Madame Bovary, est mort… The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary, Jermyn Street Theatre

 

Every tragedy can have a silver lining…

John Nicholson’s approach to Flaubert’s genuinely iconic heroine is akin to Tom Cruise’s to the Mission Impossible franchise, he, or rather his cast, are genuinely hanging off the side of an airplane in front of our very eyes, frequently breaching the fourth wall in ways that carry potential danger both in terms of narrative cohesion but also audience ad-libbing. At one point the action is stopped and Dennis Herdman, aka Ratman 1 and  various Emma Bovary lovers, asks for a show of hands of those who have read the book, about half of us raised ours and he quickly pointed at me to ask what my favourite part was, “I love the bit with the hamsters” came my reply, cue side-eyed response as the cast discussed whether we were just pretending to be well-read.

Nothing was going to throw panto-hardened Mr Herdman though and it is indeed a valid question for this play works both as a stand-alone comedy but also as an examination of so many nineteenth century heroines who loved and lived only to face the ultimate penalty. In another section the cast discussed the inevitability or otherwise of Emma’s fate, with the actress playing her, Jennifer Kirby (late of Call the Midwife but also the RSC, and it showed), saying that she wanted her character to have agency which is very much how Flaubert challenged his audience in 1856. I was reminded of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, in which he added substance to two minor and easily dismissed characters from Hamlet to show what choices any of us have. In its own way, Nicholson’s play is closer to his source material but then there is so much to work with, Emma Bovary is a character written with substance, as well-detailed as any of the descriptive passages in the “realist” novel.

This play is realist only to the extent that its players know they are in a play and, have to make decisions that honour their characters. Other than that, it is a rip-roaring pantomime that looks to blow the narrative off course through the introduction of two rat catchers, or Vermin Termination Officers, played by Dennis Herdman and Sam Alexander. Ratman 1 just happens to buy all of the arsenic in the chemists, a necessary ingredient for their new vermination business, leaving none left for the suicidal wife of the local GP/health officer. In the Ratcatchers’ room at the Golden Lion, Emma unfolds her tale to Ratman 1 and thus the play meets the book… and you wonder how the gap in tonality can be joined.

Jennifer Kirby - all photographs from Steve Gregson

The whole enterprise rests on a fabulous performance from Jennifer Kirby, who is with one brief exception, always playing Emma Bovary throughout and grounding events in a version of the character that exists in both comedic and tragic variations. Her delivery is strong and the classical background pays dividends along with her physicality as a well-cast Madame B. Her steadfast presence allows Herdman and Alexander to play the fool along with the marvellous Alistair Cope… who transitions from a man with a wooden leg to a pharmacist, inn keeper and a cow with ease.

Alexander plays Dr Bovary as an innocent largely unaware of the depth of his wife’s needs, he’s achieved his ambition of being a general practitioner in a small town but cannot fathom why she needs more, exhibiting what Flaubert described as “the natural cowardice that characterizes the stronger sex.” Emma’s needs, founded on her heavy addiction to romantic fiction and her search for the truest emotions described within, lead her not just to the many men played by Herdman, but also to fine fabrics and expensive clothes aided by the unscrupulous Monsieur Lheureux (Mr Cope), happy to extend her ruinous credit.

But it’s in her relationships with earnest local clerk Leon and wealthy gadfly Rodolphe Boulanger who’s scene riding in the woods with Emma as they consummate their attraction is performed through the means of prestidigitation, as flowers are pulled from under dresses, bunting from the Bovary bodice and red balls from hands and mouth… it’s the play’s party piece, and based on a show of hands at the start of act two, they did it all over again as Emma announces she has a lover… a lover.

Sam Alexander, Jennifer Kirby and Alistair Cope get medical...

IThankYou Theatre verdict: The theatre was full and, as this was not the press night, the audience were there with no other expectation than to be entertained and the play certainly succeeded on that front. It’s a tricky path to “find the comedy in tragedy” but I think, in the end, the play finds the tragedy in comedy too; it’s a celebration of a book we all should read and in the hands of these four marvellous actors, it is the perfect pantomime for those who seek integrity in their heroes and villains.

Marieke Audsley directs with authority and clearly has the team on stage playing for each other, as we’d say in soccer and props also to Amy Watts stage design (see what I did there?) for an innovative set that allows the actors to chalk up signs, poems, ducks and record players – a needle drop of Noel Harrison singing Michel Legrand’s Windmills of You Mind (written for the Thomas Crown Affair) being especially welcome.

I’d say: **** Fearlessly funny around and not about the story, with a sympathetic Emma in Jennifer Kirby, humour as well as longings all intact, as she looks to the future now, it’s only just begun.

The play runs until 17^th December and you can order via the Jermyn Street Theatre website here.

Flaubert is further examined in the JST’s forthcoming Promise Season with the debut play by historian Orlando Figes.  The Oyster Problem tells the story of the French novelist’s catastrophic search for a day job. 

New energies are flooding through Jermyn Street and 2023 promises to be very interesting indeed!

Sam Alexander and Dennis Herdman: Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride!

Songs from the wood… Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler, Home Farm, Elstree, Herts

This was one of the most complete vocal performances I’ve ever seen, not just in a woodland setting but in any auditorium. I don’t often cry at gigs but, in amidst the smiles, I was a goner. These are songs in the great tradition, stories to stir the soul and fearless performers holding out their hearts to an audience willing to return that trust with unconditional engagement. If you went down to the woods today, you will have been charmed.

Technically this was a gig but it was also some of the most dramatically theatrical music I’ve heard live. It’s hard to resist the superlatives when trying to describe what we heard and saw… all I could think of saying to Butler and Buckley was “brilliant” much in the manner of Paul Whitehouse’s character in The Fast Show but gradually a word cluster of expletive-laden praise resolved itself down to a more structured appreciation and the Word is Love.

They say that most people stop listening to new music past they age of 33 in which case I and the attending “Whispering” Bob Harris are freaks – in the nicest possible way Bob. Jessie Buckley and Bernard Butler’s album, For All Our Days that Tear the Heart, isn’t just another new album I’ve listened to, it’s one that has moved me in ways that make this old heart of mine sigh, cry and smile like a fool. I’m head over heels for this album, falling hard for its irresistible mix of past, present and future, songs that do indeed celebrate all our days with plaintive echoes of Joni, Sandy, Nick, John Martyn, Lou Rhodes, Terry Callier, Jeff and Tim, Bert and Anne, any number of Wainwrights, songs with a new alchemical potency.

The venue

Bernard Butler, the man with the best hair in rock, as Jessie announced, is also one of the best collaborators and simply one of the best musicians to emerge from the 1990s. He has forged a varied career on his own or in collaboration with the likes of Dr Catherine Anne Davies (aka The Anchoress), In Memory of My Feelings (2020) and Sam Lee, Old Wow (2020). I watch a lot of silent films with improvised music and seeing the act of collaboration taking place between the players and the screen, the audience and each other is to watch creative confidence and generosity in action.

Butler always allows his collaborators centre stage, steering them to their own conclusions, with flourishes of guitar, arrangement and production bring out the best of the writing, performance and personality.

The pandemic bought Jessie Buckley and Bernard together and it took only a few seconds of the sample of The Eagle and the Dove to make me pre-order the album. Jessie is one of the finest actors of her generation, Oscar and BAFTA nominated already for The Lost Daughter and recent winner of an Olivier Award for Sally Bowles in Cabaret. I first saw her at the Globe Theatre, Miranda in The Tempest, not long after the graduated from RADA. She has unique energy and her gifts are prodigious, hidden behind an honest modesty and fearsome work ethic.

Lost in music (photo from video someone posted on YouTube...)

Tonight, she said she wasn’t sure whether Bernard would want to carry on after their first exchange of ideas but, to quote Florence Shaw of Dry Cleaning (second favourite album of the year), it was an instant yes! The results we’ve heard on vinyl and CD but tonight, after a rather fine hog roast, we were led into the darkened woodlands of Home Farm to seats made of straw bales and a stage lit up against a backdrop of hundred-year-old trees with the occasional moth and bat catching the light to add to the atmosphere.

Then on stage they trouped, as if from nowhere, Butler on guitar and effects, Misha Mullov-Abbado on upright bass as warm, string and fluid as Danny Thomson, Sally Herbett illuminating all with a one-woman string section and the most emotionally intuitive percussion from Chris Vatalaro. There were also two backing singers who helped start things off with a three-part harmony on the acapella start to The Eagle & the Dove. From those first notes onwards, it was clear that Jessie Buckley has perfect emotional pitch in addition to everything else. She knows exactly how to get the most out of her remarkable tonality and strength and boy can she sell a song…

Her control is remarkable as is her power, on For All Our Days That Tear the Heart she belts out so loud and clear she held the microphone well away, all was clear and true to jaw-dropping effect. I didn’t hear a single off note or even felt her straining at any point; rock and roll “head” vocals with jazz, folk and musical/theatrical styling and restraint. Every song is a story and Buckley acts as well as performs leaving tears and, in this close-nit audience, a feeling that we’re almost intruding.

Raw Power, not in the Iggy sense but, more so!

I Cried Your Tears was a prime example, with febrile, spine-tingling accompaniment from Butler who barely touched the strings… before Jessie brought in the most delicious of melodies.

But what does it matter: a painter, a thief?

The sin that was taken wasn't yours to keep

She talked the first line, whispered the second and as the verse progressed was in full voice.

But how can I return to the night that I stole

Into the arms of your lover who gave you your soul?

And I cry your tears 

This was remarkable mix of so much technique all driven by the need to express these emotions. What began as a private collaboration has now reached out and touched the hearts of so many and I mean every word. Jessie said that she wanted the album to feel like an old chest of photographs you find in a dusty room and surprise yourself by going through these new discoveries, experiencing emotions new and old. As a mission statement that’s pretty bold, as a project she and Bernard have been miraculously successful.

The album is uncanny. Everything works, she’s killing us softly.

For a self-professed “actress who sings” Jessie knows how to work a crowd and we were invited to singalong with Footnotes on the Map with Bernard providing the lead, and by the end of this song all discipline was lost and people rushed to dance at the front as Jessie stepped off stage amongst us.

For the encore a breath-taking cover of Bob Dylan’s Just Like a Woman was followed by the live debut of the highly appropriate Stars, followed by an emotional Catch the Dust, as the two hugged each other at what looks like the end of the tour.

I sincerely hope that this is not the end and that Jessie finds time to play more with Bernard but they’ve already caught lightning in a bottle once and for that we should be thankful. Tonight, we were privileged to see how it was done.

An enriching evening I won’t forget. *****

Thank you both!

Well met by moonlight… A Midsummer Night’s Dream, St John’s College Gardens, Cambridge Shakespeare Festival

The cast and director, with apologies for nicking this from Rob Goll's Twitter!

"I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was."

This play is all about transformation and driving into the unknown, finding a parking space and walking through St John’s ornate gates into their secluded gardens, the process began before we even sat down. There were families with picnics, strawberries and champagne, a proper varsity audience sat on the lawn, groundlings all, with everything all apart with the scenery. As dusk progressed the gardens changed shape, stage lighting forcing shadows ever deeper against the hedges and trees becoming forests… as Bottom became an ass.

This was my first time live with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, sure I’ve seen the 1909 silent version with Delores Costello, Drew Barrymore’s grandmother, and the Trevor Nunn RSC televised version with Helen and Diana… but nothing prepared me for this complex comedy to be so warm and welcoming. Directed by Matthew Parker this is truly delicious theatre with each and every player literally running themselves into the ground in service of the story; all encouraged to become expanded versions of themselves as combinations of Athenian legends, sprites, fairies and donkeys. Tonight, they made their own myths and were absolute legends.

Parker is always such a spatially aware director and he used the setting perfectly as the players mostly ran from and onto the stage, round the gardens out of sight and round the corner to re-emerge in different character. Most wore gym shoes or pumps as both Matthew and esteemed Artistic Director Dr David Crilly would say (Manchester and Liverpool working so well together), which served this pacey parkour perfectly, creating an impression of vast space around the performance area, turning the gardens to forest, helping the present tumble into the past, as the audience melted into myth drawn in by both the rhythms of words and voices.

The stage is set, the house was full and the strawberries and champagne in flow.

I can see why this play is so pleasingly regarded as its complexities are perfectly balanced and there are three main strands that we can see increasingly tangle only to surely straighten as the narrative concludes. For all its confusion and chaos, it is a very well-balanced narrative that leaves customers and characters satisfied but only after we all put in the hard yards.

Events start off in ancient Athens a place few Englishmen had visited in the 1590s but which lived in the imaginations of the play-going literati. Theseus, the Duke of Athens (Edmund Fargher) is preparing for his marriage, complete with four-day festival, to Hippolyta (Alex Andlau) when the nobleman Egeus (Rob Goll, who’s Bottom we’ll see a lot of) who is trying to arrange a marriage for his daughter, Hermia (Tessa Brockis). The contenders are Demetrius (George Barnden), father’s preference and young Lysander whom daughter loves.

Lysander is usually played by Aneurin Pritchard who injured himself a short while before tonight’s performance to be replaced by associate director David Rowan who, text in hand, performed a miracle of his own that somehow felt part of the Dream… there’s magic afoot with this event.

Under threat of death if she refuses to marry Demetrius, Hermia and Lysander plan their escape but not before telling Helena (Nadia Dawber) of their plan and she, being in love with Demetrius, tells him, hoping to shift his opinion. But no, Demetrius follows on after the couple and poor Helena follows him.

In the woods there is an argument between the fairy king, Oberon (Mr Fargher, again) and his queen Titania (Ms Andlau, also again) who are arguing over custardy of her Indian changeling causing her husband to plan a revenge. He calls on his "shrewd and knavish sprite", Puck (Amy Blanchard) to help him concoct a magical juice derived from a flower called "love-in-idleness", which applied to the eyelids of a sleeping person, makes them, upon waking, fall in love with the first living thing they see. Oh, what could possibly go wrong with that plan…

Meanwhile a third strand arrives in the form of an Athenian acting troop, amateurs who are in the forest to plan and rehearse a play for the wedding. They are played again by the aforementioned crew all of whom relish the opportunity to create additional characters and who are quickly submerged as the awkward Flute (David Rowan, text still in hand, a real trooper), the shy Starveling (Mr Barnden), the energetic Snout (Ms Brockis), the oddly gaited Snug (Nadia Dawber, straight from the Ministry of Silly Walks) and the oafish Bottom (Mr Goll) who is by nature exactly what his name suggests. They are marshalled by the endlessly impatient Quince (Meg MacMillan) who just wants to put on a good show for Theseus of the play what he wrote: The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe.

Now then, to cut a long story short, the potion gets applied to the right person and then the wrong person, the right person wakes up and falls in love with the wrong Donkey (yes) whilst the wrong person falls for another wrong person who is already in love with another wrong person anyway. As love-sick flies are we to the Gods or at least the Fairies…

It’s a riot and as my daughter pointed out whole families were laughing including the children which is always a mark of Shakespeare done well. It would be unfair to pick out individual cast members - every one of them excels! - but you have to admire Amy Blanchard’s Puck, whose movement is exceptional, jumping on Oberon’s back and in perpetual motion, laughing at the confusion caused. Needless to say, Mr Goll’s Bottom is indeed impressive, surely one of the funniest parts in Shakespeare (sorry, I'll stop...), especially when played the Yorkshire way, whilst Nadia Dawber get’s laughs for her physicality as well as her seemingly hopeless devotion to the indifferent Demetrius.

The multi-tasking is seeminlgy effortless, they all dance and sing, whilst the team work is so strong as we've come to expect from Mr Parker; all play hard but supportively and with joy! Thank you all for entertaining us!

Take a bow. Apologies for my iPhone.

IThankYou verdict: **** This play hits all the right notes and in the designated order, fast and furious fantasy and undoubtedly one of Bill’s best. But this is a truly immersive experience, from a time before such notions were invented, Parker’s Band cover all of the ground, emotionally, contextually and physically… there’s not a nuance unturned and you will respond cerebrally and viscerally. It’s mood-altering and not just a legal high but one that should be made compulsory!

The play continues up until 27^th August and I would urge you all to go sit with picnic, turn off your phones, relax and float downstream with this wonderful Dream.

You can book direct from the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival site and you won’t regret it.

The state we’re in… Cancelling Socrates (2022), Jermyn Street Theatre

Even if one is unjustly treated, one should not return injustice…

There are many ways of addressing the condition of our political discourse but it’s hard to think of one as eloquently elegant as Howard Brenton’s new play. Using contemporary writing and accounts, Plato's dialogues for a start, he uses Socrates own reasoning to examine the concepts of justice and duty. No spoilers but, even at the age of 71 the old philosopher was still claiming that he knew nothing and was working every day to understand the nature of self and service. As a historian this is way out of my period and in terms of political thought I started with Hobbes and ended with Marx, but there’s always something to be learned from the birthplace of democracy and critical thinking.

In 399 BC Athens was recovering from a plague and the political aftermath of war with Sparta and the brief rule of the Thirty Tyrants. At such times the last thing anyone needs is a guy asking too many fundamental questions and so Socrates was sent to trial for a variety of crimes including corrupting the youth of Athens, and the crimes of Asebeia, the "desecration and mockery of divine objects", for "irreverence towards the state gods". The movement against him was organised by the young poet, Meletus, about whom history records little. Socrates, according to Plato, seemingly ran rings around him in the court but not well enough to convince the majority of the 501 jurors gathered to bear witness. They decided against the philosopher and whilst the result may not have been 52% to 48%, or 211 to 148… the same forces of confusion, habitual anger and confusion were at play.

Sophie Ward, Robert Mountford, Jonathan Hyde & Hannah Morrish - all photography by Steve Gregson 

Brenton’s Socrates is played with good-humoured patience and a questing innocence by Jonathan Hyde who delivers the philosophical complexities with relish, the philosopher’s method of assuming nothing and examining everything. There’s not a word out of place in this script and as director Tom Littler commented after the show, Mr Brenton has written a few of these. Tom and the performers make the absolute most of this dialogue; the arguments are complex but complete and it’s a very satisfying, almost intimate debate focused between the players and the audience at the JST.

Given that this was press night, the equivalent of the Glasgow Empire for a home-counties stand-up comedian, there were laughs aplenty and an uproarious ovation at the end. Like Rafael Nadal wins trophies and Mohammed Salah scores goals, Howard Brenton crafts his work with a light heart and focused complexity with hidden meanings smuggled through his dialogue like a golden thread amassing volume as the narrative progresses.

Robert Mountford plays Euthyphro, a relative of Socrates who meets him outside the court at the play’s start. Euthyphro is not daft but he finds Socrates frustrating not least for his refusal to wear shoes or bathe regularly but mostly because he cannot fathom his relentless questioning. Like most of us, Euthyphro accepts the habitual realities of Greek society and religion and doesn’t want to have to keep thinking about the nature of this reality.

Robert Mountford and Hannah Morrish Photography by Steve Gregson

Euthyphro is like a long-suffering Doctor Who assistant used to help explain the nature of Greek beliefs as well as the challenge Socrates presented to them. He despairs of Socrates’ approach to his trial; the old thinker just doesn’t seem to take the experience seriously at all unlike the more decided minds railed against him.

They say Pericles caught democracy from you in bed.

Sharing this frustration are Socrates’ long-standing mistress Aspasia (Sophie Ward) and his current wife Xanthippe (Hannah Morrish) who both understand their man and the importance of their co-existence – among his other fancies – in keeping the philosopher out of too much trouble. Aspasia is the more experienced and pragmatic of the two who operates very effectively within male-dominated Greek political society with an appeal to men’s hearts and minds… all points in between. 

Xanthippe, the mother of his children, is the more theocratic, aligned with the part of her husband that still accepts some form of godly universe albeit one that he doesn’t understand. She has the certainty of belief though just as Aspasia does on secular matters and so both are perfect partners for the man who has everything in terms of questions.

Jonathan Hyde and Sophie Ward

Together they try to direct their man towards a compromise but he’s not taking the jury’s verdict lightly and only makes things worse through his honesty. He ends up on death row and his exchanges with the jailer, played by Robert Mountford multi-tasking superbly as the down to earth everyman who in the modern day may possibly come from Essex and have voted to take back control. If the first half of the play was Socrates against authority, the second is very much the intellectual versus the masses as represented by his affable but irritable goaler who has clearly more than had enough of comfortably well-off philosophical experts.

IThankYou Theatre rating: ***** A pretty much perfect theatrical experience that really allows audience and cast to connect with ancient and modern philosophy at a time when we all need reminding just why society, democracy and culture matters.

Brenton picks his targets with unerring accuracy and hits every one with emphatic skill, entertaining us with every home truth nailed and each complexity left hanging in the air for the penny to gently drop in front of us. It’s another to add to Brenton’s eclectic and lengthy catalogue from Christie in Love (1969), The Romans in Britain (1980), Pravda (with David Hare in 1985) and, more recently, the outstanding Anne Boleyn (2010) with marvellous Miranda Raison as Wife No.2 at Shakespeare's Globe.

The play is part of the JST’s Outsiders Season and I look forward to the next instalment. In the meantime, Cancelling Socrates runs until the 2^nd July and will be a very hot ticket so I’d advise you to book as soon as you can!

I’ll leave the last word to Howard: Sartre said that there are three kinds of writers: writers who write for God, writers who write for themselves, and writers who write for other people… I write for other people. The play doesn't reside in heaven, or in a library. As a dramatist, that's your instinct: without other people, the play doesn't exist.