue 6, March 1997

Read Applause magazine, issue 6, March 1997

OFFSTAGE – News and gossip from around the West End

LADY IN THE DARK – Dick Vosburgh on a musical that gets its West End premiere 56 years after it was first written

MARIA FRIEDMAN – David Nathan interviews the actress, and talks about her starring role in Lady in the Dark

ONSTAGE – Clive Hirschhorn reviews the West End’s latest offerings

DIARY – New productions in and around the West End

MATT WOLF – Questions the wisdom behind this year’s awards nominations

APPLAUSE THEATRE CLUB – Christopher Biggins brings you more great money saving offers on top West End shows

NED SHERRIN

PEOPLE WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE – David Nathan talks to producer Bill Kenwright

RICHARD NELSON – Sheridan Morley assesses the work of an American playwright who does very well over here

REMARKABLE CAREERS – A look at the work of actress Constance Cummings, with Michael Arditti

BOOK REVIEW – Sam Ingleby on Neil Simon’s memoirs

QUIET AT THE BACK, PLEASE! – The theatre nuisance according to Ronald Bergan

NEW FACES – Ruaidhri Conroy, currently making his mark in The Cripple of Inishmaan

SPECTRUM – Opera, Dance, TV and Art reviews and previews by Max Loppen, Jeffery Taylor, Ronald Bergan and John Russell-Taylor

OFFSTAGE BROADWAY – Michael Riedel with news and gossip from the Big Apple

QUIZ

SHOWS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE – Gerald Kaufman, MP

READ

LINKS

PDF: Read Applause magazine, issue 6, March 1997

ISSUU: Read Applause magazine, issue 6, March 1997

Applause Magazine – May 1997

Published between1996 and 1997, Applause was a newsstand and subscription magazine devoted to UK theatre.

Edited by Clive Hirschhorn, it was published by ticket agency Applause and aimed to provide theatregoers with informed comment, interviews, features, reviews, and gossip about the plays and players making news in both London and New York. It also provided special offers and discounts on West End shows and event.

CONTENTS

Issue 8, May 1997

Read Applause magazine, issue 8, May 1997

OFFSTAGE  – News and gossip from around the West End

THE MOUSE MUSCLES IN – Matt Wolf looks at Disney’s Broadway and West End ventures

NEW FACES – Disney’s Beauty and the Beast’s Julie-Alanah Brighten

JOHN BARROWMAN – talking to Martin Stirling

ONSTAGE – Clive Hirschhorn reviews the West End’s latest offerings

ACT OF COMPLICITE – Clare Colvin talks to Simon McBurney about the work of Theatre de Complicite

APPLAUSE THEATRE CLUB – Christopher Biggins brings you more great money-saving offers on top West End shows

NED SHERRIN

HAUNTED HOUSES – Linn Branson goes ghost-hunting in London’s theatres

TERRENCE MCNALLY – Patrick Pacheco on the American playwright hoping to make his mark here with Master Class

HAT TRICKS – San Francisco’s cult caper Beach Blanket Babylon hits town. Sasha de Suinn goes shopping for hats

SUMMER FARE – Michael Coveney takes a look at this year’s summer festivals

BOOK REVIEWS – Rhoda Koenig on the lives of Ibsen and Peggy Ashcroft

SPECTRUM – Opera, Dance, and TV reviews and previews by Max Loppert, Jeffery Taylor and Ronald Bergan

PEOPLE WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE – Designer John Napier talks to Nick Smurthwaite

OFFSTAGE BROADWAY – Michael Riedel with news and gossip from the Big Apple

QUIZ

SHOWS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE – Roy Hattersley, MP

READ

LINKS

PDF: Read Applause magazine, issue 8, May 1997

ISSUU: Read Applause magazine, issue 8, May 1997

Applause Magazine – August 1997

Published between1996 and 1997, Applause was a newsstand and subscription magazine devoted to UK theatre.

Edited by Clive Hirschhorn, it was published by ticket agency Applause and aimed to provide theatregoers with informed comment, interviews, features, reviews, and gossip about the plays and players making news in both London and New York. It also provided special offers and discounts on West End shows and event.

CONTENTS

Issue 11, August 1997

Read Applause magazine, issue 11, August 1997

Regulars

OFFSTAGE GOSSIP

ONSTAGE REVIEWS

DIARY

APPLAUSE THEATRE CLUB

CD REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

NEW FACES – DOMINIC WEST

SPECTRUM DANCE, TV & OPERA

NED SHERRIN

PEOPLE WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE – THELMA HOLT

OFFSTAGE BROADWAY GOSSIP

COMPENDIUM

SHOWS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE – CLARE RAYNER

Features

TURNER PRIZE – KATHLEEN TURNER

BARBICAN’S LOST MUSICALS: JUBILEE

THE APOCALYPSE OF THE HORSEMAN

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

REMARKABLE CAREER – JULIE WILSON

ALAN BATES PROFILE

MARTIN McDONAGH INTERVIEW

READ

LINKS

PDF: Read Applause magazine, issue 11, August 1997

ISSUU: Read Applause magazine, issue 11, August 1997

Applause Magazine – September 1997

Published between1996 and 1997, Applause was a newsstand and subscription magazine devoted to UK theatre.

Edited by Clive Hirschhorn, it was published by ticket agency Applause and aimed to provide theatregoers with informed comment, interviews, features, reviews, and gossip about the plays and players making news in both London and New York. It also provided special offers and discounts on West End shows and event.

CONTENTS

Issue 12, September 1997

Read Applause magazine, issue 12, September 1997

Regulars

OFFSTAGE GOSSIP

ONSTAGE REVIEWS

DIARY

APPLAUSE THEATRE CLUB

NED SHERRIN

AUDIO BOOK REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

NEW FACES LIZA WALKER

SPECTRUM DANCE, TV & OPERA

OFFSTAGE BROADWAY GOSSIP

COMPENDIUM

SHOWS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE – LORD GRADE

Features

THE BODY ELECTRA – ZOE WANAMAKER

MATT WOLF – DOOM & GLOOM LOOM

SIMON RUSSELL BEALE INTERVIEW

THE DAY I MET – NOEL COWARD

ANDRE LEWIS – ROYAL WINNIPEG BALLET

ADAM LONG INTERVIEW

READ

LINKS

PDF: Read Applause magazine, issue 12, September 1997

ISSUU: Read Applause magazine, issue 12, September 1997

42nd Street – Review

CHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATRE

‘Come and hear, those dancing feet, On the avenue I’m taking you to, 42nd Street.’

Chichester in West Sussex is a long way from 42nd Street in New York, but director Paul Kerryson, choreographer Andrew Wright and designer Ashley Martin-Davis have worked a special kind of theatrical magic that has narrowed the distance between The Great White Way and the South Downs. Their revival of 42nd Street, adapted from the famous 1933 screen musical, has as much pazazz and energy as anything I’ve seen on Broadway in the last ten years.

Given that Chichester’s financial resources can’t compete with the lavishness of the sets and costumes or the sheer numbers that comprised the show’s New York chorus line in 1980, this scaled-down version manages to convey the glitz and glamour of the original as well as its exhilaration and exuberance.

As every movie buff knows, 42nd Street tells the simple story of Peggy Sawyer, a naive, would-be hoofer from the sticks who comes to New York seeking fame and fortune on the Broadway stage. A lucky break lands her a role in the chorus of a new musical comedy called Pretty Lady.

During a try-out performance in Philadelphia, Dorothy Brock, the star of the show, twists her ankle, for which she holds Peggy responsible. Peggy is fired and about to return to Allentown, when the cast prevail upon their martinet director Julian Marsh, to save the show by offering Peggy the leading lady’s role. She reluctantly accepts, and, to paraphrase one of the most famous lines in musical comedy, goes out a youngster and comes back a star.

The quintessential backstage musical, 42nd Street is blessed with a cornucopia of songs by the great Harry Warren, who, in a long and staggeringly successful career, had more number one hits than even Irving Berlin. With his brilliant lyricist Al Dubin, Warren wrote the scores for a string of Warner Bros. musicals throughout the 1930′s, and this stage adaptation not only uses the score of the original 1933 movie, but plunders the best of the Warren-Dubin catalogue interpolating such evergreens as Lullaby of Broadway, Dames, We’re in the Money and my own personal favourite, About A Quarter to Nine.

Scores don’t come more melodious than this and the cast does it proud.

Lauren Hall, a name new to me, plays Peggy Sawyer, and like Peggy, lights up the stage with her singing and hoofing. It’s a terrific performance and delivers everything the part promises. There’s a feisty turn from Louise Plowright as one of the show’s writers; Tim Flavin cuts a suitably impressive figure as director Julian Marsh, and, best of all, Kathryn Evans is superb as the temperamental and demanding Dorothy Brock. A star and starry performance if ever I saw one.

Praise too, for the orchestra under Julian Kelly. This 13-piece band make as exciting a sound as anything I’ve heard from a Broadway or West End pit and give Warren’s wonderfully catchy melodies the thrilling burnish they deserve.

According to one of the characters in the show, ‘musical comedy’ are the two most beautiful words in the English language, an adage Chichester has clearly taken to heart if its run of successes in the genre (Out of this World, The Music Man, Pal Joey, Funny Girl) is anything to go by. 42nd Street could be its biggest hit yet.

CLIVE HIRSCHHORN. Courtesy of This Is London.

Links:

Chichester Festival Theatre

After the Dance – Review

AFTER THE DANCE – Lyttleton Theatre (National Theatre)

How very strange that Terence Rattigan considered his second West End play, After the Dance, a dud and allowed it to languish unrevived during his lifetime. Despite the fact that it was well-reviewed when it opened in June 1939, and was even published, its short run of 60 performances convinced Rattigan that it was a failure. Like an outcast child, he refused to acknowledge its existence by not including it in his two volumes of collected plays, published in 1953.

Happily, the black-sheep of the playwright’s oeuvre has been gloriously rescued from the obscurity it emphatically did not deserve in director Thea Sharrock’s haunting production for the National Theatre. Seventy one years after it was first written, After the Dance emerges as one of its author’s finest plays – up there with The Browning Version, The Winslow Boy and Separate Tables.

It takes place in a sumptuous flat in London belonging to a personable albeit selfish historian called David Scott-Fowler (Benedict Cumberbatch), which he shares with his attractive wife Joan (Nancy Carroll), and, seemingly, a host of hanger’s on, including his young cousin Peter (John Heffernan) and long-time friend John Reid (Adrian Scarborough), who even occupies a room in the flat. Only one thing is wrong: David is in the process of drinking himself to death.

The play is set on the eve of the second world war, with David, Joan and John as part of a hedonistic set once known as the ‘bright young people’ and, whose days and nights, as they reach middle age and beyond, are fuelled by alcohol, gossip and non-stop partying.

The cardinal sin in their lexicon is to be boring. In fact, the word ‘boring’ is the play’s leitmotif against which everything is measured. So much so, that, in the 12 years they’ve been married, Joan cannot bring herself to admit to David that she’s deeply in love with him for fear of boring him.

Believing that their marriage, as successful as it is, has been predicated on companionship rather than deep emotional commitment, David has no compunction in falling requitedly in love with a determindly pushy younger woman called Helen (Faye Castelow), who also happens to be his cousin Peter’s fiancee. Helen manages to persuade David to allow her doctor brother George (Giles Cooper) to examine him, and when told that he has cirrhosis of the liver, she alone persuades him to stop drinking.

As the skies darken with impending war, a black cloud settles over the lives of David and Joan irrevocably changing everything. What initially appears on the surface to be a frivolous, rather typical West End comedy of hi-jinx and infidelity matures, over three acts, into a deeply moving drama involving a ‘lost’, between-the-wars generation who have failed to reach their potential either emotionally or intellectually.

As usual, Rattigan’s structural skills are evident throughout. The seamless way he manages to bring characters on and off stage without any obvious sense of contrivance is remarkable. I do, however, question one instance when, in order to leave Joan and Helen alone on stage, David is despatched to the cellar to bring up some wine. Do flats have wine cellars?

Music is also effectively used – most notably the 20′s hit song Avalon, which bears a marked resemblance to Puccini’s E lucevan le stelle from Tosca. In fact, on the two occasions we hear the first few notes of the Puccini, both are portents of doom – in the first instance Joan’s death mirrors that of Puccini’s heroine, in the second instance, the signs are not good for David.

Out of the large and uniformly excellent cast, Benedict Cumberbatch who makes David’s painful journey of self-discovery and its tragic consequences achingly moving, is superb. So is Adrian Scarborough’s best friend John, a kind of all-knowing, all-seeing Greek choruscum- resident clown, who, by play’s end, takes stock of his own worthless life and sets about attempting to change.

Nancy Carroll’s Joan breaks your heart, and Faye Costelow’s Helen, whose determination is anything but redolent of the ‘lost generation’, is, for all the damage she causes, a positive force, and, you imagine, a survivor.

A terrific set by Hildegard Bechtler puts the finishing gloss on this wonderful, notto- be-missed production.

CLIVE HIRSCHHORN. Courtesy of This Is London.

Women Beware Women – National Theatre – Review

At the end of Thomas Middleton’s 1621 tragedy Women Beware Women, there are more dead bodies on stage than in the final moments of Hamlet. It’s the gory, Grande Guignol climax to a rude, crude Jacobean romp in which lust, greed, incest, murder, sexual infidelity and rape are the order of the day – and night.

It all begins when a rather nerdish and indigent Florentine bank clerk called Leantio (Samuel Barnett), elopes with the beautiful Bianca (Lauren O’Neil), a wealthy heiress, and marries her.

Unbeknownst to the hapless Leantio, Bianca has caught the eye of the libidinous Duke of Florence (Richard Lintern), who, with the conniving help of the reptilian widow Livia (Harriet Walter), lures Bianca to his courtly residence where he rapes her.

Livia also cunningly contrives a marriage between her niece Isabella (Vanessa Kirby) to a punkish idiot (Harry Melling) while at the same time paving a way for her brother Hippolito and Isabella to have an incestuous affair on the side.

And if that’s not damage enough, she then sets her sites on poor Leantio whom she seduces with promises of wealth and status.
Though it is the scheming of the kind of treacherous woman the play’s title asks you to beware, it’s the Duke and Hippolito who benefit most from her machinations.

As in most Jacobean tragedies, immorality comes at quite a price with the web of deceit in which the protagonists are ensnared resulting in murder most foul.

Director Marianne Elliott stages the play’s bloody final act as an orgiastic masque in which actions speak more ghoulishly than words. She’s assisted by Lez Brotherston’s set which goes into permanent revolve mode during this elaborate and inventively staged dance of death.

Once again the full resources of the Olivier’s remarkable facilities are effectively employed with particularly striking use being made of a quartet of impressive chandeliers.

Yet the most memorable scene is the intimate chess-playing encounter between Livia and Leantio’s frumpy old mum (Tilly Tremayne) which takes place while the Duke is having his way with Bianca in another part of the court. Unaware that her daughter-in-law is being ravished against her will, the old woman listens innocently to the chess-related metaphors and sexual innuendos spoken not so innocently by the knowing Livia.

It’s staged in modern dress and with an accompanying jazz score. But as the atmosphere at its very core is so endemic to the morals, mores and machinations of Jacobean tragedy, to take it out of the period that defines it seems pointless.

Still, it’s a generally well-staged revival with a deliciously subtle yet poisonous performance from Harriet Walter, who, with Harry Melling’s preening, doltish idiot, stands out from a cast that’s merely routine.

National Theatre Olivier.

CLIVE HIRSCHHORN. Courtesy of This Is London.

OTHER REVIEWS

INDEPENDENT

‘Marianne Elliott’s magnificent and disturbing National Theatre revival benefits from updating the Italian Renaissance to a period mish-mash of New Look couture, dead cool and punk primitivism.’

‘The wealthy widow Livia, played in the very likeness of the Duchess of Windsor by an elegantly acerbic Harriet Walter.’

DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘Almost indecently enjoyable.’

‘The anti-heroine, Livia, played by Harriet Walter like a mix of Cruella De Vil, the White Witch in the Narnia books and Margaret Thatcher in her prime.’

‘The closing carnage… presented as a brilliantly choreographed dance of death complete with black angels and sinister exotic references.’

‘As well as Walter’s compelling performance, there is much fine work elsewhere, especially from Lauren O’Neill as the initially warm and loving Bianca, whom we see hardening in the play; from Richard Lintern as the suave, fascistic Duke; Vanessa Kirby as the sweet teenager gulled into incest with her uncle; and Harry Melling as the idiotic ward she is supposed to marry, and who spends much of his time trying to look up her dress.’

‘Dark, decadent and immensely stylish, Women Beware Women makes you laugh even as you shiver.’

MAIL ON SUNDAY

‘Wicked. It’s the only worf for this stylish revival of Thomas Middleton’s seldom staged, dark, devilish and decadent Women Beware Women.’

‘The climactic scene of heartless lust, greed and carnage is one of the best ever staged at the Olivier. The stage – haunted by devilish creatures in skull caps and black wings – revolves, revealing one spectacular4 fatality after another in a whirling dance of death.’

‘Wickedly entertaining theatre. And thanks to the Travelex £10 ticket scheme, available for £10.’

FINANCIAL TIMES

‘Womanly wiliness is centre stage in [Marianne Elliott's] magnificently seductive production.’

‘Elliott updates the action from Renaissance to 1950′s Florence. This makes for a slinkily good-looking production, with women in Dior New Look, as set from Lez Brotherston that is at once opulent and oppressive, and lashings of sultry, dark jazz music (Olly Fox).’

‘It is a world steeped in glamour, decadence and greed. Here men treat women like parcels, trading them, owning them, locking them away. It is only Livia, a wealthy widow, who can pull strings. Harriet Walter’s Livia is superb: her poise, acid wit and attractive energy put you in mind of Richard III’

‘The acting is beautifully precise, with strong performances from Samuel Barnett as Bianca’s jealous husband, Vanessa Kirby as Isabella and Harry Melling as the idiot she must marry. It is a witty production, revelling in Middleton’s bitter black humour and enthusiasm for sexual innuendo.’

‘The production gradually darkens as it approaches the climactic masked ball, delivered here on the revolving stage as a dizzying dance of murder.’

‘This is a staging that wraps its inky fingers around you and holds you, spellbound’

DAILY EXPRESS

‘Here is a court thick with corruption and Marianne Elliott’s almost hypnotic production updates the action to the late fifties / early sixties and perfectly captures the louche immorality.’

‘It all adds up to a typically Jacobean-style bloodbath but this terrific production gives us enough humour to lighten the load, particularly with Harry Melling’s ludicrously camp heir.’

‘In a top quality cast, Harriet Walter is magisterial as Livia and Lauren O’Neill makes for an impassioned Bianca.’

‘Most effective of all is the finale of the masked ball, where the swirling set, smoky air and seductive music turns the final roll call of bodies into a heady orgy of death.’

SUNDAY TIMES

“The National’s bravura production”

“This is a rich production, full of the theatrical flourishes that are the director Marianne Elliott’s trademark.”

“Harriet Walter, as Livia, is a cold-eyed manipulator, and comically vampish when seducing Leantio (Samuel Barnett), but the younger actresses are outstanding. Lauren O’Neill, as Bianca, conveys a potent mix of anger and bitter bewilderment, her delivery crystal clear. Vanessa Kirby is excellent and understated as the unwittingly incestuous Isabella. Harry Melling, as the obsessively bawdy Ward, delivers nice clownish comedy.”

OBSERVER

“Harriet Walter dazzles as the subtle villainess.”

“A fiercely felt, finely wrought, seldom-seen play by one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. A play whose subject is corruption and whose language is pungent. Producing such a drama is, surely, one of the reasons the National theatre needs to exist.”

“Marianne Elliott’s production of Women Beware Women has verve and nerve.”

“It’s an extravaganza that Elliott delivers with relish. There’s a strong case against ever updating Women Beware Women. The inturning, winding verse is of a piece with a Jacobean architecture of dark corners, twists and complications. But this production – in which every densely written line is delivered with brutal clarity – is as good as a modern dress could be.”

“Walter, who is at the peak of her powers as an actor, is, here and throughout, a magnificent source of fascination and energy.”

EVENING STANDARD

‘Marianne Elliott’s production of this 1621 play by Thomas Middleton culminates in a gorgeous, debauched masked ball. ‘

‘Elliott brings a lavish sensibility to his work’

‘Harriet Walter gives a performance at once measured and full of relish: there’s passion in her destructiveness, yet also clarity in her unscrupulous plans. Lauren O’Neill makes a sympathetic Bianca, while Harry Melling gets to prance around in a delightfully cretinous fashion as The Ward, and Samuel Barnett’s Leantio is a nerdy sort of libertine.’