Theatre review: Les Liaisons Dangereuses

A new production of Christopher Hampton's best-known play, an adaptation of a novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos at the Lyttelton, marks Marianne Elliott's first time back at the National since Angels In America. Although this, and most other elements of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, seem to have been overshadowed by Lesley Aisons Manville, who's turned out to be surprisingly camera-shy for a film star. Manville plays the Marquise de Merteuil, the most in-demand guest of 18th Century Paris aristocracy's social life. Merteuil is a widow who, comfortable in her wealth and standing, entertains herself by taking numerous lovers, as well as orchestrating affairs and scandals for others. She's particularly fond of corrupting wide-eyed innocents, but has managed to keep her activities in the shadows, and her own reputation spotless.

Theatre review: Sunset Blvd

I often grumble about the work of His Excellency The Rev. Dr Baron Dame Sir Andrew Lloyd Lord Webber BA (Hons) MEng, QC, MD, P.I, FSB, but have a soft spot for Sunset Boulevard - one I've never been entirely sure how much to credit to Lloyd Webber (music,) Don Black and Christopher Hampton's (book and lyrics) 1993 musical itself, and how much to my fondness for Billy Wilder's original 1950 film. Well, this should settle some of that at least, as the latest West End revival comes courtesy of director Jamie Lloyd and designer Soutra Gilmour, whose signature style inevitably strips away the usual trappings of faded Hollywood glamour so associated with film and musical alike. But their monochrome style does make for a different kind of link to the age of black and white movies. 

Theatre review: God of Carnage

I hadn't initially booked for the Lyric Hammersmith's revival of God of Carnage, Yasmina Reza's follow-up to "Art" - I'd seen the original West End production of Christopher Hampton's translation, and remembered not being particularly fussed by it. A great cast made the difference when it was announced, and got me back to Reza's other story of insufferably upper-middle class people having a meltdown in a joylessly chic living room. Ladies and Gentlemen: The French. We're in Veronica (Freema Agyeman) and Michael Novak's (Martin Hutson) flat, where they're hosting Alan (Ariyon Bakare) and Annette Raleigh (Dinita Gohil) for the afternoon. The Raleighs' 11-year-old son Ferdinand has hit the Novaks' son Bruno with a bamboo cane in the school playground, knocking out two of his teeth.

Theatre review: The Forest

Florian Zeller's written his play again, and this time it gets its world premiere not in his native French but in English, and not at the Kiln but a couple of stops down the Jubilee Line at Hampstead Theatre. As usual Christopher Hampton takes on translation duties for The Forest, for most of the characters at least - I got the distinct impression that Laurence had had her dialogue run through Google Translate. This disparity in style presumably has some significance; either that, or Gina Mckee has seriously pissed someone off, and got punished with the role of a rather dim-witted robot. Laurence is married to Pierre, a successful and influential surgeon, played in Jonathan Kent's production by both Toby Stephens and Paul McGann. We first see the Stephens version in his Paris apartment with his wife, preparing to make a speech making major recommendations on French medical policy and its relationship with Big Pharma.

Theatre review: A German Life

Twelve years after unofficially retiring from the stage Maggie Smith* is back and, in typical fashion, not doing things by halves - A German Life is just her on stage for nearly two hours. Christopher Hampton’s monologue about Brunhilde Pomsel is based on the 106-year-old’s testimony, given shortly before her death after a lifetime of refusing to comment, to a documentary crew interested in her unique perspective on World War II. That perspective was as a secretary for the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, never working directly for Joseph Goebbels but for a number of his right-hand men. But her story begins earlier, with her first few jobs which were all for wealthy Jewish businessmen, an avenue of work which soon dried up as the Nazis came to power – and the Nazi party themselves became the best source of work, first at the state broadcaster and then at the Ministry of Propaganda itself.

Theatre review: The Son

The Son is being advertised as the final installment in a trilogy of Florian Zeller plays that began with The Father and continued with The Mother; apart from the obvious connection in the titles there isn't, to me, a link that The Height of the Storm couldn't lay equal claim to. If not more so, because while all four are about families dealing with one person's deteriorating mental health The Height of the Storm, like the first two in the series, features a narrative that dips in and out of that fractured mind, putting the audience on the back foot. If The Son's narrative is also meant to be unreliable that's not apparent, though, as we appear to be seeing what the other characters can when 17-year-old Nicolas (Laurie Kynaston) reacts to his parents' divorce with a violent depression. His mother Anne (Amanda Abbington) discovers that he hasn't turned up at school for three months, and turns to her ex-husband for help.

Theatre review: The Height of the Storm

After premiering in Bath and Richmond, The Height of the Storm is the latest Florian Zeller play to make it to the West End, with director Jonathan Kent taking a risk on putting two notoriously difficult actors on stage together. The vague description in the publicity suggests another rather dark, sad journey into confusion and failing mental health, and while I’m generally a fan of cheerier things, where this writer is concerned I’d rather see him return to intimate tragedies than the so-so farces of his lighter side. Anne (Amanda Drew) and Elise (Anna Madeley) have gone to their parents’ home in the French countryside for the weekend; it soon becomes apparent that one of their parents has recently died, but Zeller deals in confusion and it’s hard to figure out which one, as both André (Jonathan Pryce) and Madeleine (Eileen Atkins) appear on stage regularly.

Theatre review: The Lie

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: Official critics are invited this Wednesday.

The critics may well get to see one of the leads performing most of the play script-in-hand as Alexander Hanson, a late replacement for an ill James Dreyfus, was at today’s performance only off-book for two of the play’s scenes. This is for the latest from Florian Zeller, who seems to like his plays to come in pairs: The Truth is followed up by The Lie, another comedy of infidelity, which even has its characters share the names of the earlier play’s quartet (although they don’t actually appear to be the same characters, unless they’re alternate-universe versions.) And as The Truth was about lies, then The Lie is about truths, and passing off the truth as a lie. If that all seems a bit convoluted and circular you should see the actual dialogue, which at one point I thought had actually turned into a real-life version of the famous “loop” scene from The Play That Goes Wrong.

Theatre review: The Mentor

I think last year’s great revival of Amadeus made the prospect of seeing the film version’s star, F Murray Abraham, on stage even more of a draw for me. So it’s a good job his performance in The Mentor lives up to expectations, because little else about Daniel Kehlmann’s play was really memorable enough to stay with me past the Vaudeville’s front doors. Kehlmann is apparently a huge name in Germany right now, and being the first to bring him to the UK are the team of translator Christopher Hampton and director Laurence Boswell, who in recent years also introduced us to Florian Zeller. And there is more of a French than German aesthetic to Polly Sullivan’s design, a country garden inside a white box, with chairs shaped like human hands as a clue that pretension is welcome here – a retreat owned by an arts charity that pairs established names with promising newcomers to develop new work.

Non-review: The Philanthropist

If the odds of me coming back after the interval are anything to go by, West End comedy plays are in dire straits this year. I made an early escape from The Miser, and now another play with a Molière connection, Christopher Hampton's The Philanthropist, had me rushing for the exit as well. Cast entirely through watching Channel 4 catch-up, plus that episode of Doctor Who where Lily Cole played a fish, Simon Callow's production offers little justification for why it should be revived. In roles they're patently too young for, Simon Bird and Tom Rosenthal play stuffy university English lecturers who witness a (probably accidental) suicide in the opening scene. Perhaps out of empathy, the play also proceeds to die a death as Bird's Philip and his fiancée Celia (Charlotte Ritchie) host an evening of drinks for a few colleagues and a successful author.

Theatre review: "Art"

Florian Zeller is the French playwright who's all the rage in London at the moment, but in the nineties that title belonged firmly to Yasmina Reza. A few of her plays got West End runs but it was "Art" that brought her to public attention and became a big hit. Matthew Warchus' production ran for eight years, its gimmick of replacing the three-strong cast every couple of months keeping it in the public eye and ticket sales going strong. With Warchus now in charge of the Old Vic he's seen an opportunity to revive the play for its 20th anniversary. In fact he may well be said to be reviving the same production - I saw that twice, with one of the early cast changes at Wyndhams* and then a few years later when it had moved to the Whitehall Theatre (before it became Trafalgar Studios.) And though it's been a while this feels familiar: The latest trio to play the 40-something men who've been friends for 15 years are Rufus Sewell, Tim Key and Paul Ritter.

Concert review: Sunset Boulevard

It's a bit unusual for a famous actor not to be particularly associated with musical theatre except for one specific role, but it's certainly the case for Glenn Close But No Cigar as Norma Desmond. Sunset Boulevard is one of Dr Baron Dame Sir Andrew Lloyd Lord Webber's best shows, largely because he and lyricists Don Black and Christopher Hampton have such strong material to work with in Billy Wilder's classic film. Now it becomes the second of the Coliseum's series of semi-staged concerts (after last year's Sweeney Todd,) and Close returns to reprise Norma in the same OTT outfits she stole from her last production twenty years ago. Close may be the star turn but Michael Xavier is barely ever off the stage as Joe Gillis, the struggling Hollywood screenwriter fleeing creditors when he hides in the driveway of a Sunset Blvd mansion belonging to a former silent movie star.

Theatre review: The Truth

Prolific French writer Florian Zeller is fast becoming ubiquitous on the London stage; after the pairing of The Father and The Mother took a dark and moving look at crumbling minds and crumbling relationships, a change of tack with a much lighter look at rocky marriages in The Truth (which also has a companion play, and I imagine we'll see The Lie here too soon enough.) For the last six months Michel (Alexander Hanson) has been having an affair with Alice (Frances O'Connor,) the wife of his best friend Paul (Robert Portal.) They've been meeting in the afternoons in a hotel room, but things get derailed as it seems Paul and Michel's wife Laurence (Tanya Franks) might have cottoned on to the affair. Alice thinks they should just confess all to their spouses but Michel thinks they can brazenly style it out - presumably not realising just how bad a liar he is.

Theatre review: The Mother

Not only was The Father a critical hit last year (including with me - I put it in my 2015 Top Ten,) it was also a surprising commercial success: One West End transfer would have been impressive for a hallucinatory show about mental illness, but it's getting a second one and a tour. So it's not surprising to see Florian Zeller's companion piece The Mother (again translated by Christopher Hampton) follow it quickly to London, with Laurence Boswell's production setting up shop at the Tricycle. Where The Father's deliberately confusing scenes took us into the head of a man with a form of dementia, The Mother has a much younger character at its heart and a less obvious diagnosis, initially at least, as Anne (Gina McKee) seems to have reacted in an extreme way to empty nest syndrome. An upper-middle class housewife in her late forties, she's dedicated her life to her children, especially her son Nicholas (William Postlethwaite, adding to an already-impressive list of dubious facial hair choices,) for whom she shows an uncomfortably Oedipal level of devotion.

Theatre review: Les Liaisons Dangereuses

I don't know how dangerous she is, but this Lesley Aisons certainly seems like a bit of a cow.

Based on the novel by Choderlos de Laclos, Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses is still best known for its hit film adaptation*, but enough time has passed to bring it back to the stage, as Josie Rourke does at the Donmar. In 18th century France, the nobility's reputations depend on them maintaining a strict morality - or at least appearing to, while getting up to whatever they like behind closed doors. Men can get away with more than women, so the Vicomte de Valmont (Dominic West,) despite something of a caddish reputation, is still welcome in polite society because of his charm and the frisson of scandal. Not only are the rumours about his sexual conquests true, he has an unsuspected accomplice in the outwardly respectable widow, the Marquise de Merteuil (Janet McTeer.) The two were once lovers, but have left that behind to focus on corrupting others: They dare and egg each other on to find the most virtuous young nobles in Paris society, seduce then discard them.

Theatre review: The Father (Tricycle Theatre)

André (Kenneth Cranham) has lived in his Paris flat for decades, but after he's scared off a number of carers his daughter Anne (Claire Skinner) is worried he won't be able to live alone there much longer. She's planning to move to London with boyfriend Pierre (Colin Tierney,) and sending her father to a care home might be the best option. Or maybe she should move André in with them, and get a new carer, Laura (Jade Williams) to look after him during the day? In fact, maybe this has already happened? Florian Zeller's play The Father, which arrives at the Tricycle in a translation by Christopher Hampton and production by James Macdonald first seen in Bath, is a rather extraordinary look at ageing and dementia, that takes us through the story of Anne being increasingly unable to recognise the sometimes charming, sometimes cruel man her father has become. But unlike other takes on the subject, Zeller attempts to give the audience an idea of what the story seems like from inside André's head.

Theatre review: Stephen Ward

Spotting a gap in the market for West End musicals about osteopaths, Dame Sir Andrew Lloyd Lord Webber has visited the Profumo affair from the point of view of the doctor who introduced the scandal's major players to each other, Stephen Ward. Ward (Alexander Hanson) had a fondness for attractive provincial girls, but didn't seem too interested in sleeping with them himself. Instead he saw himself as a sort of kingmaker of 1960s London society, discovering the latest ingenue and introducing her to older, wealthy, often powerful men. One of his favourites was Christine Keeler (Charlotte Spencer,) who had a six-month affair with the War Minister John Profumo (Daniel Flynn.) She also may or may not have been sleeping with a Soviet Diplomat (Ian Conningham) and when the papers made the connection the fear of leaked secrets brought down the government - but not before Ward, scapegoated as the girls' pimp, was brought down too.

Theatre review: Uncle Vanya (Vaudeville Theatre)

Vanya has spent his life looking after his late sister's estate, taking a pittance for himself and sending all the profits to support his brother-in-law: An illustrious professor, Serebryakov has been a source of pride to the whole family. But when Serebryakov remarries and retires, he decides to move himself and his new young wife Yelena to the country estate that's been supporting him all these years. As Uncle Vanya opens, the title character (Ken Stott) has started to see that the professor (Paul "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?" Freeman) is a hack who's contributed nothing to his field and will leave no legacy. Chekhov's play looks at what happens when Vanya begins to realise that if the man he's sacrificed his life's work to is a nonentity, his own life's been a waste. Meanwhile the beautiful but listless Yelena (Anna Friel, like I just got home, Anna Friel) enraptures both Vanya and the local doctor.