Theatre review: Dear Octopus

An obscure rediscovery seems to have been a hit at the Lyttelton as Emily Burns directs Dodie Smith's Dear Octopus, a sprawling family drama set over the weekend of Dora (Lindsay Duncan) and Charles Randolph's (Malcolm Sinclair) golden anniversary. The sort of family who describe themselves as ordinary because they don't have a coat of arms, they assemble at the large country house built by Charles' grandfather. Over the weekend we see four generations of the family who've been raised in this house - three of them by the same nanny. Of the couple's six children four survive - the eldest son died in the First World War, while one daughter died of undisclosed causes. The others juggle various successes and neuroses: Margery (Amy Morgan) is trying to control her warring children, Hilda (Jo Herbert) manages to balance a successful job as an estate agent with her OCD, and Cynthia (Bethan Cullinane) works for a Paris fashion house, although rumour has it she's been in France for so long because she's concealing a scandal in her personal life.

Theatre review: Hansard

It can’t be the easiest time in history to be a political playwright; the audience could be walking into the theatre at 7:15 ready for an urgently topical exploration of the current state of affairs, but the play doesn’t start until 7:30 by which point the whole thing’s hopelessly dated. Better, as actor-turned-playwright Simon Woods does, to go for a very specific political event in the past and (apart from the obligatory deliberate winks to topical issues) let the audience draw their own parallels. Hansard takes us to 1988, the weekend after the passing of Section 28 (which banned “the promotion of homosexuality [and] pretended family relationships” in schools,) as Conservative back-bencher Robin Hesketh (Alex Jennings) returns to his home in the Cotswolds. His wife Diana (Lindsay Duncan) is waiting for him looking dishevelled, at the very least hungover from the night before if not already a few drinks the worse for wear this morning.

Stage-to-screen review: Richard II (BBC Hollow Crown)

Although the BBC's Hollow Crown series was an original commission rather than adaptations of previous stage productions, I'm going to count it as "stage-to-screen" and review it here as the directors and many of the actors are best known for their stage work, and the intention seems to have been to bring theatrical experience to bear on putting Shakespeare on TV.

The Hollow Crown, the BBC's adaptation of Shakespeare's second (in order of writing) history cycle was broadcast in June and July, but I've held off on watching them as there's a comparatively theatre-light month ahead. So I'm going to spread them out across August (actually Henry V might wait a bit longer, since it's not like there's any shortage of that play at the moment.) But first up Rupert Goold directs Richard II, and brings the title character's most famous speech ("For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground" etc) right to the start as a voiceover which makes for a nice opening not just to this play, but to the quartet of plays as a whole: The line about kings "haunted by the ghosts they have deposed" will prove particularly pertinent to his successor. Utterly convinced of his divine right to rule England, Richard II deals capriciously with the lives of his subjects, but one abuse of power too many leads to a coup that his circle of flatterers is powerless to stop. But a deposed king can still be a figurehead to rebels, and the new king Henry IV won't rest easy as long as Richard's alive.

Theatre review: Hay Fever

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: This review is of a late preview - the penultimate one, I think.

Although unfortunately this felt more like the first or second preview than a show that's been in front of an audience for a week or so. The first Noël Coward play to be staged at this theatre since it was renamed in his honour, Hay Fever is a comedy of social awkwardness that's all about the carefully contrived artifice Coward is known for. The Blisses are an ostentatiously bohemian family, and this weekend they've got a full house: Each has invited a guest to stay without warning the others. Writer David Bliss (Kevin R McNally) has brought flapper Jackie (Amy Morton,) "retired" actress Judith (Lindsay Duncan) has invited Sandy (Sam Callis,) and their children Sorel and Simon (Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Freddie Fox) are putting up the older man and woman they have respective crushes on (Jeremy Northam and Olivia Colman.) But as the family start to trade partners over the course of the weekend, their guests aren't prepared for how much of the Blisses' lives are a performance.

There's an encouraging start as Bunny Christie's set is revealed, an airy country mansion in a state of disrepair, and the siblings' early bickering promises a witty, bitchy evening, but the more people who arrive on stage, the more sluggish the production gets. I'd been really looking forward to this largely for the sake of the female stars - Colman, Duncan and Waller-Bridge are all favourites of mine and they all give good performances. So do all the cast really but they never seem as if they've gelled as an ensemble. It's really only Fox and Waller-Bridge's relationship that I believed in. The second act is an improvement as the frantic parlour game that opens it creates some of the missing energy but it's always at risk of fading whenever the action slows down a bit. The final act is the shortest but also the messiest: A sudden lurch into slapstick is out of sorts with the rest of the play, and director Howard Davies hasn't pulled all its strands together - it's only at the end that the shape of this act becomes clear.

The clipped, exaggerated accents one associates with Coward were ditched in favour of something more naturalistic here and Jan thought this was the cause of the dialogue failing to spark. I'm not entirely in agreement as I fear the kind of cobwebby production we got for Blithe Spirit last year. But we did agree that there was certainly a major pacing issue - Jan described it as less Hay Fever, more Hay Slight Temperature. But I think he was just being clever to get name-checked in this review. I can't say any of the cast actually disappointed me, but the combination of them all just didn't work as well as I'd hoped.

Hay Fever by Noël Coward is booking until the 2nd of June at the Noël Coward Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including interval.