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Visiting a land in times gone by
Rob Callendar excels as Bennett, the schoolboy
finding himself. Pictures: Johan Persson Another Country
Malvern Festival Theatre
**** ANOTHER Country introduces the audience
to the world of an all-boys British public school in the 1930s. It is
the world of prefects, of fags, of chapel services and the cane.
The sound effects used to introduce and bridge
between scenes evoke these elements, in particular the cane, the
historic bells and the sounds of students moving along corridors and
across courtyards on their way to lessons. This world is presented as one in which
established traditions foster hypocritical and cynical attitudes; in
this context homosexuality and political ideas are explored. We focus in
on one particular house, Gascoigne’s, and especially on two students,
Bennett and Judd. Bennett is coming to terms with his sexuality as
the play progresses; he is initially witty, cynical, clever in his
subversive interjections and crude innuendoes, but, as he finds himself
in love, he seems to find his identity and becomes confident in
accepting who he finds himself to be while wrestling with the need to be
covert about it in the world of his day. Judd is similarly sharp intellectually but his
character is more academic, theoretical and philosophical; he has
adopted a clear Communist philosophy that is likewise subversive in the
public school scene. As the play develops the two seem to become
closer and more identified in their alternative and radical world views,
and distinct from the general chorus of the majority who sing a
patriotic hymn at the opening and the closing of the play. Overall the
world of the play is somewhat of a caricature that serves as a
This play is not exactly plot or story-driven;
the action of the play is limited. It is more of a psycho-drama, a study
of the breeding ground of subversive minds, such as the minds of the spy
ring that developed in this period of our history that included Burgess,
MacLean, Blunt and Philby.
This production was in the end gripping because
of the very high standard of the acting. The timing, the portrayal of
that type of public school boy, the language of that world were
excellent and consistently maintained. There was humour, albeit cynical
humour, laced through the whole piece. The two leading actors Rob Callendar as Bennett
and Will Attenborough as Judd were particularly strong; the former
portrayed the pathos and inner struggle of his character with real
poignancy and sensitivity in the second act. The rest of the cast supported these two
strongly, particularly Julian Wadham as Vaughan Cunningham. The sound effects were clever in evoking, with
the bells, the atmosphere of the historic public school, along with the
sound of beatings. The set and design were excellent: the need to move
from Common Room, to Prefects’ HQ, to dormitory and later the playing
field required great flexibility; the oak-panelled walls captured the
traditional scenes brilliantly. The changes were slick and well-managed.
The cohesive, creative vision does great credit to director Jeremy
Herrin and designer Peter McIntosh and their team. Towards the end Bennett and Judd discuss the
possibilities for them in their hypocritical world. ‘Either you accept
the system or you try to change it’, proposes one of them. ‘Or both!’
the other replies in a sinister hint at the path chosen by the spies who
later betrayed their country. The audience was predominantly of an older
generation who would recall the scandals of the Cambridge spies, but the
political and social message of Julian Mitchell's play would certainly
appeal to many of the younger generation in Britain today. To 05-07-14. Tim Crowe
30-06-14
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vehicle
for a piece that is distinctly political in its import