History Men... The Gang of Three, King’s Head Theatre

 

Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about Sunny Jim, far too common to be a leader…

It’s now a truism that all political lives end in failure although over recent years we’ve seen more than enough profiting healthily in that state but in the midst of that life we are always so close to death with the knife hovering close to the backs of even the best of friends.

Events open with The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again as we join old Oxford and political allies Anthony Crossland (Alan Cox) and Roy Jenkins (Hywel Morgan) meeting at the latter’s house after he has just resigned, on principal, as Labour Party Deputy Leader. Tony senses an opportunity here and wants Roy to support his bid to take over in that position but, as we are to discover, these two have much that divides them as well as the vast amount they have in common. 

Robert Khan and Tom Saliinsky’s new political drama gets us inside the head of these key players at a time of possibility and danger for the Labour Party. Then they had failed to get a third term for Harold Wilson as Ted Heath took the Tories to victory and then, against the odds, they bounced back in 1974 with a win that Jenkins describes as both unlikely and unlucky: Labour was left with an economic time-bomb as well as unruly industrial relations and a Conservative Party starting to define itself around the monetarist purity of Mrs Margaret Thatcher.

The play gets to grips with the anxieties at the heart of Labour’s top team as three moderates fail to form an alliance that might have fended off Thatcher and the subsequent splintering of the party with Jenkin’s departure to form the Social Democratic Party with Roy Rogers, Shirley Williams and David Owen, as the left wing took over with the Tony Benn supporting Michael Foot into power leaving the party in opposition for the longest time since its 1945 landslide.

Hywell Morgan and Alan Cox - photographer Manuel Harlan

Do we tend to lionise former politicians or do we just long for a time when they were more driven by principals and less concerned with sound bites and social media. Writing in the programme, Steve Richards, explains the conditions of the time which were much more conducive to a broad church which allowed debate and lengthy careers to flourish with Jenkins, Healey and Crossland all having served in Wilson’s governments in the sixties and before that Gaitskell in opposition. Crossland’s book, The Future of Socialism (1956) is made the butt of a few jokes here – it’s a framework that supports analysis in any era… not out of date! – is still a key text for the likes of Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. 

In the play the men are combative and friendly in moments that only occasionally hit the future nail on the head too hard… we’re subsumed in a time of more intellectual debate over possibilities that may never end – a polite civil war involving egos and views of Europe, nationalisation and the balance of payments. There’s love behind the barbs with Tony celebrating Roy’s legalisation of homosexuality and abortion: “you were the bespectacled Father of the Age of Aquarius!” – these men have achieved things but maybe they’re out of ideas when all they want is more power?

Thus, it is that these two friends and a third, from the year above them at Oxford, Dennis Healey (Colin Tierney) play games over the years as fortunes shift and the game slips away as the left with Benn and Foot seemingly making the deal their centrist colleagues couldn’t bring themselves to agree as the popular vote shifted decisively through The Winter of Discontent, and the book balancing resisted so forcibly by the Trade Unions.

The play makes light work of the history and, assumptions there may be aplenty, but they are informed and help to map out the chemistry that combined with circumstance to consign this Labour generation – 12 years in government out of the previous 16 – to opposition for the next 18. It’s not so much how it happened as who it happened to and the characterisations are rich of these three brilliant minds. I can’t see a Reeves, Streeting and Kendall version working quite so well… but then maybe all political lives are revived by the distancing of time?

Colin Tierney and Hywel Morgan - Photographer Manuel Harlan

In these days when there is no longer a “natural party of government”, we see the delusional certainties that make the trio miss out on history with Healey playing games with the IMF and his party and Jenkins driven by principle and privilege and Crossland perhaps wrong-footed by the gifts that came too easily.

IThankYou Theatre rating: **** The political theatre of the recent past makes for a gripping analysis of our politics today; history does not so much repeat itself as continue on the same lines evolving around the same issues and divisions with the added spite of social media and new forms of communication.

Alan Cox is a very plausible Tony Crosland full of charm and wit with his old Oxford edge over Jenkins still informing their relationship, a friendship somewhat deeper than I had imagined. Hywel Morgan’s “Woy” is a man of destiny yet still full of insecurity and a guile whilst Colin Tierney’s assured old Mertonian is the true heavyweight just lacking the charm and the destiny… perhaps all three together would have made the perfect leader?

Kirsty Patrick Ward directs and creates a compelling world of political intrigue, the potential and the quite desperation of ‘70s Britain only a few dozen metres below the streets of 21^st Century Islington former home of King Tony and the young man with the scruffy beard who used to hang on Tony Benn’s every word…

Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky have previously written the acclaimed play on Brexit, as well as other political works Coalition, Kingmaker and Impossible. Their attention to detail is fabulous and their wit hits home throughout, I look forward to Truss: How I Won the War!

The Gang of Three plays at the Kings Head Theatre until 1^st June and you can buy tickets directly from their website here!

All photographs by Manuel Harlan

Critical singing… The Magic Flute, Wilton’s Music Hall

Eleri Gwilym - photographer Bill Knight

Soon, to herald the morning,

The sun will gleam along its golden path,

Soon, superstition will vanish,

And the wise man will soon win the victory… 

Mozart’s opera was first performed in 1791 in the relatively intimate Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in suburban Vienna. At this point, over in London, Wilton’s was an alehouse dating from 1743 and it was only in 1839 that a concert room was built behind the pub and it became a saloon theatre, before transitioning into what is now the oldest Music Hall on these shores. I would imagine that an opera as accessible and brilliantly inventive as The Magic Flute would have amused the clientele of any period as much as tonight’s audience who clapped so hard we could barely express our satisfaction.

The source of this wonder is the latest production of the Charles Court Opera who, celebrating their 20^th anniversary year, have refreshed Mozart’s popular comic masterpiece, for modern ears with a few adjustments to Emanuel Schikaneder’s libretto courtesy of a new translation by John Savournin (book) and David Eaton (lyrics), which includes a call to assess the power battle between the Queen of the Night and Sarastro with objectivity and “critical thinking”. Mozart and Schikaneder’s creation thus proves as malleable as Shakespeare or Verdi and its original call for enlightened absolutism is now taking new meaning. Enlightenment and understanding free the hearts of all and love leading the way.

It's a jungle sometimes… and the marvellous restoration-in-process that is Wilton’s was lit all in green with even the pillars supporting the circle covered in theatrical foliage courtesy of Simon Bejer’s inventive design. The wall at the back of the stage was so well crafted that changes in lighting showed the extremes of emotion and climate unfolding before it… the observed reality of the Hall shifted in mood and texture.

Martins Smaukstelis and Alison Langer - photographer Bill Knight

John Savournin’s direction brought new vibrancy and focus and the centuries simply fell away once his troupe had begun to accompany musical director, David Eaton’s piano. I’ve seen a number of operas but all very grand affairs and yet here there was a show fit for any of those venues, exploding from the Wilton’s stage with full-throated force. Of course, this was how this opera would have originally played in Mozart’s local theatre, his Singspiel enabling a performance more connected with the audience as the players mix dialogue, direct to audience – fourth wall smashed – as well as each other and when they sing emotions are heightened in spine-tingling fashion. Honestly you don’t get this connection way back in the stalls of the Lincoln Centre or up in the Gods at the ENO!

Now for the players and a timeless story set in this East End jungle in which the aforementioned Queen of the Night – an incandescent Eleri Gwilym outstanding on her character’s aria – sends intrepid explorer, Tamino (Martins Smaukstelis) off to rescue her daughter Pamina (Alison Langer) from the high priest Sarastro (Peter Lidbetter). The Queen sends her three hench-women to greet Tamino and they act not only as a Greek chorus but also use puppetry as well as their voices and ability at rapid costume changes – in soccer parlance Sarah Prestwidge, Martha Jones and Meriel Cunningham act as a fast-moving midfield press, taking turns at firing shots into the scoring zone.

Completing the cast is Matthew Kellett as Papageno, bravehearted or at least “hearted”, companion to Tamino on his quest and who acts as the audience’s companion in this fantasy adventure. Then there is the dastardly Monostatos, Jon Ashmore, who aims to steal the princess for himself.

Matthew Kellett as Papageno

All were in fine voice and to repeat it is remarkable to hear such classical training in a venue in which you can see the performers’ expressions so clearly and connect in the intimate way of a concert and theatre audience with their musicality and dramatic intent.

The story picks up the dramatic stakes as well as the humour once hero finds heroine and is given a series of tests by Sarastro who turns out to be not quite the monster the Queen has described as she attempts to persuade her daughter to kill him at the first chance. It’s then when the puppetry – the three women with assorted birds of paradise – and the inventive humour also go into overdrive. We couldn’t take our eyes off and our ears were also fully occupied with the critical singing.

IthankyouTheatre rating: **** This was indeed magic theatre, a special venue filled with top quality voices and an uncanny energy that can change moods and perhaps fortunes… the key to salvation is in the music and the hearts of these wonderful performers. Heck, it may well be 2025 outside but right now, we can deal with anything!

Alison Langer and Martins Smaukstelis sang so true and made for an impressive couple whilst Matthew Kellett’s pantomime hardened wit as well as vocal skill provided the charm. Peter Lidbetter brought physical power and presence as the high priest and I was also taken with Meriel Cunningham’s charismatic presence as one of the multi-tasking three. But everyone was on top of their game and this was a truly delightful evening all round in what Time Out tells us is the 5^th most iconic building in London! 

Meriel Cunningham - photographer Bill Knight

The Magic Flute plays at Wilton’s until Saturday 8^th March and I would urge you all to go and see this marvel in the raw: part panto, part concert, and utterly entertaining!

Full details on the Wilton’s website!

Persona... The Maids, Jermyn Street Theatre

I contain within me both vengeance and the maid and give them a chance for life, a chance for salvation.

This performance pulls you in confronts you and leaves you staggering into the dark on Jermyn Street questioning not only reality but the meaning of cruelty. Jean Genet’s play maybe almost 80 years old but it has lost none of its power to shock in its display of the fantasies that kill even as they sustain the existence of two sisters locked into a life of servitude with no chance of escape.

Foucault wrote about how society can be measured by its approach to incarceration and this has a wider relevance to the prisons of wage poverty and duty which have trapped many of our forebears and many still. My great grandmother was in service, her mother too and the grandmother who brought her up after – presumably – one of the masters put her in the family way.

This is a great play for women to perform as you can tell from its heritage both on stage – Huppert, Blanchett and Elizabeth Debicki in Sydney – and film - Vivien Merchant as Madame, Glenda Jackson as Solange and Susannah York as Claire in 1974. Big shoes to fill but there’s a special energy from Anna Popplewell as Solange, Charlie Oscar as Claire and Carla Harrison-Hodge as Madame on another one of those nights in which the discrete performance space of the JST transformed into a stark Parisian apartment, overlooked at the highest level by a room full of onlookers – the audience cleverly reflected in the glass window.

Charlie Oscar and Anna Popplewell - all photography by Steve Gregson

This is a very wordy play even with the fluidity of Martin Crimp’s translation, yet the cast are remarkably sure-footed throughout as if they’d just spent a year in a verbal boot camp, toughening themselves up for the pace of delivery as well as the expression of the essential brutalities of Genet’s play, trust me, if you see Anna, Charlie or Carla outside after rehearsals or a performance, give them space and don’t try make any jokes!

Inspired by the real events involving the Papin Sisters in 1933, the play examines not just the class struggle but the nature of imprisonment and the combined imaginative power of the sisters. They start the narrative by play acting with Solange as Claire the Maid and Claire as their Mistress, there are various transgressions not least in their wearing of their mistresses make up and clothing but also in the sexual undercurrents of their play. They are so in character its hard for the audience to know what is real and what is not. A perfect start to a play to confounds expectations and challenges our sympathies.

Anna Popplewell is excellent as the older sister, forceful and yet considerate, worrying about her sister even as she tries to order her about. Charlie Oscar has the playful air of a younger sibling but is also protean convincing in play as the mistress and then switching from doubt to resolution as their grand plan takes shapes and big decisions and resolution are required. Both take the roles of their mistress equally well, switching from dominance to submission across the full spectrum of the power relationship.

Anna Popplewell and Carla Harrison-Hodge - all photography by Steve Gregson

When their mistress does appear, as eloquently portrayed by Carla Harrison-Hodge, we see what they’ve been contending with. Their employer is more than that and not for nothing does she refer to them as her “children”, she infantilises them and knows she is in complete control. Her lover has been arrested thanks to a letter sent by Claire who fears exposure but, before hearing of his release on bail, Madame is in a self-indulgent strop offering her expensive clothes as gifts to her temporary friends only to withdraw them without a thought. 

Within this oppression the girls’ only escape is fantasy and thoughts of taking control in the only ways possible. They are the most unreliable of narrators but the beauty of the play is in gradually allowing the audience to solve the clues pointing to reality. It is such a playful yet deeply unsettling experience as they look to gather the courage to kill their Madame and find the freedom they long for. 

IThankYou rating: **** It’s impossible to not be impressed with the performance level as the cast delivers the story in such visceral ways you’re sucked into the concerns of these desperate women whose lives are only ordinary in so many ways. 

Annie Kershaw directs with pace and power as her cast patrol the stage like frustrated animals in an overlooked zoo robbed of the enrichment of their natural conditions. She is a graduate of Jermyn Street Theatre’s Carne Deputy Director Scheme and The Young Vic’s Genesis Future Directors Award – it’s great to see such new dramatic talent coming through!

The Maids runs until 22^nd January and is a coproduction between Jermyn Street Theatre and Reading Rep and the show transfers to Reading from 28 January to 8 February. 

Full details and tickets are available on the respective websites: 

Jermyn Street Theatre 

Reading Rep Theatre

Charlie Oscar - all photography by Steve Gregson