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Posts Tagged ‘Marion Bailey’

Handbagged

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 20, 2022| Leave a Comment »

There have only been three plays featuring the late Queen as a character, and two of them have concerned her relationship with Prime Ministers. Peter Morgan’s The Audience featured all but three of her PM’s (though there have been many since!) but this play featured just one in depth. The Kiln Theatre couldn’t have known how events would unfold when it decided to revive Moira Buffini’s Handbagged, which started as one of six playlets in the Women Power & Politics season in 2010, therby pre-dating Morgan’s play. Even though it’s about events in the 80’s, it’s just eight years since it’s premiere as a full play before its West End transfer, UK tour & New York. It feels extraordinarily timely in so many ways.

It takes us from Margaret Thatcher’s first audience with HMQ to her final one. It suggests their relationship was brittle, largely because of a lack of shared values, which other sources seem to confirm. They clash most over the Commonwealth and socio-economic issues. One of Buffini’s clever devices is two Queen’s and two PM’s – older and younger versions – whose recollections sometimes diverge. The second clever device is to have two male actors play all other roles, including a bearded black Nancy Reagan! They comment on the roles they have to play, and on some of the historical omissions, with the Queen’s and PM’s also sometimes talking direct to the audience. This brings a playfulness and much humour to the piece.

Marion Bailey and Kate Fahy reprise their roles as the older Queen and PM and are joined by Abigail Cruttenden and Naomi Frederick as the younger versions. All four are simply magnificent. Richard Cant and Romayne Andrews provide terrific support in a multitude of roles. I loved this play first time around, but it seems to have grown in the light of everything that has happened since. It has become a tribute to the late Queen, but it has also become a testament to the decline in the standards of politicians. I was never a fan of Thatcher (I’m a miners son from South Wales!) but even she looks brighter and better with hindsight!

A lovely evening, entertaining but also insightful.

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The Deep Blue Sea

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

I’d always known there were autobiographical elements to this Terence Rattigan masterpiece, but seeing it a few weeks after Mike Poulton’s excellent new play Kenny Morgan, about the incidents that inspired it, I now realise it’s a whole lot more than elements. It’s uncanny.

It starts, as does Kenny Morgan, with the rescue if its main character Hester Collyer from her attempted suicide, lying in front of the gas fire with a stomach full of aspirin. She’s tended by landlady Mrs Elton, young neighbours Philip and Ann Welch and Mr Miller, a former doctor. Similar characters appear in the other play. Hester’s estranged husband William, a judge, is called, as Rattigan was in the true story. The subject of Hester’s sadness, her young lover Freddie, returns, but not for long, as the incident spooks him and prompts his permanent departure. She declines to return to her husband and a second suicide attempt is aborted, and this is where the play diverges from the truth – oh, and the sex of the main character!

Tom Scutt has built a two-story house with Hester’s flat’s living area stage front and her bedroom, bathroom and the stairwell behind gauze, so that you can see characters moving there. This is very effective in representing the life of the house as well as focusing on its troubled occupant. There’s a background droning sound which creates a brooding, tense, expectant atmosphere. I thought Carrie Cracknell’s staging was terrific, with a very clever ending that told you Hester’s fate without a word being spoken.

It’s superbly well cast, with Marion Bailey excellent as an empathetic but disapproving Mrs Elton and Nick Fletcher great as the mysterious ‘Doctor’ Miller. Hubert Burton and Yolanda Kettle are lovely as the naïve young couple and Peter Sullivan has great presence as William Collyer. There’s real chemistry and a sexual frisson between Tom Burke’s Freddie and Helen McCrory’s Hester, both of whom so suit their roles and both of whom really inhabit these complex characters. McCrory really is stunning, a nuanced performance, acting with every inch of her body. It’s as fine an acting ensemble as you’re likely to get on any stage.

Probably the best production of this play I’ve ever seen; unmissable Rattigan.

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Blurred Lines

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2014| Leave a Comment »

This takes Kat Banyard’s book Equality Illusion as it’s starting point and it’s title is a swipe at Robin Thicke’s sexist, misogynistic song of the same name. I hadn’t read the book or heard the song, but I’m glad I went to see this.

Eight excellent actresses, including Clare Skinner, Ruth Sheen, Sinead Matthews & Byrony Hannah, perform on an unfeasibly steep and high white staircase. They start by listing stereotypical descriptions of woman that you often hear in the media and move on to show typical scenes of sexism, misogyny and objectification of women in film & TV, advertising, fashion, music…..well, in the modern world really. It’s a smorgasbord of scenes and soundbites which add up to a stimulating, challenging and thought-provoking 75 minutes.

You might have expected it to be preachy or heavy, but it’s entertainingly presented, which makes it all the more powerful. There are some lovely moments which use humour to make a point, and others which have you squirming in disgust. I consider myself a feminist, but even I began to question some of my attitudes. It’s a clever way to present the issues and does so with as much attitude as the attitudes it challenges.

The text is by playwright Nick Payne (a man and a feminist), the design (the scale of which surprises you as soon as you enter The Shed) by Bunny Christie and the inventive staging by Carrie Cracknell. It helps to have such a fine cast (who have also shaped the piece). In adition to the four I’ve already mentioned, there’s Susannah Wise, Lorna Brown, Michaela Coel (who adds her poetry) and Marion Bailey, who’s turn as a male theatre director brings the house down whilst underlining the point brilliantly.

It seems to me this is what The Shed set out to do – present something different and challenging – and it succeeds in doing so.

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Handbagged

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Lest you think this play about Margaret Thatcher and The Queen and their ‘audiences’ owes anything to Peter Morgan’s The Audience, perhaps I should begin by telling you that it started life as one of the nine plays in Women Power & Politics more than three years ago here at the Tricycle Theatre (https://garethjames.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/women-power-politics). It was one of the highlights of that and now it’s a full length premiere league treat.

It covers Thatcher’s whole period in office and there are two Queen’s and two Thatcher’s – ‘younger’, who are mostly ‘in audience’ and ‘older’, who are mostly looking back, commenting and correcting –  with two men playing all of the male roles (plus Nancy Reagan!), fighting over who plays Neil Kinnock. That’s a lot of events and a lot of audiences. It’s a whistle-stop history of the 80’s told through these weekly meetings and it’s hugely entertaining in Indhu Rubasingham’s excellent fast-paced production. It is, of course, largely speculative, yet it comes to the same conclusions as Morgan did – but by focusing on the Queen’s relationship with this one Prime Minister, it’s able to go into much more depth.

The performances are all superb. Stella Gonet & Fenella Woolgar get the public and private Thatcher to a tee and Marion Bailey & Clare Holman do the same with Elizabeth II. The men – Jeff Rawle & Neet Mohan – play 17 roles between them, from footmen to protesters and Michael Hestletine to Kenneth Kaunda, and are allowed to step out of their characters from time to time, which makes for a lot of fun The existence of an audience is occasionally acknowledged as the fourth wall disappears and we’re addressed directly.

Being in an audience of people old enough to have lived through this period made for a superb atmosphere at the performance I attended. This is an enormous pleasure and if it doesn’t get a West End transfer so that many more people can see it, I will be both surprised and disappointed.

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Grief

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Seeing Saved two days before prepared me for a depressing experience. …….but Mike Leigh’s Grief isn’t depressing, it’s just sad.

We’re in 1957/58 and Dorothy still hasn’t come to terms with being a war widow. She struggles to maintain a functional relationship with her teenage daughter Victoria. Her brother Edwin lives with them but contributes nothing. Victoria does teenage rebellion. Edwin pours the sherry and occasionally breaks into song, with Dorothy joining in. Dorothy makes the tea. Their lives are dull, predictable and ever so sad. The performances of Lesley Manville, Sam Kelly and Ruby Bentall are however extraordinary.

Light relief is provided by occasional visits from Edwin’s friend Hugh (a lovely cameo from David Horovitch) and Dorothy’s friends Gertrude and Muriel, a terrific double-act from Marion Bailey and Wendy Nottingham. These three boast about their children’s achievements, their foreign holidays and their charitable acts. They also provide some well needed laughs to break up the sadness.

Alison Chitty’s design is pitch perfect late 50’s and I found myself spending much of the time soaking up the details of the brilliant set and costumes. This attention to detail is matched by the performances where every expression, glance and shrug seems to have meaning.

There are far too many short scenes, which creates an unsatisfying staccato feel and disrupts the flow of the piece. It’s a moving portrait of grief and sadness but it doesn’t really go anywhere and outstays it’s welcome by at least 30 minutes. Go for the performances and period picture, but don’t expect  much of a drama.

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