Theatre review: The Tempest(Jamie Lloyd Company / Theatre Royal Drury Lane)

Apparently when John Gielgud ended his run as Prospero at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1957, he foretold that Shakespeare would never again be performed at the venue, which would become a home for big musicals only. No doubt any suggestion of snobbery was fully intended, but it's also probably fair to say that a vast stage and 2000+ seat auditorium might be easier to fill with a big spectacle than with a production of a play that comes around every couple of years in London alone. But the theatre is now owned by His Exalted Brittanic Excellency, The Rev. Dr Baron Dame Sir Andrew Lloyd Lord Webber BA (Hons) MEng, QC, MD, P.I, FSB, who has enlisted Jamie Lloyd to end the 67-year Shakespeare drought at the venue with a starry mini-season inspired by the noblest of all intentions: Proving that a man who died a quarter of a century ago was wrong about that thing he said that one time.

First up is the same play that Gielgud thought would be the last, The Tempest, and the big star this time is Sigourney Weaver as Prospero, the deposed and exiled Duchess of Milan who's ended up on a desert island with her daughter Miranda (Mara Huf.)

Prospero displayed her natural leadership qualities by using magic to enslave the island's natives, the spirit Ariel (Mason Alexander Park) and gimp Caliban (Forbes Masson,) as well as to regularly torture them if they dared to talk back. Years later, a ship carrying her brother Antonio (Tim Steed,) who took her throne, as well as anyone else even tangentially connected to the plot, sails past the island. Prospero magically conjures a storm to shipwreck them all, giving her a whole bunch of other people to roofie, because just doing it to her teenage daughter was getting a bit boring.

Honestly though, even my customary "Prospero is awful" spiel is mainly coming from my prior knowledge of the play, it's certainly not coming from any dimensions Weaver gives the character. As a child of the '80s the star of Ghostbusters was a particularly exciting prospect for me, so it's disappointing to confirm that the rumours are true and she gives a very wooden, blank, confused-looking performance that adds nothing to either characterisation or storytelling. Maybe there is no Prospero, only Zuul.

But to focus entirely on Weaver's performance is to unfairly give her all the blame for a production that has a lot more problems. Going by Ben and Max Ringham and Michael 'Mikey J' Asante's music, which underscores the whole play and continues during the interval, the idea is to focus on the eerie supernatural elements of the story. But the actual result is that, outwith the drunken comedy sequences, the whole thing plays out in a sombre monotone that certainly doesn't help with the deficiencies in storytelling and characterisation.

And Lloyd has to take responsibility for some of the flack Weaver's been getting: Surely at some point a director spots that their lead isn't giving the most compelling performance and tries to minimise the damage. Instead Lloyd has Prospero spend the entire play onstage, watching in what seems like complete confusion as events she has engineered in great detail play out. In fact he keeps her sitting sitting downstage centre for the entire first half-hour, ensuring nobody can miss how baffled she looks.

The production does pleasingly continue the long-running theme of Weaver and Selina Cadell having been best friends for fifty years and constantly finding excuses to work together - I like to think so that they can spend every spare moment necking plonk in their dressing rooms. Here Cadell is the faithful old retainer Gonzalo, who along with Jude Akuwudike's Alonso gets some of the few more genuinely thoughtful moments of the evening. By contrast Jason Barnett's Stephano gets the best results out of the broader comic scenes, compared to Mathew Horne's Trinculo going for a "when in doubt, camp it up" approach (I know, Mathew Horne leaning enthusiastically into a gay joke, who'd have thunk it?)

One of my biggest laughs of the show actually came months ago when Lloyd announced his Drury Lane season wouldn't feature the actors being live-filmed, and honestly if you reach the point where you have to reassure audiences the show won't be identical to your last half-dozen productions maybe you've milked that aesthetic to death. It does mean that Lloyd's regular designer Soutra Gilmour gets to play around a bit more with the visuals, making them a highlight. There's still a reduced colour palette but a lot of blue has been added to the usual black and white, and the large stage means she and lighting designer Jon Clark can create a desolate but striking landscape: Huge sheets float around the stage, Park's Ariel gets flown in to deliver belting musical numbers, and characters wander the dunes in silhouette.

The costumes are eclectic variations on the colour theme that reflect where the characters stand - as the faithful representative of the old guard, Gonzalo's intricate patterns give her a doll-like look, an advisor from a fairytale. By contrast Ferdinand's look has clear high school jock inspirations. As a notoriously nondescript romantic lead you can't do much with, it helps if Ferdinand is cast ridiculously attractive so at least you notice he's there, so casting James Phoon certainly ticks that box. (His trakkie bottoms aren't particularly flattering at the front but very flattering round the back; like I say, the visuals are the highlight here.)

The text is mercifully edited, as a full-length version at this sombre pace would have been interminable, but not always logically: We get Prospero announcing the wedding masque, and then tell us how the big spectacle has now proven to be spirits and melted into the air; but we don't actually get the masque in between, only another flyby from Ariel, so it makes no sense. There's no getting around the fact that the production doesn't really cohere, and doesn't convince me that there's any reason for staging it other than ALW drafting in his current pet director to settle a score with a man who'll never know there even was a score to settle.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare is booking until the 1st of February at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.