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

Three sisters… Anomaly, Old Red Lion Theatre

The tag for this play is “Post-Weinstein. Post-Spacey. Pre-Preston.” Each case is its own thing and we struggle to absorb the facts depending on our existing opinion of the alleged abuser. Pity us “fans” that hardship but what about the families of these (mostly) men?

Liv Warden’s play is concerned with the three daughters of a powerful abuser, film mogul Philip Preston and in her programme notes she confirms the inspiration from the Weinstein case, especially the harrowing tape of his meeting a starlet in his hotel, but also the subsequent reaction as the World soon forgot its guilt and doubled down on electing a misogynistic President and even this week, we saw right-wing commentators justifying verbal abuse of female MPs.

This is never over and in the case of the play not even being born into wealth and privilege is enough to protect Preston’s three daughters from what Warden terms “the destruction, inherited pain, reputation and loyalty” they have to live with. What can you do if your father is a serial abuser, sexually violent and used to using his power to get away with it for almost all of your life?

Natasha Cowley, photo courtesy of Headshot Toby.

We don’t get to meet Mr Preston and the only other male voices are recordings from meetings or phone calls and that’s cleverly done as it leaves the focus entirely on the three sisters and the three actors who give them quite startling life, two of whom, rather incredibly, are making their stage debut.

Piper is the oldest and, appropriately enough is played by Natasha Cowley who has been in productions at the Globe and National Theatre whilst younger sisters Penny, Katherine Samuelson, and Polly, Alice Handoll are recent theatrical graduates. The three combine to mesmeric effect as they un-wind following the devastating revelations of their father’s assault on their mother. The assault makes the news and it seems like finally Philip’s crimes will catch up with him.

Piper and Penny have the most to lose with the former in charge of Preston International and the latter a actress propelled by Dad’s leverage into stardom. Piper is the control freak, the most intellectually aggressive and a chip off the old block who marries her childhood sweetheart and then ignores him in preference for the addictions of the business. Penny is in a whirlwind of objectification and at one point the board members try to use a sex tape of her to blackmail Piper… the men are disgusting, relishing the tape and the power it gives them.

Katherine Samuelson, photo courtesy of Headshot Toby.

But the Prestons have a secret weapon… Polly, a recovering addict who has escape from rehab to come and see if her mother is OK. The elder siblings’ reflex is to defend their father, family first and Prestons Together (mostly) and Penny tells one interviewer that his actions were “reactive” … the language of obfuscation in a World denied clear meaning. But Polly has no time for this and tweets “F*ck Mel Gibson, f*ck Johnny Depp and f*ck Philip Preston!”

Naturally the press love this and so do “we” who feed them… but Polly is only concerned with breaking free of a life twisted by the wrong kind of fatherly attention. When she was five, she caught her father with their French au pair, Manon and he slashed her across the face, over the eyes, with his belt causing her to lose a week at school. Her father’s fame coloured the school’s view of the injuries which were described as an “anomaly” not requiring further attention.

As the full extend of Philip’s abuse is gradually revealed a secret the three have hidden has to be confronted – he is the anomaly and his behaviour is consistent.

Alice Handoll, photo courtesy of Headshot Toby.

The play is superbly wrought by director Adam Small who uses the Red Lion’s intimacy to good affect by having all three women on stage at the same time, held in their moments, posing for the cameras, crying, or silently roaring with grief as they take turns in confronting the full horror of their lives.

The actors played things very tight, the two eldest sisters movements controlled and evocative of their roles but Alice Handoll roams across the stage, pushing the fourth wall with confidence and holding the gaze of the shocked audience. Katherine Samuelson shed real tears as her character’s sadness finally overwhelms and Natasha Cowley’s depiction of iron woman Pippa’s collapse was just as devastating… a very powerful three-hander with each deftly passing the narrative "baton" during a measured build-up of tension as the full truth is revealed.

Anomaly continues at the Old Red Lion until 2^nd February and I strongly urge you to see it. Details on the website.

IThankYouTheatre Rating: **** A play for today.

Fake views? Talk Radio, Old Red Lion Theatre

In a world in which contradiction and aggressive inconsistency appears to be all you need to be a success, Eric Bogosian’s 1980s play gets its UK premier to help explain how this came to be.

In a recent interview, the writer and performer nailed the trick in one line: “…people get confused about what’s real and what isn’t when you have this pundit who’s pushing all kinds of opinions and jerking us around.” But… and it is indeed a huge "but", we get the thought-leaders we deserve or, more accurately the thought reflectors. When given the chance to speak our minds and to use “marvellous technology” to freely express in a constructive way, we waste it; pre-occupied with our fears and actively seeking negative reinforcement and comfort-hate.

In the eighties, it was talk radio and now, our thoughts magnified a thousand times by social media, we fall into the same trap of allowing those we gift into positions of power, the liberty of telling us what we think. As it is with President Donald Trump so it was with Barry Champlain, the shock-jock at the centre of the play and Oliver Stone’s dark-edged film version. But Barry is smarter and more self-aware than Trump, he knows his limitations and, in the final analysis, he also has an honesty unavoidably lurking behind his quick wit… but has he the moral courage to take responsibility for the impact he’s having?

Matthew Jure and Andy Secombe

Director Sean Turner promised that “…the production will be anarchic and raucous – once we put our foot on the pedal it will not stop…” and it doesn’t from the first rapier thrust of Matthew Jure’s Barry to the last, there’s no let-up.

Sean and designer Max Dorey have made the most of the Old Red Lion’s space and the audience are placed in the heart of a radio station set that has Barry behind Perspex glass with his assistants and station manager outside. It reinforces Barry’s isolation as well as his connection with the twilight world of callers through his show Night Talk. Barry’s long-standing producer Stu (George Turvey) and his long-suffering love interest Linda (Molly Myfanwy McNerney) filter his calls and feed him through a variety of callers from twee cat-lovers to crypto-fascists, harmless cranks to sinister ill-wishers.

To them all Barry issues the same challenge: what is it exactly you want to say? How are you going to use the time to make a genuine point?

George Turvey

Barry is rude, confrontational and short-tempered. His local show is a success and station boss Dan (Andy Secombe) has grabbed him the opportunity of nationwide exposure… the big stations are listening in and tonight’s show must go well. Yet Barry isn’t happy with this… he’s not been consulted and what’s more, whatever is troubling him about the direction of his show is about to be magnified on across every state.

Barry is conflicted and very uncomfortable with the role he has created for himself. During one of the monologues from his colleagues direct to the audience, Dan reveals that Barry’s background as a Vietnam vet with hippy credentials and a Chicago University PhD is a fabrication and we’re surprised he allowed this especially given Stu’s recollections of his uncompromising pranks at their first radio station: locking themselves in playing Let it Bleed 23 times over for effect (at least it wasn’t Goats Head Soup…).

These face-to-face break aways are very effective in themselves and I found myself nodding when Stu asked if we remembered Jethro Tull…

Molly Myfanwy McNerney

Linda’s is the most revelatory though as she talks about her difficulty in breaking through Barry’s exo-skeleton of hard talk… even when asleep he is troubled: he may not have been in ‘Nam but he’s living in difficulty.

The callers are relentless and Barry knows them all too well, dismissing quickly those who are just going to say the same old thing. One caller gives him pause, a young man called Kent (Ceallach Spellman) who sounds stoned and distressed as he talks about his girlfriend being unconscious: has she OD’d? The Police call in concerned and Dan makes him hear Kent out even though Barry is convinced he’s a fraud.

There’s also another caller far more menacing in tone who challenges Barry more directly… he even sends him a parcel claiming it contains a bomb. But Barry knows his callers, he knows they’re sadder than him, even this one?

As the Jack Daniels bottle gets drained and Barry cuts a line, he gets more strung out rejecting both Linda and Stu’s help. His night is reaching crisis point when he invites Kent into his recording booth and you wonder how much longer he can deal with his own self-deceptions in the face of an audience “mesmerised” by their own fear: they can’t move on, they can only call in and they just want to him to confirm its alright to go down without a fight.

There are no easy answers and no clear conclusion as in the film...

Ceallach Spellman

Matthew Jure gives a performance that leaves everything out on the track, with Barry’s confliction given exhausted, physical expression over the course of the two-hour running time. He is almost constantly talking, baiting his audience and himself as they fail to meet expectations he clearly can’t reach himself… Perhaps we all need to move on together?

Compelling, challenging and highly entertaining, Talk Radio is very “hot” media indeed and I guarantee you will “lean forward” as we media types always say. If you’re not affected by this play, you’ve not really been paying attention and, with Matthew’s Barry in the room, that’s just not going to happen.

Talk Radio plays at the Old Red Lion Theatre, 418 St John Street, London until Saturday 23^rd August and if you want to understand the enduring truths about misdirection, ego and corrupting power *and* be entertained, you shouldn't miss it!

Ithankyou Theatre rating: ****

All photographs courtesy of Cameron Harle.

Down and out in London... Mrs Orwell, Old Red Lion Theatre

Behind every great man, as they say, is a great woman but in this case, left behind by a great man, was a very intriguing woman.

In June 1949 Nineteen Eighty-Four was published to critical and popular acclaim and yet its author was seriously ill and was to die of tuberculosis in January 1950. Three months before he had married Sonia Brownell, a 30 year old assistant magazine editor, 16 years his junior and very much in love with another man, the unfortunately very married, French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

The story of George Orwell’s second marriage is a strange one… a marriage of convenience for both the author and his wife or something deeper?

Tony Cox’s Mrs Orwell sets out to find out just what it was that drew the two together and is buoyed by a superb performance from Peter Hamilton Dyer as Mr Eric Arthur Blair the man who really was Orwell. Dyer gives an uncomfortably-believable bed-ridden turn as the tuberculotic man grateful for every breath and wincing with every exhalation. In the close confines of a packed-out Old Red Lion Theatre – the run is deservedly sold out – he held us rapt throughout.

Peter Hamilton Dyer and Cressida Bonas

Cox’s dialogue intersperses some Orwellian quotes – including his thoughts on the correct way to make tea – and communicates the mind-set of a man being dragged down before his time, a man still with three good books to give and yet being worn away by unrelenting illness. This man who survived schooling at Eton to live rough in Paris, London and Wigan and to fight against Fascists in the Spanish Civil War, captain in the Home Guard and write some of the most iconic literature of the last century.

There’s bitter brilliance at play and George is unbending in his final days.

Orwell had known Miss Brownell (the well-cast and very impressive Cressida Bonas) as she worked as the assistant to Cyril Connolly, a friend of his from Eton College, at the literary magazine Horizon. A skilled editor and well-educated daughter of a colonial official, some have suggested that she may have been the inspiration for Julia, the heroine of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the "girl from the fiction department" who brings love and warmth to the middle-aged hero, Winston Smith.

The play doesn’t follow this line and I was impressed by the fact that the narrative didn’t attempt to be too specific about the feelings and motivations: all we can know is what happened and the why is open to interpretation.

Author and artist

Sonia is pretty enough that men just visit the Horizon offices for the hope of a glance whilst she is certainly out of ailing Orwell’s league under normal circumstances. George is in no condition to offer her anything other than companionship and she finds more physical comfort in the arms of Lucian Freud, here constructed with playful menace by Edmund Digby Jones. His Freud offers an interesting counter-point to Orwell – “I’m a German Jew, I’ve no need of self-abasement” he dryly responds after another Orwell rant about the privilege he denied himself. There are also a few in-jokes and plenty of references to Lucian’s love of a good fight.

As Freud draws a portrait aimed at conveying both men’s states of mind, Orwell’s publisher Fred Warburg (Robert Stocks) buzzes around with potential deals, a cartoon film with MGM for Animal Farm and an American edition of 1984 with the “newspeak” edited out… “fake news” it’s always been a preoccupation over there.

At first Sonia is repulsed by Orwell’s offer – recognising that what he wants is a combination of a mistress, housekeeper, nurse, literary executor and mother for his young son Richard,  and yet… she eventually agrees and the two are married in Orwell’s hospital room at University College Hospital. His spirits start to lift and there is talk of completing the 48 hours trek to his beloved Jura and then a move to a sanitorium in Switzerland. But these futures are even less compatible with Sonia’s desires than the prospect of physical romance.

Peter Hamilton Dyer, Rosie Ede and Robert Stocks

Marry in haste and repent at leisure. But Sonia inherited a responsibility as well as wealth and she spent most of the latter in protecting the former in the end.

Mrs Orwell is thought-provoking and immersive theatre reminding you of George Orwell’s brilliance and the dramatic era he wrote through. It will also leave you thinking about Sonia Brownell and the help she gave and continued to give post-mortem even at cost to herself.

Presented by the Proud Haddock company, Mrs Orwell plays at the Old Red Lion until 26^th August and you may just be able to grab a return or too if you keep an eye on the box office. 

All pictures courtesy of Samuel Taylor.

Ithankyou Rating ****

"...the girl from the fiction department... was looking at him... She was very young, he thought, she still expected something from life... She would not accept it as a law of nature that the individual is always defeated... All you needed was luck and cunning and boldness. She did not understand that there was no such thing as happiness, that the only victory lay in the far future, long after you were dead." George Orwell, 1984