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In search of a good baddy Charlie Peace Coventry Belgrade **** CHARLIE Peace
(1832-79) was a famous Victorian murderer: so famed, in fact, that he
featured in Hodge’s red-covered series of
Notable British Trials
of the Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian era. But he was not a
cynical figure like – say – the Cheshire murderer Dr. Harold Shipman
from Hyde,, the psychopathic Brady, or Richard Attenborough’s John
Christie, who in 10, Rillington Place
callously stood by while another, the
young, simple-minded Welshman Timothy Evans (John Hurt) was consigned to
the gallows. If Peace had to hang, it was for killing an irate
husband, Arthur Dyson, possibly perpetrated in fear and off-the-cuff
self-preservation. But he had also killed an arresting policeman
early in his life, and was indicted for the attempted murder of another.
So he was not quite as amiable as his name suggests. Though Peace adopts a series of successful
aliases in Peter Duncan’s colourfully believable, hugely engaging,
lovable performance, and is a cad at least in concealing from future
amours the fact he had a perfectly good ugly wife (posing as his mother)
– actually the violently balding Peace himself wasn’t no good looker
himself, from the few photos we have – he was a charmer. Duncan, who turns Giles Croft’s quickfire show
into a minor triumph (Sheffield-born, Peace was everywhere; but
Nottingham was crucial, hence this Belgrade-Nottingham Playhouse
collaboration), gives a scintillating performance: is absolutely the
heart and soul of the party Though not without some marvellous backups. Like
Norman Pace’s showman: a sort of German Expressionism escapee, or benign
Cabaret m/c doing well with a role slightly underwritten and
insufficiently used to acquire relevance: one of those half-idea that
never quite gets chucked; or Bridie Higson, charmingly varying the
innocent lass, alluring and put-upon but capable of rampant sex; and
finally betrayed; or the vastly experienced Mia Soteriou, beautifully
enunciated in the old crone roles; and Philip Rham, whose bumping off as
Dyson causes the whole rocky series of disasters, and who appropriately
returns as Charlie’s Executioner, William Marwood - the Pierrepoint of
his era.
They all play instruments, too – onstage: Rham an
accomplished cellist, serving up searing, even passionate pizzicato and
gritty strumming in Jonathan Girling’s really rather sophisticated,
carefully understated score. Soteriou is the keyboard player. Nicholas
Goode (the do-gooder Rev. Littlewood) is a fiddler. That does something
for provincial ensemble playing: it gels a cast even more. So when you
add in some terrific top-of proscenium pinpoint projections by William
Simpson, constantly evoking period, date and atmosphere, you have a very
cheerful and colourful undertaking indeed. And this Charlie is nothing if not cheerful.
Duncan was a National Theatre player when Sir Larry set it up; he’s
stripped off for Alan Strang in Equus, done the Finney/Courtenay
role of Billy Liar, excited the little ones presenting Blue Peter
and turned in Michael Crawford-quality roles in musicals like Barnum.
If Charlie Peace is to him an anti-hero, his triumph is to make Charlie
dangerously near to a hero. The way Charlie slips out on 1870s evenings with
a few crowbars and not a hint to his (purported) wife to do over a few
well-reconnoitred properties, occasionally being trapped by the fuzz in
the process, is deliciously nonchalant. He feels modern: it could as
easily be the era of Craig and Bentley. He’s suave, smug, cavalierly
risk-taking; but he also cares; about women; keeping his girls in
slightly sleazy luxury; about innocent victims. More than once, as they
all do, Charlie thinks about going straight. It just doesn’t quite fit,
and Duncan enables you to see why. Croft directs with his usual canny precision: not
mere competence, but utter command. But it’s Barney George’s Punch and
Judy show set, with many little touches around that scream Gilbert and
Sullivan era at you, that counts for much. Eddie Campbell obviously
contributed some of the artwork, to effect. Nick Morris keeps the light
a little on the dark side, but he makes the case. The way it turns out (I didn’t realise) that
Peace’s last job was in St. John’s Park, Blackheath – where I grew up,
and a property my frail young hands delivered milk to at the ages of 8
to 12 – gave it an added frisson for me. Strange things turn up on your
doorstep. Perhaps, in a different era, Charlie might have made me his
apprentice, much as my beloved milkman Jack Whybrow did. Now that could
have been fun. Roderic Dunnett
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