In a fat suit at 84, Sir Ian’s a wizard Falstaff
Player Kings
Noel Coward
Theatre, London
Until June 22, 3hrs 40mins ☆☆☆★★
Underdog: The Other Other Bronte
Dorfman Theatre, London Until May 25, 2hrs 15mins ☆☆☆☆★
Rowdy Elizabethan audiences used to fall silent when Falstaff came on stage, hanging on his every word. Today’s Carolean audiences are generally better behaved (for Shakespeare at least) but are every bit as much in thrall to Sir John, especially if he’s played by Sir Ian McKellen.
There is no doubting that Player Kings, Robert Icke’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 (and a sliver of Henry V) is McKellen’s show. He will be 85 next month and, if he doesn’t exactly caper across the stage as the portly, roguish knight, he moves with the vigour of a man 30 years his junior, despite the encumbrance of a hefty fat suit.
In this moderndress production, he and his crew of dodgy geezers resemble refugees from a Guy Ritchie film. In our first glimpse of them they are blind drunk at a house of ill repute, with the future king, Prince Hal, halfnaked and a man being led around on a lead like a dog. Falstaff is a villain, but whether carousing in a rough Eastcheap boozer or boasting of his entirely imaginary exploits in a criminal undertaking or on the field of battle, he has a palpable lust for life, and McKellen plays him with relish.
A fine cast also includes Toheeb Jimoh as Hal, who enjoys slumming it with Falstaff and feels genuine affection for him but knows he will drop him like a stone on taking the throne, Richard Coyle as a sombre Henry IV, struggling to quell dangerous rebellions, and Clare Perkins as a fiery Mistress Quickly.
Shortly after Falstaff is finally rejected by the new king, McKellen quietly withdraws to the back of the stage and disappears. It’s a sad moment that feels quite meta-theatrical.
There are plenty of meta moments in Underdog: The
Other Other Bronte. It is 1837 and at the parsonage in the
Yorkshire village of Haworth, aspiring writer Charlotte
Bronte (Gemma Whelan), older sister of Emily (Adele James) and Anne (Rhiannon Clements), is reading her reply from the poet laureate Robert Southey, to whom she has sent her poems, asking his opinion of them.
Southey is not encouraging. ‘Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be,’ he writes. ‘He’s a bellend!’ declares Emily.
Sarah Gordon’s hilarious but ultimately moving comedy about the Brontes is a racy retelling of the sisters’ struggle to become recognised authors. Charlotte is determined to be as famous and lauded as the likes of Southey, but her ambition results in her overshadowing Anne, the full extent of whose talent was not acknowledged until long after her premature death.
The banter between the rival siblings is very sharp, there are some brilliant bits of business and much fun is poked at the prissy male critics horrified that such radical, fierce novels as Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall were written by women.
But Gordon also invites us to think seriously about how our view of these literary giants has been shaped, and about their battle to succeed in a profession dominated by men.
Incidentally, Charlotte really did write to Southey – an audacious move for the 20-year-old daughter of a country clergyman.
At the start of Underdog, Whelan wanders through the audience asking people their favourite Bronte novel.
Everyone has an answer. How many people could even name a Southey poem?