Theatre Paul Bailey
THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY
The Oldie is probably the only magazine to have had two theatre critics who were once professional actors. My predecessor, Beryl Bainbridge, was a member of the company at the legendary Playhouse Theatre in Liverpool in her late teens and early twenties. She did radio work as well, most notably for the BBC’S Children’s Hour. She was also one of the limitlessly priapic Ken Barlow’s early girlfriends in Coronation Street, joining him in a protest march in support of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
A few years later, my own theatrical career took off when I was cast as a cockney thug in a play by Ann Jellicoe at the Royal Court. I played very small parts at the Memorial Theatre in Stratfordupon-avon, and in the cycle of Shakespeare’s Roman plays for BBC television. My very last performance was in Z Cars, which was broadcast live, as a small-time crook in a kipper tie.
I suppose such experience as we both had of the joys and sorrows of acting is not a qualification for writing theatrical criticism, but I like to think that I can distinguish between those performers who take the easy route and those more subtle ones who aim at something deeper.
Of course there have been major changes to theatregoing, thanks to pioneers such as Tyrone Guthrie and Joan Littlewood and the marvellous foreign companies who visited London when the adventurous impresario Peter Daubeny was in his prime. The players in the Moscow Art Theatre showed us in the 1950s that you don’t have to be wistful and weepy in Chekhov’s masterpieces; and Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble was refreshingly free from sentimental indulgence.
One of the frustrations of writing a monthly column is that some of the most interesting and innovative work is being staged by theatres such as the Donmar Warehouse, the Arcola, the Royal Court and other similar, relatively small venues. The plays seldom run longer than a month or so at most, which means that by the time I get to write about them they are on the verge of closing
The best new play I saw last year was Annie Baker’s John, a funny and disturbing piece that was wonderfully directed by James Macdonald at the National’s Dorfman Theatre. I couldn’t resist reviewing it, hoping against hope that it would transfer to one of the more
accommodating West End houses, but of course it didn’t; and neither did Macdonald’s production of the Restoration classic The Way of the World at the Donmar. Here was Congreve presented without a trace of the tedious, clichéd campery that superannuated thesps inflict on ‘period’ comedy. (The recent dismal revivals of Oscar Wilde at the Vaudeville Theatre were of an unsurpassed vulgarity.)
I was convinced that David Harrower’s skilful adaptation of Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, with its glittering central performance by Lia Williams, would move from the Donmar (again) to another theatre – but, alas, it hasn’t.
Actors used to complain about appearing in shows that ran longer than a few months. They don’t get to moan like that anymore – unless they’re in musicals or spectacles such as War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Watching a film of a live performance is a subtly different experience from witnessing it unfolding in a theatre – where there aren’t any close-ups, for instance. Some element of excitement, of sheer anticipation of the unexpected, goes missing.
And it’s that sense of excitement that still makes me a keen theatregoer, even when I suspect that something less than enthralling is coming my way. Once a year I tell myself that I never want to see another Shakespeare production again – unless it’s one of the plays that’s rarely performed. It’s the standard of versespeaking that assaults my ear and insults my intelligence. I’m referring to those actors who pause between words to
signify that Hamlet or Macbeth is thinking. Thanks a bunch, boys – but the dramatist has already done the work for you, by containing the thought in unforgettable words. It should need no ghost come from the grave to tell you that.
There are some tantalising revivals ahead, such as Molière’s Tartuffe, which hasn’t been staged for decades. And I’m looking forward to lots of new plays as well. And on the subject of long runs: will the curtain ever come down on the continuing farce known as Brexit?