Splendid isolation... Beckett Triple Bill, Jermyn Street Theatre

Ah, it was a grand evening to be called Joyce in the Jermyn Street Theatre as Trevor Nunn presented three short plays by Samuel Beckett, an Irishman who often wrote in French but always thought in Irish, with an Irish cast plus one Mancunian.

The staging of these three quite distinct but thematically linked plays was stark and brave making the most of the JST’s intimacy whilst still somehow leaving the players so isolated. In Krapp’s Last Tape, Krapp (James Hayes) is lit by a single overhead light as he huddles over his reel to reel; the darkness makes him feel less alone, he says, yet it serves to accentuate his isolation and a course he has chosen if not exactly welcomed.

In Eh Joe, the titular character (Niall Buggy) is filmed by a video camera which is simultaneously projecting the recording onto the wall behind. It’s very powerful as the actor’s wordless performance is magnified as he listens to imagined the voice of an old lover (a chilling vocal performance from Lisa Dwan who I’m sure left shards of broken glass on the floor of the recording booth…) slowly break him down into tears.

Niall Buggy (Joe). Photo Robert Workman

The press night was packed and the run is nearly sold out already and it’s not hard to see why; this was a masterclass of acting and directing in the kind of space the minimalist Beckett would have loved for his one and two-handed plays. All three plays deal with memory from the point of view of men nearing the end of their lives; there’s intense loneliness, palpable regret and bitterness but also humour; these situations are funny no matter how dark they seem.

In Krapp’s Last Tape, a 69-year old man listens back to recordings he made at 39 when he had seemingly found his motivation for writing whilst at the same time losing out in a relationship that could have gone on a lot longer. He tells himself he does not regret the passing of his youth in the tape and in the present day says the same thing even as he winces at his own vocalisation of creative hope. I loved the patient staging here and the long moments of silence as Krapp goes around his desk to unlock his drawers revealing a banana; pretty much the first sound he makes is to cry out after he slips on the discarded peel.

James Hayes (Krapp). Photo Robert Workman

Eh Joe is altogether bleaker as Joe slowly but surely breaks down as the powerful voice of his dead wife cuts through his defences, hacking away at his silent resistance and relishing his wasted years. Let’s hope we’re kinder to ourselves when the time comes but this was extraordinary powerful theatre and Mr Buggy was mesmerising.

In comparison, The Old Tune was light relief as two old pals meet by chance and share misaligned memories of their past. In fairness Mr Cream (David Threlfall) has trouble remembering his grandchildren let alone previous decades and his pal Gorman (Niall Buggy) is little better, their recall about as reliable as Gorman’s malfunctioning barrel organ. Time is passing them by just as relentlessly as the constant stream of modern motor cars that often interrupt their discourse. Just two old fellas wondering what became of the people they used to be.

A tip of the hat to Louie Whitemore's atmospheric set and costume design as well as Max Pappenheim’s sound which plays such a vital role in all three plays especially in capturing every crack and syllable of Lisa Dwan’s voice and foregrounding the relentless rumble of progress passing by Cream and Gorman.

David Threlfall (Mr Cream). Photo Robert Workman

IThankYou Theatre Rating: ***** Pure concentrate of Beckett that gives the audience the full flavour of his words and intent thanks to excellent staging and genuinely astonishing performances.

The Beckett Triple Bill runs until Saturday 8th and I would urge you to get in as quick as you can as tickets are selling fast.

Jazzed Shakespeare… Hamlet: Rotten States, Hope Theatre, 6FootStories

The play’s the thing

Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

The 6FootStories company have a mission statement “to create bold, exciting pieces of theatre that bend the rules of reality. We like to throw ordinary people into extraordinary circumstances, and explore the big ideas along the way, like LIFE and DEATH and FAITH.” Well, we got all of that in the most unpredictable of evenings in N5 during which Brian Blessed – although he was never present – was revealed to be Hamlet’s father!

The trick with deconstructing and then exploding Shakespeare is that you need to be able to perform it too and this the magnificent trio of Amy Fleming, Will Bridges and Jake Hassam do with aplomb, grounding this runaway reality in the lines of the play. They can improvise around the words as easily as Charlie Parker or Kamasi Washington can take flight with a tune but as with the jazzmen they know the formalities perfectly well.

At one point, Jake Hassam (who along with fellow performer-writer Nigel Munson, set up the company) coaches Amy Fleming’s character in the performance of one famous soliloquy; she goes loud, she goes soft until she get’s it reasonably right. The trio are playing gypsies who have been given instructions by Prince Hamlet to perform a play that, by telling how Hamlet’s father was killed, will reveal the true killer, the King’s brother, by his reaction and possibly that of his wife, Hamlet’s mother and the dead King’s Queen. So far so Shakespeare but the 6Footers take this all in their stride and weave a completely new narrative between their entry and exit in the original play.

Jake Hassam, Amy Fleming and Will Bridges All photographs by Matthew Koltenborn

Whereas Tom Stoppard took minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and explained their battle against fate, here the players are allowed to offer a meditation on the nature of the play highlighting some of what A-level scholars have long termed the awkward bits; Ophelia’s drowning/suicide, Laertes gullibility and the earnest Prince’s inability to kill in cold blood.

All of this is achieved through a mixing desk controlling a glitched, electronic score and also containing a variety of props; Gertrude is played by a polystyrene bust and she wears it well. It’s all so well pitched and perfectly timed – wasn’t it The Bard himself who said that was the essence of all good humour? Or maybe it was Michael McIntyre or someone funny at any rate.

The end result has the audience laughing in between giving thought to what some of the arcane original text actually means which is the greatest tribute. This company have made Shakespeare accessible without lampooning him just “remixing” him.

IThankYou Theatre Rating: **** The fastest Hamlet you’ll see, fast enough to be in the West End, with perfectly controlled sprints from each performer in and around the original text. Quite extraordinary and very funny! I mean, the state of Denmark!

Hamlet: Rotten States plays at the Hope until 1^st February – full details on their website.

Talkies or walkies… The Delights of Dogs/Lullabies for the Lost, Old Red Lion Theatre

“There is violence and cruelty and bigotry and plain old crushing boredom but there is also nature and animals and art and sport, beauty and Virgil van Dijk!”

Rosalind Blessed’s two plays are packed full of sharp emotional relief, violent turns and bitter love turned shallow but nothing prepared me for the out of context mention of Liverpool FC’s greatest defender in thirty years. Van Dijk does indeed exemplify the best of the beautiful game and may well be a favourite of the playwright’s mother Hildegard Neil who makes a recorded yet highly impressive appearance in the first of tonight’s plays.

Two plays over something close to three hours is a lot to take in and for Rosalind along with Duncan Wilkins, a huge emotional undertaking, especially during the two-handed second play, The Delights of Dogs and the Problems of People, which involved a sequence of monologues and audience interactions, culminating in some of the rawest emotional displays you’ll see in any London theatre this winter.

Rosalind combines fierce charm with delicate emotional control and is a joy to watch in those soliloquies as she looks to audience, including us in imagined exchanges and even accusations; I was pointed at and called a pervert at one point and that’s the first time this year! Duncan Wilkins also has this playful confidence and plays off one audience member, “Steve” as his character – Ash - attempts to convince his soon to be ex-wife, Robin (Rosalind) that he has “mates” ready to help him recover from the dual blows of separation and pet-death.

“He might love me sure, but he certainly hates me…”

Rosalind Blessed and Duncan Wilkins, Delights of Dogs, photo courtesy of Natalie Wells

Dogs are a running theme across both plays – I hesitate to say “walking” – and exemplify the unconditional, pure and simple love that is seemingly beyond the most sentient of species. These characters are struggling to love themselves let alone their partners and relationships turn rancid in complex ways that we barely understand and yet which are clear enough if we would only look. The couple’s dog in Lullabies vomits in the back of their car and by the time they stop his bile has drenched their clothes much in the same way their relationship ends up soaking through their flat and their lives.

Food is also a common theme and in Lullabies Ash, prepares a meal for Robin as a peace offering whilst he recalls killing a fledgling crow by over-feeding it. The similarities between his lover and the stray animals Ash has always been attracted to are clear even to him but he can’t seem to think his way past it as she can. “No man is ever interested in what is on the inside…” exclaims Robin at one point before twinkling the briefest of apologies to half the audience before doubling down on what is an almost undeniable fact. Lads: we have work to do.

The direction of Zoe Ford Burnett – who is associate director of the Lehman Trilogy – is emphatic and clear, using the confined playing area almost as punctuation between the action.

Boxed in? Photo courtesy of Adam Trigg

The narrative is spread across a further six actors in the first play, Lullabies for the Lost, which sees a group in long-term therapy for eating disorders. Each gets to relate their story in a group session that will see them either come to terms and leave or extend their stay in an institution which seems as much a representation of their inner turmoil as a cure. Or rather, and not knowing Rosalind’s background in this area, it seems they need to choose to be cured, it’s not something that can be imposed on them.

We start off with the very engaging and all too relatable character of Larry (Chris Porter) as he struggles with himself over whether to go through with an invite he has accepted to meet with friends for dinner. If he leaves within five minutes he’ll be on time but he has a thousand worries – who will he sit next to, who he likes, who even likes him… he racked with doubt and worried his fragile recovery will be ruined by the evening.

Soon he finds himself in a room full of others and only gradually do we realise the connections between himself, the “Brothers Grim” – Jez (Nick Mulvey) and Tim (Liam Mulvey) – two men who just can’t connect beyond the surface, Sarah (Helen Bang), a neurotic who is too frightened even to tackle the mice in her flat and Nerys (Kate Tydman), a more confident woman who cannot let anything go after having her heart broken once too often.“I began to see the value in everything… I think things should have a value…” including, no doubt herself and the relationships that disappoint.

Kate Tydman (front) with (left to right) Duncan Wilkins, Rosalind Blessed, Chris Porter, courtesy of Adam Trigg

It’s like an emotional escape room in which the clues are obscured mostly by our own fears. Only scouser Andy (Chris Pybus) is able to come to terms with himself through the aid of a rescue dog called Millie who gave him a reason to get up and frame his active life around this most willing of partners. Before the Staffie came into his life, he was all but destroyed by his ex-, a “knock-off Kate Bush”; “the flesh is weak and the spirit envies the flesh’s strength…” and he wasted his life on corrosive social media, box sets and the illusory security of the bed.

Andy is able to leave but when anorexic James (Duncan Wilkins again) takes centre stage, the situation is put most eloquently as a trap of their own making: there comes a point when not everyone wants to escape. It is then that “Mother” appears projected onto the plain whiteness of the scenery, extoling the value of love and, indeed, Virgil Van Dyke.

Director Caroline Devlin moved the players around very effectively and the play is devastating, funny and so bravely personal from Rosalind.

The two plays alternate at the Old Red Lion until the end of January – they are very well written and exceptionally well performed; a grand – honest – start to 2020!

IThankYou Theatre Rating: **** The year gets off to a flying start with complex and raw emotion delivered with so much humour and brutal charm. 

Rosalind Blessed and cast, Lullabies for the Lost, courtesy of Adam Trigg