Theatre Review: King Charles III (Almeida)

  

“Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be … WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE!” That seems to be pretty much the spirit in which Mike Bartlett has approached his latest play. King Charles III is a speculative drama, a “future history play,” that imagines the fate of the British monarchy following Charles’s sucession to the throne and that - intriguingly - utilises some of the conventions and tropes of Shakespeare’s History Plays (plus mashed up bits of Hamlet, Macbeth and others) to do so. Tapping with steely calculation into the obsessions of our weirdly monarchy-friendly moment, the play has - predictably enough - already won much press acclaim as a searing piece of provocation. But, despite moments of engaging cheek, and a typically slick staging by Rupert Goold, I’d argue that it’s a pretty toothless piece of work underneath.

  

Opening in fine, striking fashion with the funeral of Queen Bess II, the play quickly cooks up a contrived crisis when Charles’s refusal to sign a bill restricting press freedom puts him at odds with the Labour government. With the new monarch refusing to play ball as his Ma might have done, a full-scale political ruckus looks likely. Camilla (Margot Leicester) cajoles; Wills (Oliver Chris) and Kate (Lydia Wilson) scheme and intervene. And Harry (Richard Goulding) occupies himself by hooking up with a sparky republican student Jess (Tafline Steen), a character who appears to have wandered straight in from Bartlett’s much-admired 2010 play Earthquakes in London. Meanwhile, the ghost of the erstwhile “Queen of Hearts” walks (yes, really), dispensing cryptic messages to her sons and her ex in the wee small hours.

  

That all of this comes off as a good deal less ludicrous than it sounds in synopsis is due to the confidence of Goold’s production which - evidently aware of the arch-gimmickry of Bartlett’s conceit - refrains from dashing at the play with habitual Headlong gimmicks. Rather, the approach is quite stately and restrained with a spare design by Tom Scutt and magnificent choral music from Jocelyn Pook (a score for a classier play, really) punctuating the scenes.

  

Then, of course, there’s also the sheer oddity of hearing versions of our current Royals popping out mock-Shakespearen dialogue, with inverted phrases, blank verse, similes, soliloquies and asides supplementing the usual crowd-pleasing Bartlett-ese (“Fucking hell, weirdest day evah” mutters Jess after being introduced to Wills and Kate.) Though some of the state-of-the-nation musings sound contrived in the extreme, the play’s linguistic mix at least gives King Charles III more stylistic interest, theatricality and novelty than the colourless writing which we’ve come to expect in work by Peter Morgan and other “docudrama” purveyors.

  

It’s a novelty that palls, though, since the political dimension of the piece feels puny and undercooked, and may leave some of us wishing for a more challenging, critical perspective on the House of Windsor. In place of this, Bartlett takes a rather affectionate attitude to the royals throughout, one that avoids any barbed satire. A queasily sycophantic programme essay by Tim Stanley that deems the monarchy to be “Britain’s spine of steel” sets the tone for right Royal rump-kissing, and I, for one, would like the piece a whole lot better if it didn’t pander so obviously to our culture’s current Royalist biases. For, like Morgan’s work, King Charles III perpetuates a view of the Windsors as a bunch of bumbling yet likeable closet liberals who stack up very well when compared to our nasty, scheming politicians. This sentimental stance is turning into a modern myth, and those of us who find it offensive won’t be mollified by Bartlett’s approach here and the presentation of Charles as a staunch defender of press freedom.

  

With characterisation swerving uneasily between Shakespearean archetype and media-created caricature - Richard Goulding’s Harry comes off as Prince Hal via Fresh Meat’s posh boy JP - there’s only so far the actors can go in their roles. But Tim Pigott-Smith (last seen at the Almeida in James MacDonald’s wonderful production of Albee’s A Delicate Balance) manages to give a very fine performance as Charles, eschewing impersonation for a lucid exploration of the character’s position. Still, for all the production’s witty touches, it’s essentially pastiche that Bartlett’s up to here. And if you don’t feel that’s quite enough for a compelling drama, then King Charles III may strike you, ultimately, as a rather superficial exercise: a hollow crown, indeed.

  

The production is booking until 31st May. Further information at the Almeida website.

Theatre Review: The Sacred Flame (Rose, Kingston)

As with the work of a number of early 20th century dramatists, the plays of W. Somerset Maugham have fallen out of fashion in recent years, the occasional revival of The Circle or The Letter notwithstanding. Believing that there is “a real snobbery in some of our theatres towards writers such as Maugham,” the industrious Matthew Dunster has set about putting this situation to rights, with a production of Maugham’s 1928 work The Sacred Flame for English Touring Theatre. A controversial piece in its day, Maugham’s play has been pretty much forgotten since a late 1960s revival starring Gladys Cooper. Dunster’s striking, though erratically acted, production makes a good case for the play, even if it can’t quite redeem some of the more problematic assumptions underpinning the piece.

A WWI hero, Maurice Tabret has been severely disabled following an accident. Bed-ridden, he’s attended to by an all-female coterie: his mother, his wife Stella and a very dedicated nurse. But then Maurice dies suddenly. His doctor suggests that heart failure was the cause, but the nurse suspects foul play, pointing the finger of suspicion at the family members and questioning their attitude to the dead man.

From this conventional whodunnit premise, Maugham fashions a drama that touches on a range of surprisingly resonant issues, including one of our very favourite media hot potatoes: euthanasia. At times, one senses the playwright congratulating himself for his own daring, though - truth be told - the play now seems a very strange mixture of the radical and the reactionary.

Of all the text’s slaps in the face to conventional morality, the prioritising of female sexual desire over traditional care-taking duty is certainly challenging. But for all the generousness and sympathy of Maugham’s vision - “Love comes and goes, and none of us can help ourselves,” muses one character, while another proclaims that “We’re none of us all-of-a-piece … not one self but half a dozen” - there’s a rather uncomfortable attitude to disability expressed in the piece, which seems absolutely unable to conceive of an “invalid” enjoying any kind of sexual life at all, and thereby becoming merely an object of “pity” to his partner.

Despite the murky undertones of this, Dunster’s production grips and intrigues. The action, beautifully lit by Lee Curran, unfolds on a sparse white set by Anna Fleischle that strips away “the chintz and chaise longue” approach that the director believes to be part of many people’s barriers to Maugham. And while the production is hardly swamped by effects, the opening is hypnotically strange and beautiful. To the tinkling strains of a plaintive jazz version of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” (yes, really) we observe the actors quietly taking their places and stagehands dressing the set.

If anything, the production could have used more of these innovations. Some scenes turn static - the actors are parked around delivering revelations like they’re in an Agatha Christie play - and some of the performances aren’t all that they could have been. The most originally-conceived character by far is Maurice’s mother, Mrs. Tabret - a prototype Mrs. Moore in A Passage to India, I’d suggest - whose reactions give the play its biggest surprises. Margot Leicester brings understated grace and some saving wry humour to this role, and provides the production with all of its most memorable and moving moments.

She does this, it must be said, without a great deal of help from the rest of the cast. Beatriz Romilly’s Stella lacks allure and keeps bursting into fake-looking, shoulder-heaving sobs. Sarah Churm starts meekly and then turns shrill as the righteous Nurse Wayland. Al Nedjari clumps about as the doctor who doesn’t want a scandal to sabotage his burgeoning practice, and David Ricardo-Pearce is barely there as Maurice’s brother. As Major Liconda - onetime beau of Mrs. T - Robert Demeger has some effective scenes. But all the male roles feel underwritten by Maugham, with the exception of Maurice who sadly exits the play after Act 1 (though is - brilliantly - kept visible for the remainder of the action in this production). A double shame as Jamie De Courcey is the only cast member who gives a performance that's a match for Leicester’s wonderful turn.

The Sacred Flame is a flawed play, and Dunster’s production doesn’t entirely overcome its imperfections. But there’s more than enough of interest here to make this a very welcome revival that’s well worth the journey into zone 6 - or elsewhere - to see.

Touring to:


26-29 September Northern Stage, Newcastle
2-6 October Oxford Playhouse
9–13 October New Wolsey, Ipswich
16–20 October Liverpool Playhouse
23–27 October Yvonne Arnaud, Guildford
30 October–3 November Theatre Royal Brighton
13–17 November The Nuffield, Southampton
20–24 November Cambridge Arts Theatre

Reviewed for British Theatre Guide.