Theatre review: Copenhagen

When Copenhagen was scheduled for a revival at Hampstead Theatre it probably felt like a timely choice because of the recent success of Farm Hall and the film Oppenheimer, but as invariably and depressingly seems to happen, current affairs have delivered another reason for Michael Frayn's play about nuclear physicists to feel topical. In the first six years of me writing this blog I could reliably catch Big Favourite Round These Parts Damien Molony on stage once a year, but he's been absent for nearly a decade before returning to play Werner Heisenberg, the leading nuclear physicist who led the German team attempting to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War. His other most famous accomplishment is the Uncertainty Principle, and the play centres on a historical mystery that even the participants seemed uncertain about, with both central figures giving conflicting accounts later in life.

Theatre review: Noises Off

The Old Vic's 2012 production of Noises Off was only the second show I reviewed on this particular blog, so given Michael Frayn's play is regularly described as the greatest farce (and one of the greatest comedies in general) ever written it's probably not that surprising if someone thought it was time for it to return to London. The Lyric Hammersmith is where it premiered in 1982, and as it's currently in a bit of a limbo state between artistic directors Jeremy Herrin has grabbed the opportunity to bring the play back to where it all began. It's a farce within a farce within a farce, as director Lloyd (Lloyd Owen) attempts to preside over the technical rehearsal of Nothing On, a creaky and convoluted farce about to embark on a national tour after nowhere near enough rehearsal. The cast barely know their lines let alone their blocking, but that's not going to cause as many problems as the company's personal lives.

Theatre review: The Bear / The Proposal

In response to the battle lines that have been drawn around the world's public bathrooms with regard to transgender people in recent years, the Young Vic was one of the first London theatres to put up signs making clear visitors there can use whichever loo they feel more comfortable in. So it's not too surprising to see this inclusive attitude extend to the programming, and the latest Genesis Award winner in the Clare has a cast made up of a trans man, a trans woman, and the bearded drag cabaret star better known as Le Gateau Chocolat. And it is, of all things, an Anton Chekhov double bill that director Lucy J Skilbeck uses to look at fluid gender identities. The Bear / The Proposal is a pair of one-act comedies, and in the first half things are played, no pun intended, straight.

Theatre review: Wild Honey

Nobody could accuse Ed Hall's Hampstead Theatre of wild programming, but the word itself is one they're very fond of - we've had Wildefire, Wild and now Wild Honey, Michael Frayn's version of Chekhov's unfinished Platonov. This revival was due to be directed by Howard Davies, who sadly died at the beginning of rehearsals, and his replacement should be well-versed in the play: Jonathan Kent directed a different version of Platonov as part of his Young Chekhov trilogy at the National only a few months ago. There's another connection to that day-long epic, as Geoffrey Streatfeild returns to the one play out of the three that he didn't appear in this summer. Frayn's play is a shorter, broader version of the story of Platonov (Streatfeild,) a provincial schoolteacher who's spent the winter in virtual hibernation with his wife Sasha (Rebecca Humphries) and their baby son.

Theatre review: Matchbox Theatre

Last year Michael Frayn published Matchbox Theatre, a short story collection in the form of playlets, meant to be read and imagined as they might play out; apparently it was greeted with comments that the collection would inevitably be staged for real some day. Hampstead Theatre used to have a Michael Frayn Space that his name got dropped from when it was rechristened "Downstairs," so maybe they felt they owed him something - it's in their main space, in its in-the-round configuration, that Matchbox Theatre has been turned into a sketch show, directed by Hamish McColl and with Esther Coles, Tim Downie, Mark Hadfield, Felicity Montagu, Nina Wadia and Chris Larner (also serving as composer) making up the acting troupe. After a rather self-conscious introduction, we get the opening sketch in which Hadfield and Montagu rise from below the stage as the statues on a tomb, their centuries' sleep disturbed by the trendy vicar holding a disco in the church basement.

Theatre review: Democracy

After the craziness of Noises Off, a different side to Michael Frayn's work comes to the Old Vic. Plugging a gap before the venue goes into Olympic hibernation is a transfer from Sheffield, Paul Miller's production of Democracy. And it's another in the batch of Cold War plays that have been an unlikely theme in London lately, charting the early 1970s through the office of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt (Patrick Drury.) As the play opens Brandt is the head of a tenuous coalition with the Liberal party, and the first left-wing West German government since the War. He plans to make advances towards healing the rift with the Eastern Bloc, who are themselves keen to find out if he can be trusted: We see the story through the eyes of Günter Guillaume (Aidan McArdle,) an East German sleeper agent reporting back to his handler (Ed Hughes.) Gossip is rife of a spy in the ranks, but the comically dull Guillaume goes unsuspected, gradually being given positions of trust next to Brandt.

Theatre review: Noises Off

Michael Frayn's double-sided farce Noises Off is regularly described as the funniest play of all time, which has to be a bit of a poison chalice: It has a lot to live up to and needs a spectacularly well-timed cast to actually do so. Fortunately Lindsay Posner at the Old Vic has assembled just this kind of cast and choreographed them to perfection.

The play-within-a-play is called Nothing On, and our first experience of it is at the tech rehearsal, doubling as a dress rehearsal, as the first night's hours away. Celia Imrie's Dotty is bankrolling the production and also playing housekeeper Mrs Clackett¹. Like most of the under-rehearsed cast, she's having trouble remembering her lines and the complex moves that largely involve plates of sardines. Among the cast is Selsdon (Karl Johnson,) drunk and frequently disappearing, so exhausted stage manager Tim (Paul Ready) is constantly called on to stand in for him. While the actors all struggle through their tech, the real audience gets an idea of how Nothing On is meant to run. After the interval we join them backstage at a matinee midway through the run, where the onstage farce is barely held together as the actors, now sick of each other's company, have even more chaos behind the scenes. The fact that one of the stars (Amy Nuttall) and the ASM (Aisling Loftus) now know that the director (Robert Glenister) has been sleeping with both of them, doesn't help, and his constantly foiled attempts to placate them with flowers is a highlight. With one series of mishaps and misunderstandings on one side of the set and another on the other, this central act is sublime madness.

If there's a downside to the play it's that this is a hard act to follow and our final experience of the play, which takes us back to the audience's point of view for the final performance, can't live up to the middle section. Although there's still a lot of entertainment to be had as the action falls apart in a whole new way and Nuttall's Brooke is unable to stray from the script no matter what goes wrong².

Though I've seen the film before this is my first Noises Off on stage, and it seems to me much of the reason it's held in such high regard is the way it hangs a lantern on the mechanics of farce, how hard it is for the actors to make all the right "mistakes" and how easily it can go wrong. Fortunately Posner's cast don't put a foot wrong - or rather they constantly put a foot wrong, in all the right places.

Noises Off by Michael Frayn is booking until the 10th of March at the Old Vic.

Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes including interval.

¹Evil Alex commented that after being known for playing Miss Babs in Acorn Antiques, this costume sees Imrie looking more like Mrs Overall

²in which respect she was rather like our jobsworth usher tonight: I wanted Alex to take a picture of me peering around one of the Old Vic's many pillars for my userpic on this blog, to illustrate "Partially Obstructed View," but she forbade it. Then after the show she insisted we leave by the side door "because it's quicker" despite me saying I needed to go out the main way to use the loo. So I had to go out the side of the building then fight my way back in again. She's clearly been given a script of rules for the audience and this was NOT TO BE DEVIATED FROM!