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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Edward's Boys Christ Church Oxford ***** It’s impossible to praise Edward’s Boys too highly. The youthful company’s latest sorties have taken them far and wide, from their home school haunt of Stratford-upon-Avon, to the South of France (University contacts in Montpellier, a regular destination), Friburg in Switzerland; once, to Genoa, The Palazzo Ducale (I ask you). Their annual adventures look like a Swan Hellenic tour of the UK. Newcastle, Edinburgh, Durham, Leeds, Walsall, Cambridge, Leicester, London - especially Shakespeare’s Globe (plus Eastcheap, rather splendidly; Middle and Inner Temple; and King’s College); and Dulwich - Alleyn’s Hall, named appropriately after that school’s Founder, the actor and theatre impresario Edward Alleyn. In Oxford, a whole travelogue: Trinity, Lady Margaret Hall, Balliol, Keble, New College, Wadham, Somerville, Magdalen, Christ Church. You’d have to admit – some rather recherché outlets. No surprise, for the quality of their work, for a troupe of teenage boys, is unsurpassed: equivalent (in musical terms) to the top half dozen Cathedral choirs in the land, say York or Truro or both Westminster. That’s highly appropriate, for the most famous of their predecessors, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, were indeed the ‘Boys of Paul’s’: brilliant young, fabulously trained teen, even pre-teen acting ensembles drawn from the famously precocious choristers of the original (pre-Great Fire) St. Paul’s Cathedral. Ancillary types routinely impersonated by Edward’s Boys, maybe those not yet equipped for a lead (but likely so destined), comprise Satyrs, Wood-Nymphs, Clowns, Morris Dancers, Maids, Ladies, Musicians, Dogs, Rabbits, Shepherds, Sheep, Woodsmen, Reapers, Leopards, Drawers, Tailors, Perfumers, Falconers, Huntsmen, Maskers, ‘Bearherds’, Town Criers, Aston Villa supporters, Pimps, Dupes, Spies, Fairies, Prostitutes, Waiting-women (great roles for boys), mutes, rapscallions, ruffians, nymphs, goddesses, nurses, concierges. Tendrils. An agile, surprisingly authentic, rapidly intertwining, log-wielding Wood. Versatile’s the word.
At York University’s School of Arts and Creative Technologies, they participated – with typical success - in the latest annual Conference of the British Shakespeare Association, a most august meet-up of a hundred-plus British Shakespearian scholars and illuminates. One might have anticipated that York – and all their previous efforts – would land them a major award. Indeed it fell out thus. The citation ‘recognises the work of Edward's Boys to continually provoke, inspire, entertain, and educate us, to challenge long-standing critical assumptions about the abilities of boy actors, and to test the stage-worthiness of the early modern repertory’. Wow… For the 2025 gathering, “Practising Shakespeare: new collaborations, expanding horizons”, the Boys - practical as ever (they produced something similar for the 2024 event at Leicester’s De Montfort University, and supplied acclaimed conference appearances over several years prior) - delivered, undaunted, a workshop exploring, for these exalted aficionados: “how we approach the ‘difficult’ language of early modern drama.” The answer is, Edward’s Boys don’t find it difficult. They take everything in their stride, are fazed by nothing, don’t know it’s difficult. So don’t treat it as such. Give them the Fool’s ditties in King Lear, or Edgar’s Poor Tom, or the most inexplicable nonsense from Dogberry or Don Armado, and they would sail through it effortlessly, as easily as amo, amas, amat. Not actually effortless, for the work these boys put into mastering their parts – or knotty passages of chorus – is quite stupendous. A further clue: One grateful former Boy explained in retrospect, “As all who have been a part of Edward’s Boys will attest, work on a play starts with the text and never stops. There isn’t a thought about ‘putting it on its feet’ until all the actors know what every line means – or might mean.” One imagines them each in front of a mirror at home, going over iambs, spitting and snarling them out, anything to refine their diction, guarantee their audibility, make patent the lines’ meticulously worked out meaning for their listeners. You (the audience) can’t hang on every word if you can’t hear them. With Edward’s Boys’ beautifully refined diction you catch not merely every utterance, but conceivably every nuance, every subtext, every insinuation. They’ve got to grips with the play, cherished the words, and they’re going to make sure you do, too. Yet neither Lear’s Fool, nor Don Armado. For the Boys under their Founder and inspiring mentor, King Edward VI’s Deputy Head, Perry Mills, are given over to different fayre than the Bard. Like their Elizabethan predecessors, they attack plays by many of the other playwrights of that period. Well known at the time, if not always (like one speciality, John Lyly, less well remembered today). But Thomas Nashe, John Marston (they’ve revived loads of his), Thomas Middleton, Jonson, Marlowe, Beaumont, Dekker & Webster, Samuel Daniel (who he? actually famous in his day), John Ford.
Ritvick Nagar as King AhasuerusEach has his penchant for elongated speeches or quickfire stichomythia, for jumbled and contorted utterance, topsy-turvy sentences, cryptic allusion, wicked parody and dizzyingly tangled spoutings. All this the Boys must tuck into their word-bulging aprons, secrete in their well-stuffed pockets, seize on with their tireless intelligence and ballooning brains, and make their own. And that’s exactly what they do. And betimes they reach back even further, to works of the middle and even early 16th century. This year’s offering, The Enterlude of the Godly Queen Hester, is in fact a parody, somewhat vitriolic, if well-cloaked. Of uncertain authorship, and, unusually, for this lively and irrepressible Avonside squad, based on a biblical story, it dates clearly enough from 1529 (most likely staged at Hampton Court or Greenwich Palace), hasn’t been performed since, and hails from exactly the time of the disgrace and fall, after fifteen or twenty years of highest power, of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (why not jump on a man when he’s down?) Hence the parody – although perhaps not immediately self-evident. The Old Testament Book of Esther (Hadassah) recounts how the Persian King Ahasuerus (Ahasuerus - more familiar as Greek Xerxes) has married, without knowing, a woman from the extensive Jewish diaspora. Persian monarchs from Cyrus in fact treated alien races leniently, and when the evil vizier (H)aman treacherously proposes to massacre, on one single day, all the resident Jews of Susa and the whole Empire, he is foiled by Esther’s successful intervention with the king, and instead is doomed himself. (The revenge the repealed Jews took upon their Persian opposites, not addressed in the play, is too horrendous to unfold.) Four of Edward’s Boys’ notable skills in staging are their ability to restructure subtly in quite intimate, narrow or constricted spaces; conversely to fill a markedly wide or spacious area (including their hall in Stratford) with copious (hyper-) activity and endlessly clever invention; with minimal re-rehearsal time available, to redesign scenes, moves, levels and ensembles for a wholly different venue and acting space, without a hint of awkwardness, nerves or indecision; and to reveal a phenomenal gift for interacting with one another, in pairs or in groups, squaring their actions to the script, enacting perfectly prepared blocking, achieving finely coinciding entries, amalgamating as a chorus, or melting away again. These are sophisticated skills. But the Boys display them in droves, and more. It is pure artistry. Balletic at times. Wondrous to watch. The narrow confines of the miraculously restored Barn – 19th century but it feels Elizabethan – now a showpiece at Christ Church - currently celebrating its 500th anniversary since Wolsey replaced St. Frideswide’s Priory with his prototype Cardinal’s College - were a classic example of these professional standard Boys’ gleeful adaptation, as mentioned, to even the slimmest of walkways. Take them anywhere, and they will remodel to fit. Two kings there were, of goodly mien (sound like R&J). The text’s lead, and, added for good measure, a real one. For Assuerus (the spellings in biblical and contemporary history are legion) Perry Mills almost by happy chance pulled off a coup: the return of one of his classiest actors (they’re all classy), Ritvick Nagar, significant in half a dozen previous productions (The Silent Woman, tragically abandoned due to Covid; perhaps above all the central evil schemer in Marston’s The Malcontent). Once a small boy playing a small boy (Beaumont’s The Woman Hater), Nagar emerged to the heights; as the King, or Shah’nShah, betraying imperial authority: in Nagar one could admire him, gold-garmented with golden sceptre (actually mentioned in the Old Testament), the lordly, militarily commanding equal of Cyrus or Darius (but in fact, datewise, the overweening Xerxes, who - rather than his son Artaxerxes - is patently the King in the biblically undated Esther fable). Nagar’s delivery is as expert as ever, his stature – especially now older – manifest. At the opposite end of the thin passageway sits enthroned in scarlet a real King: a red-bearded, fashionably headgeared Henry VIII (Rémy Aughey), brooding, critical, fiercely pensive; dominant, stumpy legs jutting determinedly apart, if not quite yet threatening. It’s assumed – we can take it that - the play was first performed in the royal presence: indeed specially written, a bit crawlingly, for Henry.
The evil chancellor (as we might call the vizier, (H)aman, was played by Theo Richter as an unflinchingly nasty piece of work: sinuous, snaky, smug, scheming. A most unpalatable type, an execrable toad, as vicious as Herod, vengeful, ambitious, ugly. Latterly Assuerus dismisses him as ‘proud, crafty, subtle, ‘sleight’ (cunning, deceitful). Richter, sensibly cast and sinisterly manoeuvring, capitalised on the compact space to amusingly disturbing effect. The story – actually it may be something of an historic parody itself, for Assyrian, Babylonian and Elamite associations have been detected, and Esther is sometimes excluded from the O. T. - is essentially simple. Assuerus presides nobly, the realm is at peace and benign (even after Xerxes’ Greek mishap), until – in the absence of an external war Aman – by descent an Amalekite (traditional sworn enemies of Israel) - viciously provokes an internal one: Achaemenids versus Hebrews. There is however a distinguished opponent of Aman – Mardocheus (the biblical Mordecai) – played movingly by Joe Valiaparambil, Esther’s cousin, adoptive father and a Jewish leader, crucial to the outcome, who – having insulted Aman (“But Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence”, incurring his furious indignation - will ultimately be vindicated and raised, Jew or no, to royal chief adviser. The play text, of staggering quality, is not short on sophistication. Philosophical reflection is engendered by a kind of Enlightenment or humanist debate on the nature of good kingship. Legal, allegorical, rightful preferment, social and moral issues peep forth: like a Judaeo-Christian exploration of sin or impropriety, Pride (Charlie Hutton), Adulation (Archie Mathers) and Ambition (Ilija Lazic) take the floor, preaching propriety as Christ Church’s priest-Fellows doubtless did. And all, for costuming is always a significant part of Edward’s boys’ clowning, in contrasting oriental headgear. Rather comic black beards and moustaches galore. They looked the part. The principal character in the play is naturally Esther herself (played by one of the Boys’ most treasurable discoveries, Rufus Round, whose persona and delivery have impressed ever since he first trod the Edward’s boards - as a small Cupid - four seasons ago. Country Woman, Boy, wise Old Man: his graph has been ever upward. But it’s the ability of these boys, when older, still realistically to take on women’s roles – Joe Pocknell (in Ford), Daniel Wilkinson (in Lyly) - that speaks reams for their courage, their ingenuity, and their exemplary devotion and commitment to the company - their adored calling (much as their forerunners the older boys of Paul’s could still depict Gertrude, Portia or Ophelia), that one so respects and admires. Beige-clad ‘fair damsel’, and now much-revered, more finely attired Queen, Round brought out the authority, dignity and (to the King) obvious desirability of his character; and hence increased the significance and heightened the story itself. Never more impressive than in Esther’s great, Shakespeare-worthy speech regarding the duties and responsibilities – and hence the accomplishments – of queens; advocating both ‘meekness’ and ‘mercy’. Round’s diction is at its height second to none: he (she) and Nagar scrupulously accurate (e. g. ‘mar-i-áge’ for marriage). But Rufus Round has presence too: a formidable gift in any actor, professional or amateur. As an additional wheeze, the company followed up with a clever half-hour second part. The still extant Jewish festival of Purim, celebrated in February-March and viewed as ‘the jolliest (or cheerfullest) day of the year’ - because of its happy ending - specifically commemorates (originally, maybe still, in Yiddish) the story of Esther and her saving of thousands of Jewish lives from near-annihilation on that fateful occasion 2,500 years ago. Often it - known as a Purimspil (or - spiel) - features a virtual circus of joyous events, feasting and merrymaking, food and (alcoholic) drink, generosity to the poor, and so on (as Mordecai instructs at Esther 9:20). This addendum to the main play of riotous fun, especially in these mischievous hands, reminded me of the Greek tradition at the Great Dionysia festival, of appending to a tragic trilogy a fourth play, the ‘Satyr’ play, a send-up of the myth that has preceded. Hence a tetralogy - a piss-take, if you like. Less comic was the inclusion here, paradoxically, of Haman’s wicked wife Zeresh (Zac Savidge), even viler than Samson’s treacherous Delilah, who abetted his murderous plan (“Let a gallows be made, fifty cubits high, that Mordecai may be hanged thereon”, she demands in the Bible). Needless to say, the Boys’ long-established appetite for bustling, over-the-top, raunchy comedy stood them in perfect stead for this OTT Purimspiel. Edward’s Boys productions, spurred on by their deep-thinking, wondrously communicative Director are – give or take near-tragedies like The Malcontent (Marston) or The Lady’s Trial (Ford) – not just immensely sophisticated, but invariably a giggle-a-minute. Here, everyone flaunting themselves, whizzing around, with made-up corny rhymes, dapper music (also in part one), mimicking girlie poses, crazy wigs, beards in pink dresses, and launching everything in-yer-face to a delighted (helplessly participating) audience, they were, as always, a hell of a hit. Satirical, farcical, as alive and animated as some medieval cart-borne village pantomime, and not missing a trick (witness the loopy ‘court fool’ Hardy Dardy – here in fact a designedly tragic figure, vividly characterised by Thomas Griffin). And this Purimspiel parody of a parody was largely invented by the boys themselves. Such smart alecks: so nauseatingly, enviably, unfailingly, damnably clever. Roderic Dunnett 08-25 |
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