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A play taken for granted
Two's company, National Trust's a crowd: The wonderful duo of Brigit Forsyth as Iris and Siân Phillips as Dorothy. Pictures: Ellie Kurttz People Birmingham Repertory Theatre **** THEATRE can
generate many emotions but every so often it throws up a production like
People, where it is just a delight to be there. And the people in the audience at the official
opening of the newly refurbished and, behind the scenes, rebuilt Rep
delighted in every moment. For three-quarters of Alan Bennett’s latest play
this was a master at work - more of the final quarter later - with a
cast to match. It is witty, at times gloriously funny, has a few
rapier like prods at the Establishment and sees one national institution
with initials NT, The National Theatre taking a less than kindly view of
another, The National Trust. There are a few inconsistencies but they can be
forgiven amid some glorious acting and writing. Siân Phillips is 80, which I mention merely
because you would never believe it, and proves emphatically that age is
merely a number as she dominates the stage as the ancient peer and
ex-model Dorothy Stacpoole who is shivering her life away with her
companion Iris, played beautifully by Brigit Forsyth, in the family’s
crumbling, decaying, stately home set among the rolling coalfields of
South Yorkshire. Iris, in her Yorkshire accent, not only has some of the best lines, one liners and asides to savour, but a dark secret to be revealed in the closing scenes. The pair have a habit of breaking into songs from the 60s, perhaps a memory of happier, more prosperous times when the world was a different place. Dorothy can’t afford to restore or even repair
and her sister June, Archdeacon of Huddersfield, played with bossy
efficiency by Selina Cadell wants to donate, or in tis case, lumber the
house, contents and land to The National Trust to preserve it for the
nation . . . and avoid crippling death duties if Dorothy who was
bequeathed the pile by her father, was to pop her Yorkshire clogs first. Dorothy hates the idea of all those people
traipsing around in ”pretend England” as she sees the National Trust and
would rather keep things as they are but has brought in an auctioneer,
Mr Bevan, played in pigeon management speak by Simon Bubb, who is
looking to sell off the attic – or at least those items Dorothy will
allow him to sell and might be able to make an offer – an unlikely
scenario methinks - for the house, which would then be moved to
Wiltshire, or Dorset . . . “somewhere warm”.
Then another alternative to the National Trust
pops up – or at least it does after a dose of magazines and a magic pill
– when old flame Teddy, played by Paul Moriarty appears, with the offer
of £5,000 to shoot a film of an adult and largely horizontal nature on
the premises, an offer grasped with both hands, so to speak. Perhaps introducing a licentious Bishop (Robin
Bowerman) to appear while filming is taking place is a little obvious
and more in Ben Travers territory than Bennett and although it garnered
laughs it was rather gilding an already gloriously funny lily in the
filming scene. Here we had Bruce (Ieuan Rhys) a porn star who
used to be an actor who had the problem that his manhood had either
given up completely on acting or at the very least seemed to have
forgotten its lines. Then there was his, and I suppose also its,
co-star in this type of film, Lithuanian lovely Brit (Ellie Burrow) who
used to be a Sunday School teacher. There was Cameraman Les (Adrian McLoughlin) who
once worked with David Lean while the soundman was gay Welshman, perhaps
the only Gay in his village, Colin, an expert on plumbing and haut
couture while Nigel (Danny Burns) rushed around keeping Iris, or Granny
as he called her, out of the way and Endy McKay as Louise looked after
Iris and Dorothy, spoiling them and dressing Dorothy in her finest gowns
from her heyday as a model. Where it all starts to unravel a little is in the
home stretch, the final quarter, when Bennett inserts political barbs
with all the subtlety of a blacksmith churning out horseshoes on his
anvil. There are digs at both the Anglican church and
The National Trust, the latter an organisation, with its sacrement of
“coffee and walnut cake” that could rival the former we are told where
it not for the fact that the membership of both was largely the same. Bennett, through Bevan, has a dig at the Trust
for its business plan of running on thousands of volunteers paid with “a
cup of tea and a piece of flapjack” creating a minute wage bill for such
a large organisation. Then we have Ralph Lumsden in his plum trousers –
why do men of a certain age drift into plum trousers, is it something to
do with failing eyesight? – another spouting trendy management speak
nonsense, who does not give us a flattering portrait of the trust
happily turning to subterfuge to create reality heritage and tell it
like it is, or at least might have been, which reaches its pinnacle with
the collection of, should we say, personalised chamber pots. The real gratuitous politics comes in though when
Archdeacon June is asked by Dorothy when we stopped just accepting
things, and she tells her the time when England really changed, when
people stopped taking things for granted, was in the 1980s, a time when
she tells us: “"Everything had a price. If it didn't have a price, it
didn't have a value." Everything, even heritage, became a commodity.
The scene despairing at the changes wrought by Thatcherism though seemed
to be clumsily bolted on, pushed in the drawer because it had to go
somewhere, missing the scalpel like precision to first dissect and then
expose the injustice and incongruity we expect of Bennett with his
undoubted talent.
It seemed even less likely to be coming from the
mouth of June, a figure woven deeply into the establishment like the
pattern on a Jacquard loom or perhaps that was the point; if even such a
pillar of the Church of England, the Conservative party at prayer, could
see the faults and changes, divisions and inequality Thatcherism spawned
upon us then it should by now be obvious to all – a universal truth. You
might fault the execution but not the logic. Nicholas Hytner was the original director of this
National Theatre production, with Drew Mulligan the revival director for
this production and they have managed to create a gentle pace to
compliment the slowly crumbling house and its inhabitants although the
production does seem to flag a little and pause for breath a couple of
times in the closing scenes. The setting from Bob Crowley is wonderful, a run
down grand room in a no longer stately home, dust sheets and dust, an
ancient electric fire, piled up furniture and a cat’s bowl in the
middle. The transformation in the closing scene to its
former glory is a revelation aided by some clever lighting from James
Farncombe. It is a play which is not faultless in construction although the fine cast can hardly be held to account for that but perhaps that is because we have set higher standards for Bennett than for lesser writers. That being said he has produced a gentle comedy which is packed with laughs and a wonderful sense of the ridiculous – back to the chamberpots again – some clever and witty dialogue and a thoroughly entertaining and delightful evening - and a welcome return to the Rep's newly re-opened home. To 21-09-13. Roger Clarke
**** IF Alan Bennett had written his brilliant
new play specifically to mark the re-opening of the refurbished Rep
theatre it couldn’t have been a more fitting project. Many in the packed audience on media night,
including VIPs, had taken the opportunity to take a look at the
remarkable multi-million pound new Birmingham Library – linked to the
theatre – and seen people enjoying its facilities on all levels. There were people combing the rows of book
shelves, people in the computer rooms, people in the restaurant and
people on the roof-top gardens. Maybe that’s what Dorothy Stacpoole fears in the
play when she discusses the options available to her in selling her
family’s crumbling South Yorkshire mansion, particularly if it goes to
the National Trust. She doesn’t fancy large numbers of people traipsing
through the stately pile. Veteran actress Sian Phillips, now 80, plays
former model Dorothy, and the action opens with her wrapped in an old
fur coat, a lookalike for Grizabella in Cats, chatting to her companion,
Iris, in a large untidy room, heated by an old electric fire and lit by
one bulb. Sian is superb in the role, ably supported by
Brigit Forsyth as Iris, and there are many humorous exchanges between
the pair and the would-be buyers before a dodgy film crew arrive to help
the renovation funds by shooting a movie . . . which turns out to be a
porn film. It’s cheeky but cleverly done as a young couple
get their kit off in a rocking four-poster bed while efforts are made to
keep the old dears out of the way. Then a Bishop turns up for a chat
with Dorothy’s archdeacon sister, June (Selina Cadell) and stumbles on
the rude shoot. The sexual content of the play is not severe
enough to offend, and many people will find it extremely funny in this
National Theatre production which is a double premiere – opening the
newly refurbished theatre and launching the NT’s tour following a
sell-out run in London. And while on the subject of refurbishment, the
way the rotting old mansion is transformed before your eyes to reflect
its former glory, near the end of the play, is wonderfully achieved. Directed by Nicholas Hytner, People runs to
21-09-13 Paul Marston
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