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Sleuthing monk takes to the stage
A habit of detection: Gareth Thomas gives a wonderfully understated performance as amatuer mediaevil detective Cadfael Cadfael – The Virgin in the Ice Wolverhampton Grand *** BRINGING 12th century Welsh Benedictine
monk Brother Cadfael and his chronicles to the stage was never going to
be the easiest of tasks - which could explain why, 19 years after the
last novel, radio plays and a TV series - this is the first theatrical
attempt. Sadly, the dramatisation seems to have lost its way a little in the drifting snow. The Virgin in the Ice is set in the bitter winter of 1139, in the midst of a civil war, the Anarchy, between the daughter of Henry I, Matilda, Empress Maude, and his nephew King Stephen who had captured the throne. Cadfael is a monk at Shrewsbury Abbey, and
although our amateur sleuth and the crimes he solves are fictional, the
main characters are based on real people and real events which gives an
air of historical authenticity to the dire deeds of those brutal times. Michael Lunney, the former Birmingham University
drama student who runs the excellent Middle Ground production company,
adapted this Ellis Peters novel for the stage (Peters is the name Edith
Pargeter used for her historical detective novels) and then directed,
designed and produced it with its world premiere at the Grand this week
prior to a tour. The elements are all there but don't quite fit
easily together - yet. The staging is simple with a huge backcloth of
the Benedictine Priory at Bromfield near Ludlow, where Cadfael has been
called to treat a badly beaten monk, Brother Elyas, (George Telfer)
waylaid by brigands. That changes to the Salop hills or the cloisters
of the Priory in a flash and there are some excellent special effects
with a realistic blizzard and a near constant howling wind which makes
the very effective Priory fire in its stone fireplace most welcoming for
actors and audience alike. It is easy to shiver when the whole, cold,
gloomy snow covered stage tells you it is bitter weather.
The sets, minimalist, are equally effective
whether a skeletal winter forest, a burned out home, forester's shelter
or the Priory itself. The one set which perhaps failed was also the
biggest, the fortress of the thieves and vagabonds where the fight
between Alain le Gaucher (Christopher Berry) the mercenary leader of the
outlaws and our hero Olivier du Bretagne (Tom Kanji) on its small roof,
less than the size of a boxing ring, struggles for any sort of
authenticity – the added slow motion action to stylise the sword fight
raised titters rather than gasps from the audience. A bigger fortress would be impractical but a
fight at stage level might help stop the mortal combat looking like a
scene from Spamalot rather than a serious drama Against that was a plus though with some
authentic period music and Gregorian chants to help set and maintain the
atmosphere. With some scenes only a couple of lines long the
story itself is a little confusing and bitty at times, particularly as
it is at a time in our history which is not the best known. Lunney cleverly uses video projected on the back
cloth to ahow where the action is taking place with mediaevil style maps
of Shrewsbury and nearby villages, manors and priories. It is also used for pre-filmed scenes involving
the actors in snow covered landscapes as Cadfael investigates the rape
and murder of a nun, Hilaria, (Jenny-May Darcy) whose body is found
frozen solid in a brook – the virgin in the ice - and a missing brother
and sister of noble birth who had escaped the sacking of Worcester by
Maude's men. Gareth Thomas (Blake's 7) makes an excellent
Cadfael, the quiet, gentle and perceptive monk – and former Crusader -
who sees with the forensic eye of a detective.
There are no histrionics or even glints of
triumph, just a quiet and relentless pursuit of the truth and justice
aided by the deputy Sherriff Hugh Beringar (Paul Hassell). It is no surprise that he finds the missing noble
children Yves and Ermina Hugonin (Hannah Burton and Daniel Murray) and
solves the mystery of the murdered nun where Ermina's would-be
lover Evrard Boterel (James Palmer) comes into play and goes a little
over the top. Coming to the rescue, or at least to take Ermina
and Hugonin back to their uncle, Laurence d'Angers, recently returned
from the Crusades, is Olivier, their uncle's squire, who is Ermina's
real true love. We find the handsome squire is the illegitimate
son of a Moslem Syrian woman and a Christian Crusader and has chosen to
follow the Cross rather than the Crescent – he was conceived at about
the time our Cadfael was swinging his sword, so to speak, on Crusader
duty so . . . . To be honest, the play was somewhat of a
disappointment. This was only the second night so a few teething
troubles were to be expected with sound effects overrunning dialogue a
couple of times perhaps losing a little of the plot - as we didn't hear
we don't know. The plot was not helped either by a particularly
bronchitic audience coughing their way through the scenes – that I
suppose is the risk of a play set in a howling blizzard, the cold
drifting from imagination to the chest. The performance would be helped by an injection
of pace, perhaps with more narration to reduce too many bitty scenes and
it needs a change to that ineffective and comical fight scene - give it
some room to give it some real menace or at least excitement. A few tweaks and changes would work wonders for
there is a decent play waiting to emerge and Michael Lunney has been
producing excellent drama long enough to ensure it will quickly find its
way out. Roger Clarke
*** THIS is the world premiere stage
production of Ellis Peters' 1139 murder mystery, but it doesn't quite
live up to expectations. Apart from one spot of violence, the first act
tends to limp along and members of the audience unfamiliar with the
author's work might well feel a little confused. The story surrounds the attempt by Brother
Cadfael, a kind of clerical Poirot, to find an orphaned boy and his
beautiful teenage sister, of noble stock, who fled north from Worcester,
accompanied by a young nun, sister Hilaria. Eventually Cadfael, convincingly played by
veteran actor Gareth Thomas (Blake's 7), discovers the nun's body under
ice, and is horrified that she has been abused and murdered. The medieval Shrewsbury-based sleuth has to find
who committed the crime while the search continues for the Ermina and
Yves Bagonin (Hannah Burton and Daniel Murray). Where this Middle Ground Theatre Company
production scores well is in the staging, with clever sets, good
lighting and a very realistic snow storm, with brief parts of the story
shown on a screen at the rear of the stage. And the bespoke music suits
the story perfectly. It falls well short, however, with the sword
fight on top of a timber fort, performed in almost slow motion,
suggesting health and safety experts may have had an input. The action did improve in the second act,
suggesting the play could be a hit with more attention to the opening
scenes. At times some of the dialogue was difficult to catch on press
night, although several members of the audience suffering severe attacks
of coughing didn't help. Adapted, designed and directed by Michael Lunney,
the medieval drama runs to 09.03.13 Paul Marston
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