|
|
Letters from a lost age
Dear Lupin
Malvern Theatres
**** ROGER Mortimer’s relationship with his
wayward son Charlie through his letters marks not only an affectionate
bond between father and son but also perhaps the end of a gentler, more
civilised age. It was the final throes of newspapers as a refuge
for eccentrics, unfettered journalism and good writing before the
humourless march of accountants and their worship of profit, and it was
the last days of the vanishing art of letter writing – younger readers
might wish to Google snail mail before continuing. Yet it is through Mortimer’s witty, at times
gloriously funny, at times sad, letters, more than 150 of them, over a
quarter of a century that we glimpse that unswerving tie between father
and son. Roger, a former Coldstream Guards’ major, an ex
PoW, and for 30 years racing correspondent of the Sunday Times, died in
1991, aged 82, which could have been the end of the story, but Charlie,
with a history of drug and alcohol abuse, a diagnosis of HIV, and a
chaotic lifestyle taking him around the world, had nevertheless, somehow
through all that, saved all his father’s letters. After encouragement from friends who had been
regaled by extracts, they were published in 2012 as Charlie’s personal
tribute to his father, To his surprise the book became a best seller and
has now been adapted into a touching, affectionate and at time hilarious
play by Michael Simkins. The play is given added poignancy by the casting
of father and son James and Jack Fox in the lead roles of Roger and
Charlie. The letters are a wonderful mix of news from home about the eccentricities of his wife, Cynthia, nicknamed Nidnod, along with advice and the expression of emotions ranging through despair, alarm, restraint and finally resignation at the antics of his son. Above all though they are about the affection and
love of a father for a son, no matter how wayward his offspring becomes. Charlie was expelled from Eton after sneaking off
with a friend on an unsuccessful visit to a prostitute in Soho. He was
saved only because the also expelled friend’s Godfather was Viscount
Montgomery of Alamein who pleaded, or perhaps more accurately ordered,
that they should stay – although it was decided it might be best for all
concerned if Charlie was to leave, with a clean
record, at the end of term. Charlie’s history of
scrapes at Eton earned him the nickname Lupin from his father, a
reference to Charles Pooter’s wayward son Lupin in George and Weedon
Grossmith’s The Diary of a Nobody.
The two hander sees Fox the elder as Roger
playing a variety of extra roles with little more than a change of hat
and accent from Montgomery to a sergeant and a colonel in the Coldstream
Guards, a job centre clerk, antiques baron, an auctioneer and anyone
else to bring added life to yet another episode in the life of Lupin as
he works his way through drink, drugs and jobs in all corners of the
world. Adrian Linford’s set is a splendid jumble of old
furniture, like a stately home lumber room, dominated by Mortimer’s
refuge of a desk where he writes his racing articles and letters. It also serves as the props table as both Foxes
delve into boxes, drawers and cupboards to emerge with a hat, a jacket,
a meal, drink, steering wheel or whatever to enact an event in Lupin’s
disordered life. It all helps to create a breakneck pace, directed
with some style by Philip Franks, as more than 25 years is crammed into
two hours, including interval. Yet the pace drops to a crawl in what is a moving
end. Mortimer senior, suffering dementia and that most fatal and
debilitating of conditions, old age, is dying – his last wish to die
overlooking the nudist beach at Brighton sadly unfulfilled – while
Mortimer junior, unbeknown to Roger suffering from HIV and facing death
himself, clings on to their special bond through death and beyond
through the letters. It is a relationship perhaps only fathers and
sons can understand. As a play it is blessed with Mortimer’s wonderful
turns of phrase, guests who are ‘unlikely to be members of the local
temperance league’ or who had their ‘noggin in the gin bucket’. When Charlie, liver shot, books himself into
rehab Roger, visiting him, asks: “What exactly are you here for?”
Charlie replies that he has a bit of a drink and drug problem to which
his father enquires: “Any chance of getting your mother in?” There is the wonderful description of the dog
show, of Roger’s instructions for a funeral – ‘no memorial service, just
a quick fry-up’ – Cynthia’s ‘endeavouring to live on a purely liquid
diet with unfortunate results’, and on and on in a chronicle of life in
the racing world of Newbury, the going ons at home and behind it all
their affectionate relationship. Fox senior and junior give the letters and book
life in a funny, sad, wonderful portrayal of a father son relationship,
so much so that by the inevitable end the pair have created characters
you have taken to heart, that you care about so their sadness is your
sadness. You will laugh, you will cry, but most of all you
will enjoy and delight in the world of Roger and Lupin. To 16-05-15 Roger Clarke
11-05-15
|
|
|