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: King Lear (Almeida)

From Ian McKellen to Derek Jacobi, the late Pete Postlethwaite to Tim Pigott-Smith, the last five years haven’t exactly stinted British theatre-goers for high-profile King Lears, a testament both to the enduring power of one of Shakespeare’s most gruelling and gripping tragedies and to the eagerness of veteran actors to get the role under their belts while they’re still physically capable of lugging Cordelia around the stage. Now, pre-empting Simon Russell Beale’s rumoured production with Sam Mendes, it’s the turn of the excellent Jonathan Pryce to venture out onto the heath, in a fine production by Michael Attenborough that makes up in focus, clarity and intimacy what it lacks in apocalyptic vision.

Indeed, Attenborough’s approach to the play is determinedly unfussy. The storm scene is simply staged - smoke and a few sound effects, no water as drenched poor Oliver Ford Davies’s Lear for the Almeida ten years ago - and the overall look is low-key: Tom Scott’s set and costumes could have come directly from a BBC Shakespeare circa 1976. Still, having been somewhat under-whelmed by Nicholas Hytner’s strenuously modern, straining-for-relevance Timon of Athens at the NT just the other day, Attenborough’s gimmick-free take felt extremely refreshing to me. The focus is firmly on character and relationships here, rather than an overriding “concept,” and the production puts some striking spins on the protagonists. A few of these do feel a tad forced: Richard Goulding’s highly engaging Edgar - a character more usually found with his nose in a book, prior to his Poor Tom transformation - is here introduced indulging in a hearty spot of servant-snogging, while the Lear-as-sexual-abuser card gets played for the first time in a while, and to little effect.

Other elements work beautifully, though. Phoebe Fox makes something original and unsentimental of Cordelia, giving the character a combative, steely resolve that melts movingly in the reconciliation scene with Lear; she’s a study of goodness without a hint of sweetness. Kieran Bew - last seen gracing the Almeida stage as the dumbass Kent in Neil LaBute’s Reasons to be Pretty - renders a gorgeously amused and cocksure Edmund (the play’s best role, IMHO!). Bew makes the character’s villainy entirely winning; he gets an audience-rapport going from his opening soliloquy and sustains it up to the character’s final (wonderful!) moment of repentance. Jenny Jules and Zoe Waites offer well-drawn takes on Regan and Goneril, and Ian Gelder’s faithful, stoic Kent and Clive Wood’s moving Gloucester are equally fine.

And Pryce himself delivers a marvellously compelling quicksilver turn. A more agile, robust Lear than many, he puts fascinating twists on the most familiar speeches, subverting sentimentality at every turn, whether by ripping savagely into “Reason not the need!” or undercutting the “great stage of fools” speech with ironic  sermonizing. Everything he does feels fresh, alive, spontaneous. His moments of tender connection with Gelder and Wood win through to genuine emotion, and his connection with Trevor Fox’s Fool - whose riddling speeches come accompanied by magic tricks, and who’s capable of cracking Lear up even when he's at his most enraged or despairing - is beautifully done. Attenborough takes the action at a fair clip, and locates the black comedy in the play’s bleakness without overselling it. The evening has both pace and feeling. Those who like their Lears wilder - or more high-concept - may not be stirred, but this was, for me, a terrific night in the theatre, and by far the strongest production I’ve seen at the Almeida this year.

Running time: 3 hours. Further information at the Almeida website.