Magic and misery behind the jolly Poppins patriarch
The Life I Lead (Park Theatre, London) Verdict: More fun that flying a kite
NOeL COWarD once said that David Tomlinson looked ‘like a very big baby’. Which is fair. Plus it makes Miles Jupp incredibly well cast. energetic expressions battling firm, rosy cheeks.
This one-man play focuses on the life of Tomlinson — Mary Poppins patriarch and Bedknobs magician. He looks all stiff collars and Test Match Special, but that hides a life riddled with challenge.
Jupp nails that gorgeous, clipped voice: stern patriarch melting into warm silliness.
James Kettle, a TV and radio comedy writer, has created an engaging evening of entrancing anecdote.
It’s got beautiful jokes (‘I brought you up better than to ruin a perfectly good meal with conversation’), celebrates and examines a complex man, and rightly mourns the slow extinction of the drawing room. The crowd on my night ran the full gamut from Keeley Hawes to Les Dennis, and we roared like fools. ‘are you a communist? No, I’ll eat anything.’
a lady next to me nodded off, but that was a minority opinion.
Jupp is a character actor with a wide and skilled spectrum; dry Walt Disney to flirty actress to disappointed Victorian father. He pulls off one, threecharacter court scene better than three actors could do it.
But where this play really shines is when it briefly dials down to something more tender. Tomlinson’s first wife killed herself — and his stepsons — by jumping from the window of a hotel.
and in adulthood he discovered that his father had been leading a double life.
Cue gasps from Les. It all makes you realise that Jupp is far too good for panel shows, and Kettle is more than just a purveyor of punchlines.
Between the ages of six and 13, I saw Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks more than I did my cousins. I mainlined the stuff.
So this evening (in London as part of a nationwide tour) was, to borrow a line from the play, like ‘shaking hands with childhood memory’. Brilliant.