Theatre Review: Di and Viv and Rose (Vaudeville)

  

Amelia Bullmore’s Di and Viv and Rose has proved itself to be the little play that could since its debut in 2011. First seen in Hampstead Theatre’s Downstairs studio space, with Tamzin Outhwaite, Nicola Walker and Claudie Blakley playing the flat-sharing heroines of the title, Anna Mackmin’s production later graduated to Hampstead’s main stage, with Anna Maxwell Martin and Gina McKee replacing Blakley and Walker. And the production is now settling in for a four month West End run at the Vaudeville, with Outhwaite still on board as Di, and Samantha Spiro and Jenna Russell completing the cast.

  

The reasons for Di and Viv and Rose’s success aren’t hard to gauge, for Bullmore’s play is an affable, easily relatable, instantly accessible work, one which, in its focus on friendship and its years-spanning time frame, sometimes suggests a female rejoinder to Kevin Elyot’s My Night with Reg, itself currently enjoying a West End transfer following its Donmar revival last year.

  

Actually, the play that Bullmore’s nods to most directly and self-consciously isn’t Reg, though. Rather, it’s Pam Gems’s 1976 Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi (also a Hampstead success story that went on to a West End transfer, interestingly enough), which was revived at the Finborough by Helen Eastman in 2013 (review here). Like Gems’s, Bullmore’s focus is also on female friendships forged in poky premises, in this case the bond formed by three women who share a flat at university in the 1980s.

  

Di (business studies) is a sporty lesbian, apparently frank and forthright, but not yet out to her parents. Viv (sociology) is a prim, ambitious student, diligently beavering away at her work on women’s clothes as social signifiers. And Rose (art history) is a posh scatterbrain, generous with her emotional and sexual affections and resolved to bed as many boys as possible. The drama follows the women through university and beyond, as their lives converge and diverge, always with the memory of their time as students as a bond that unites them.

  

Bullmore's play is at its most beguiling when at its most relaxed, capturing the rites and rhythms of student flat-sharing with affection and nice attention to detail, whether presenting impromptu bops to the Pretenders or cider-supping from wonky bowls. It’s rather less good when cooking up crises for its heroines, though. A sexual assault strand feels awkwardly interpolated from the off, and some of the later Big Dramatic Events can feel a little bogus, too. Though far less pessimistic in its vision than Gems’s play, the drama can’t be accused of presenting a sappy version of sisterhood. But some of the confrontations that erupt between the characters feel tedious and shrilly over-extended, especially in the weaker second half, in which the play – and this production, in particular - also suffers from the loss of one of its principal assets.

  

Despite some under-designed scenes in the second half which make the production look like it’s still taking place in a rehearsal space (the move to the larger venue may account for this), Mackmin finds most of the writing’s strengths, though, zipping the action along with songs that include “The Love Cats,” “Running Up That Hill” and – slightly bizarrely for the moment it's scoring – Robert Wyatt’s take on “Shipbuilding.” The production also benefits from good-to-great work from its actresses. Spiro doesn’t always seem entirely in her element as Viv, but she has some splendid, caustic moments. The only member of the cast to have been with the show from the start, Outhwaite has kept her performance lively and fresh. And Russell (straight outta Urinetown) is just superb, bringing wonderful warmth and captivating naturalness to her characterisation of perhaps the nicest nympho the stage has ever seen.

  

None of the actresses convinces as the 18-year-olds they start the play out as, so much so that the line “We’re very mature for our age” suggests an in-joke. But they’re witty and inventive enough to transcend that, just as the play itself transcends most of its flaws through sheer likeability.

Booking until 23 May.

Ticket provided by Official Theatre and SeatPlan.

Film Review: A Running Jump (Leigh, 2012)

Last year, at the National Theatre, Mike Leigh devised and directed a new play, Grief [review here], a slow-burning work of exquisite stillness and quiet that developed gradually into something extraordinarily intense; watching the production felt like being placed, ever so gently, into a vice, and a full ten months on, I’m still haunted by it. Leigh’s fragrant new short film, A Running Jump, finds him moving in the opposite direction, trading Grief’s slow, sad beauty for full-tilt jauntiness and joviality. One of four films especially commissioned for the Cultural Olympiad - the others are by Asif Kapadia, Lynne Ramsay and Max Giwa and Dania Pasquini  - the canny, candy-coloured A Running Jump transforms London - or at least the East End corner of it occupied by Perry (Eddie Marsan), his wife Debbie (Samantha Spiro), his pa (Sam Kelly) and two daughters (Danielle and Nichole Bird) - into a sports-ground of sorts, replete with characters who become runners, joggers and jumpers as they go about their daily business in the city.

Needless to say, A Running Jump doesn’t have the richness of texture of Leigh’s finest work. But if its short scenes - structured as snapshots - never quite add up to a portrait, the sketch that they do develop is very satisfying. Though Leigh hasn’t made many short films in his career (1988's The Short & Curlies being the most notable) I think it’s a form that suits him. At their least successful, the slightly heightened, broad strokes that constitute the Leigh brand of realism can grate; his approach to characterisation can lead you, at times, to feel that you’ve had enough of his protagonists. Here, by contrast, you’re left wanting more of them. (And there’s no time for finger-pointing admonishments, either.) The cast - made up more of Leigh newbies than regulars - sketch vivid creations, from Marsan’s motor-mouth car-dealer, his entire discourse a variant on patter (“You got a girlfriend? You soon will have in a car like this!”), to Spiro’s  Debbie who channels both Alison Steadman’s Wendy in Life is Sweet (1990) and Karina Fernandez’s flamenco teacher in Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) as she instructs her exercise class in her first scene: “C’mon, I wanna smell that juice!”

Edited to the rhythm of the characters’ movements (when Perry gets a brief moment of easeful repose he’s rewarded with one of the film’s rare close-ups), A Running Jump is so marvellously brisk it’s practically Leigh’s first action movie. But the film also finds time to incorporate that Leigh staple: namely, an encounter between two characters with wildly different concerns and modes of expression. Here that encounter is between Sam Kelly as Perry's sports-fixated Dad and Lee Ingleby’s Gary, who comes to buy a car from Perry, and can’t resist sharing his Mayan-calendar-schooled theories about the End of Days. (Ingleby, it must be said, is every inch a perfect new recruit to Leighland.)

There are some infelicities - Gary Yershon’s score, as insistently employed as it was in Another Year, is the major one - but Leigh has produced a lovely little piece of work here, one that’s fluid, funny and crowned by the intermingled irony and beauty of its superb final shot. A Running Jump is, unsurprisingly, no retrograde Chariots of Fire-esque triumph-fest; rather, it simply shows sport as part of the texture of everyday London life. The movie’s emblem isn’t the Union Jack at all, but rather the pink shirt worn by Perry as he dashes through the busy streets, juggling mobiles, endlessly cajoling, on the make.

A Running Jump screens tomorrow on BBC 2 at 23.20.

Theatre Review: Filumena (Almeida)

Photo by Hugo Glendinning

Eduardo de Filippo’s 1946 play Filumena is a slight wee thing but fairly charming: a battle-of-the-sexes comedy that pits female resourcefulness against male vanity and pride. Its eponymous heroine is a former prostitute who pretends to be dying in order to persuade her long-time lover Domenico, a wealthy businessman, into marriage. The play opens after the revelation of Filumena’s successful deception, which sets the scene for yet more revelations from the character's past and an eye-opening day or two for Domenico, who finds his sense of power and privilege thoroughly tested.

Filumena was last seen in London in 1998, in a production starring Judi Dench and Michael Pennington (that apparently featured a classic Dench first night faux pas). Michael Attenborough’s new production at the Almeida gives off pleasing, sunny vibes. Unfolding on an attractive courtyard set by Robert Jones, and warmly lit by Tim Mitchell, the production begins strongly, with a punchy first Act, but then dampens down, dramatically, as it progresses. (An unnecessary interval doesn’t help.) There’s plenty of pain and complex feelings underpinning the premise, which touches on Filumena’s impoverished background, the sorrow of mother/child separation, and the deceptions made necessary for women under patriarchy. Such issues surface here at moments, cutting through the comedy, and Tanya Ronder’s translation strives for vulgar life. But the tone is mostly light and cosy, and by not going further the play ultimately seems trivial.

Still, the evening remains quite enjoyable, sparked by some spirited, entertaining performances. As Filumena, Samantha Spiro mixes toughness and tenderness to highly engaging effect: she starts out stridently - confronting Domenico with her grievances, we feel the weight of many years of repressed emotion - but softens into serenity (and beauty) in a graced final scene. Clive Wood partners her well as the vain, philandering Domenico, nicely conveying the character’s anger and surprise as his sense of security is undermined. And the venerable Sheila Reid - so brilliant, currently, as the monstrous Madge in my favourite TV guilty pleasure, Benidorm - is a wonderfully warm and watchful presence here as Filumena’s long-time maid and companion, with her own painful history that parallels her mistress’s.

There’s more bite (and better gags) in the average episode of Benidorm, it must be said, and Attenborough’s production certainly isn’t one to go to with huge expectations. But it makes for a pleasant diversion overall.

The production runs until 12th May. Further information at the Almeida website.