Laughable St George fails to slay
WHAT a rotten run the Olivier Theatre is having. Apart from the jolly Follies, London’s premier state-funded stage has, this summer, had a mad Salome followed by a naff Common.
Some people said Common was the worst thing they had seen at the Royal National Theatre. They might change their minds if they see St George And The Dragon. It’s below the standards of a bad university drama club attempt.
Rory Mullarkey has written a ‘state of the nation’ effort in which St George visits England in different centuries. He’s not the only time-traveller. The characters (first ooh-arr rustics, then 21st-century Londoners) are the same lot. My countrymen, we are in ye kingdom of Allegory!
St George is played as a Spamalot-style goon by John Heffernan. He has a naive charm if you like surreal wetness. His enemy is the dragon, played with Alan Rickman-esque touches by Julian Bleach. So far, so Footlights revue.
George has to rescue the same damsel (Amaka Okafor) from the dragon. In medieval days this involves sword fighting and magic carpets. In later times the wickedness of the dragon is manifested in the greed of an Industrial Revolution capitalist.
In modern Britain, claims playwright Mullarkey, the dragon exists in all of us.
England seems to have become a country beyond hope of salvation. You could say the same about the National under artistic boss Rufus Norris.
Is Mullarkey trying to say something about Brexit and the ravages of progress? Clarity is not one of the evening’s merits.
Characterisation is skimpy. The plot plods. In the crowd scenes, actors advance on George when they speak, like something from an old Spike Milligan Q8 sketch.
The only interest to be had, for National old-timers, was waiting for dopey Gawn Grainger (who plays the damsel’s father) to muff his lines. When the moment came, I almost cheered.