EleanorTurney.co.uk

Now, I like freebies as much as the next recently-graduated student, and so at first glance, Arts Council England’s new free tickets for under-26s scheme sounds like a god-send. Well, if Andy Burnham is your god. I love theatre but can rarely afford it at the moment, what with living in the sticks* where theatre is limited and thus having to add train fare to any ticket price. Two years of free tickets at any one of 95 venues across the country (which are currently looking like being pretty concentrated in the big smoke on account of there being so bloody many theatres in London), starting in March, when I will have reached the ripe old age of 22. Sounds pretty bloody good, especially when you read that theatres that sign up will have to guarantee a small percentage of freebies for every show, and that there is no limit to how many different shows one can see.

However, therein lies the problem. For starters, canny, early-rising bastards like me will snaffle all the free seats before most arty people are out of bed and lighting their first gauloise of the day. Look at ‘Kids’ Week’. A London-based, idea: one week in the summer holidays is Kids’ Week, and West End theatres offer a free child ticket (or possibly two…) with every paying adult. Brilliant – kids get to go to the theatre which I am massively in favour of, and there is one less day in the yawning chasm of summer hols. But, Kids’ Week tickets are severely limited, and sell out in minutes via a confusing and poorly staffed phone line. I think I managed to get a freebie to one event in the four years I was eligible and in London. And that’s the other problem: ‘kids’ covers all under-16s, but the freebie is reliant on having a full paying adult with you. Not only does the adult ticket price for a West End show immediately exclude a large swathe of the population, but the scheme also supposes that every interested child will have an adult willing and able to take them. I’m not advocating sending your 7-yr-old off to Shaftesbury Ave alone, but I see nothing wrong with allowing a group of young teenagers to go to a matinee together without adult supervision.

Continuing down this route, the ACE scheme sounds lovely in principle, in that it offers 16-26s those freebies, but why stop at 26? A representative sample of the population (the other people in my arts magazine office!) are angry that it excludes over 26s – why not have a salary criteria rather than an age criteria? Hell, if I continue to work in the arts I’d be all for the low-waged being given priority treatment! Furthermore, there are some serious economic considerations that seem to have been swept under the carpet. If anyone under 26 is eligible for a free ticket, how are ACE going to collect data about whose bums are sitting on those seats? I’m assuming (fairly, I think, given its track record) that ACE will need to tick boxes in order to justify the money. (Speaking of which, in what world will £2m cover 95 venues offering free seats?) So, people like me who love theatre but are generally broke are likely to snap up the freebies. Given that I actually budget in order to treat myself to shows I really want to see – or persuade friends that what I really want for my birthday is to be taken to Hamlet – a free seat I plonk myself down in is a seat’s worth of revenue lost for that theatre and that show.  I’m not suggesting that no-one new to theatre will take ACE up on its generous offer, but the question that is clamourously echoing across the arts sector at the moment is how to keep newly converted theatre-goers attending once the freebies run out. Any ideas?

Performed by Shared Experience.

Adapted by Helen Edmondson.

Directed by Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale.

Seven hours is a long time to sit in the theatre, albeit with a supper-hour in the middle, but the numbness in my nether regions was forgotten as Shared Experience took the audience on a superlative journey through peace, war, doubtful peace, more war, tentative peace, devastating war and finally some possible redemption. The fact that this production was fantastic is not to say that the experience was not gruelling. The first part of the play ended with Barnaby Kay’s nihilistic Pierre Bezuhov intoning “Death. And.  Nothingness”, with all the finality and hopelessness of a funeral knell. Charming. 

Time for a restorative sandwich to revive the flagging spirits and stave off impending depression. It would be an unwise move, at least financially speaking, to drive an entire audience to suicidal despair in the first half, but there were so many stunningly beautiful and resonant moments (as well a cliff-hanger ending) that there was no doubt that people were going to come back for more. 

The tawdry, tired gold of the set was evocative of an age gone by and of ruined splendour, an important theme of the play. The Russian aristocracy running through the blazing streets of Moscow to escape Napoleon’s army squabble over what to sacrifice and what to save. The shimmering mirrors and gold  – mostly life-size picture frames used to create everything from doors and windows to opera boxes – captured the casual decadence of the shallower characters, and gave the young, rebellious characters a physical representation of wealth to reject. The set was opulent enough to make the rich costumes and jewels seem fitting in the party scenes, but was also faded enough to perfectly capture the slightly run-down museum atmosphere of the opening scene.

Despite this visual decadence, the set and props were actually quite minimal while the costumes were gorgeously over the top. Cutlery featured heavily, often making the distinction between dancing and fighting unclear – a clever way of illustrating the vicious nature of much of the aristocracy’s repartee. The actual battlegrounds were created with flags, boxes, and lots of screaming and shouting, enhanced by frighteningly loud gunshots. The ensemble movement work in the battle scenes was spectacular, and the use of slow motion avoided bad-film territory and was shockingly moving. With a fairly small cast and such a long, intimate time on stage, watching the various bright young things we had seen dance, fall in love, sing, drink, boast and fight topple to the ground in agonizing slow motion to twitch and lie still was excellently done – tragic without over-egging the pudding-of-death. 

The cast were unanimously good, particularly those who had the difficult task of charting the younger generation’s journey from pampered innocence to bitter experience. Playing a child is always difficult, but Louise Ford’s Natasha grew on stage from a romantically deluded, spoiled teenager into a calm, sad woman, via a hysterical failed elopement and a love-affaire tragically cut short by the war. The spectre of war touches all of the characters in the play – the clue is in the name! – and Helen Edmondson’s adaptation does not pull any punches when dealing with death and destruction. Homes, families, lives and loves are shattered by war, and Meckler and Teale’s direction excellently counterpoints the young mens’ intense desire to fight for their country with their female relatives’ fear and grief. Particularly of note was Marion Bailey as Countess Rostova, almost physically destroyed with fear for her oldest son and later grief for her younger. Her husband, Geoffrey Beevers’ brilliantly affable Count Rostov, was often the comic relief within the Rostov family’s many trials and tribulations, but his devotion to his family and deep love for his wife and children kept him from becoming a figure of fun. The other patriarch in the play, Prince Balkonsky, played by the excellent Jeffery Kissoon, is a different matter. Frail, feisty and domineering, he bullies and blusters his way through the play, never failing to be compelling, and, at his demise, heart-rending. He had a good limp, too.

His long-suffering daughter, Princess Maria (Kate Wimpenny) channels her suffering into her religion, and her frail hope of one day escaping the tyranny of the father she desperately loves and finding love for herself is delicately and sensitively portrayed. Her wayward brother, Prince Andrei (David Sturzaker), was quite taciturn, meaning that Sturzaker’s eyebrows did a lot of the acting – but never have eyebrows been more eloquent.

The old show-biz adage of ‘always leave them wanting more’ will generally not apply to 7-hour shows, but with a constant energy and a plot that rolled on like a fatal boulder down a hill, Shared Experience’s War and Peace did. Not that I left unsatisfied, but I could have watched more – although I think a cushion would have been necessary! After being put through the emotional wringer for so long, this reviewer was so involved in the emotional lives of these people that the thought of them suffering any more was almost unbearable, and the ambiguity of the ending was therefore slightly frustrating. However, one cannot argue with Tolstoy – and this production of his great work was truly Epic.

‘I never did like those’ he said, nodding towards the packet, trying to break the awkward after-dinner silence.

‘Pink Wafers?’ she asked, incredulous, mouth full.

‘Yeh, they’re just…’ His voice died away. She looked at him and ate the last of her wafer.

‘Are you dead inside?’ she asked matter-of-factly. He laughed, slightly uncomfortably and looked away from her. She ate the last of her wafer and licked her sweetened lips. As she raised her eyebrows teasingly he realised she wanted an answer.

‘I, uh, no,’ he said, attempting a smile. ‘Not the last time I checked.’ He wavered after the feeble joke failed to raise an answering smile and they sank back into silence.

‘Full of chemicals’ he muttered a few moments later. ‘Chock full of chemicals, no nutritional value at all.’

‘Delicious chemicals,’ she corrected. He hid a smile.

‘Pah! They’re just chemicals held together with sugar, and coloured pink to attract small children. Girls I suppose.’ He realised his mistake as he said it, but her repost was already in full flight.

‘Oh right, because boys would prefer macho, spiky biscuits. Poison biscuits. Look how hard I am, I eat poison biscuits.’ She stopped, hands raised, realising how ridiculous she sounded, but he was on his mettle now.

‘Ach, don’t be ridiculous, you know I didn’t mean it like that. Keep your pseudo-feminist rants to yourself. I was merely commenting on the despicable way that unscrupulous advertising companies market products to innocent children who then persuade their doting parents to buy said product…’ He stopped when she stood up from the table, chair scraping on the boards. She did the angry flicky-thing with her hair. Oh crap he thought, I’ve done it again. As she clomped past him in the boots that always turned him on she snapped

‘Jeez, all those long words, I’m surprised you can understand yourself sometimes. Asshole.’ She flounced out of the room. He couldn’t help himself. As she started climbing the stairs he shouted

‘Arsehole, darling. We are not American.’ Silence from upstairs. He picked up the packet of pink wafers and tentatively bit one in half. Smiling, he stood up. Delicious chemicals.

Director: Melly Still

Based on the book by Jamila Gavin, adapted for stage by Helen Edmundson.

Those who perform at London’s National Theatre are accustomed to performing in front of a full house, so all credit to the cast for performing their first preview as though the place was packed. Given that the show doesn’t officially open until November 15th the audience was sizable but quite restless, which given how young most of the cast were makes their professionalism all the more admirable. Particularly of note was Akiya Henry, although she only appeared in the second half she really made her presence felt, without stealing focus from the others. For such a diminutive person her command of the stage, especially when alone, was impressive, and she was powerfully moving without being melodramatic. All of the young cast members managed to avoid melodrama, something that cannot be said for all their adult counterparts. Paul Ritter was brilliantly nasty as Otis Gardiner the Coram Man, and Bertie Carvel was excellent as the grown-up Alexander, but Eve Matheson was rather too hysterical as Mrs Millcote. She did not manage to pitch the dramatic moments right; they were overplayed and unnecessarily frantic given that they did not greatly contribute to the play as a whole.

For what is ostensibly a children’s show, ‘Coram Boy’ was quite spectacularly unpleasant in places, and not in a gleefully gruesome way that might be enjoyed by some children. The discovery of numerous dead babies buried in the woods was fully described on stage using puppets to represent the babies –and bits of babies- that were exhumed. While I appreciate that children can enjoy the macabre and being scared, especially in the odd unreality of a theatre, the acting and action is so well done and so convincing that the National might have problems marketing this as family Christmas entertainment. Disney it isn’t. The other problem with offering this as a family show is that is doesn’t have a traditionally happy ending, I won’t spoil the story, but even though this production has tidied up the ending a little it is still relatively sad. What was unsentimental in the book has become rather too sugary on stage, perhaps as compensation for the unexpectedly nasty scenes in the first half. The impact of the return of the lost son to his family is lessened by Edmundson’s changing of preceding events –much of the suspense is removed.

Helen Edmundson’s adaptation of Jamila Gavin’s excellent story ‘Coram Boy,’ directed by Melly Still, stayed mostly true to Gavin’s plot, even retaining snatches of the original dialogue. Edmundson has naturally changed certain points to make the story work better on stage, but while I understand the writer’s need to make her presence felt on the story, some of the details that she did choose to change struck a rather odd note, making the reasonably complicated plot harder to follow rather than clarifying things. For example, two characters that are killed off rather violently in the book were allowed to live in Edmundson’s adaptation. If she were generally softening the nastiness of the story to make it more accessible I could understand this decision, but given that there are far worse moments that have not been culled and that she has actually made some scenes more unpleasant it seemed a redundant move. For those who have read the book it is vaguely irritating, and for those who haven’t it must seem rather farcical that this particular character is dramatically stabbed but is apparently unscathed in the next scene. Personally, anything that shatters the fragile suspension of disbelief that is the theatre, whether is someone rustling sweet wrappers or a jarringly odd moment on stage, is intensely annoying. Fortunately, this moment came right at the end of the play, and the rest of it was great.

The music that accompanied the action was excellent, a live choir and string septet greatly heightened the atmosphere. Handel (Nicholas Tizzard) is both a character in the play and the composer of the ‘background’ music, I use ‘background’ for lack of a better word because the music is integral both to the story and the atmosphere. Strategic use of music from the Messiah was at times truly tragic; ‘Unto us a child is born’ while babies are being unearthed was incredibly powerful. Its recurrence throughout the play fitted excellently into the plot and served to re-emphasise the loss that mothers felt when they had to give up their children to the seemingly benevolent ‘Coram Man’ in the vain hope that he would deliver them safely to the hospital.

The Coram Hospital, named for its founder Thomas Coram, was established in 1739 to take care of some of the waifs and strays of London. It became an urban legend of its time, a place where unwanted babies could grow up safely and get some education, eventually being apprenticed out to honest respectable tradesmen. However, the stigma of illegitimacy called for secrecy when scared mothers entrusted their offspring to strangers in the hope of giving them a chance in life, which meant that it was an easy system to abuse. Paul Ritter’s sinister Coram Man exploits desperate mothers for his own gain. The play tells the story of 2 sets of friends, and Alexander (Anna Madeley), cathedral choir boys, and later Aaron, Alexander’s son (also Anna Madeley) and Toby (Akiya Henry), Coram boys, caught up in the deceit, secrecy and betrayal of estrangement and illegitimacy. ‘Coram Boy’ is a romp through London and Gloucester, taking in murder, music, hanging, dancing, love, betrayal, evil and angels, via the slave trade, Handel’s Messiah and lots of small boys (played by girls).

Barnaby, Wentworth and Jam in a line on stage. Wentworth on the audience’s left, Barnaby in the middle and Jam on the right.

J: [thoughtfully] It’s been a long time

W: [unemotionally] Yes

J: [mournfully] Is this it?

W: Yes.

B: [melodramatically, gesturing] When shall we three meet again? In thunder -

J: [wearily, not malicious] Oh, do shut up, Barnaby

B: [indignant] Why?

J: We are not witches. We’re not intelelelectuals. We are not about to greet Macbeth with the news of his iminent appointment as Thane of Cawdor. Wandering around quoting The Bard at inappropriate moments…it’s not the done thing.

B: [taking the piss] Not the done thing? Oh gollygosh, it’s just not cricket.

J: Do shut up, Barnaby. This should be solemn.

W: Aye.

The three men fall into silence. Some time passes.

B: I’d quite like to be a witch. A wizard I mean. I’d be great and terrible. Like a god. Or the Wizard of Oz.

W: [sighs]

J: I did think the others would come. They RSVPd…

B: I like it just us three! Like old times. Remember? [pause] Oh, one could get quite soggy with nostalgia and need wringing out to dry.

J: Oh do shut up, Barnaby.

Silence again.

J: I was getting all solemn until you ruined it Barnaby. Prattling on about the bleeding Wizard of Oz! If anyone gave you magical powers I’d disappear   faster than you could say Abracadabra.

B: [laughs, appreciatively] I say, good punning there.

W: What?

B: He made a joke.

J: I most certainly did not. I was observing the solemnity of the occasion. [pause] Unlike some.

B: Oh, bollocks to solemnity. Don’t you know any synonynonymns for solemn? Sombre? Grave? Serious? Fucking Miserable? [pause] Anyway, you did make a joke.

J: I tell you, I did no such thing. And watch your mouth, Barnaby.

B: [impatiently] But you did! If it was unintentional then I suppose it was an example of your inate (read: deeply hidden) wit. You said that if anyone gave me magical powers you’d disappear. Now, you meant that you’d run away because you wouldn’t trust me with magic, and you could also have meant that I would make you disappear, with my new-found magical gifts. Do you see how it works?

W: [impassive] Yes.

J: [unamused] Oh! Now I feel guilty. To make a pun at such a time…only a callous sort of chap would do such a thing. To think that I could pun with       such gay abandon. [shakes head in self reproach]

B: Only Wentworth and I heard you. And we wouldn’t besmirch your reputation by revealing that you destroyed any semblance of solemnity on this occasion by punning, would we Wentworth old chap?

W: No.

B: Although, the occasion did have a certain gravitas until you said that.

W: For shame, Jam. For shame.

J: What? It was a mistake!

W: [solemnly] Never trust a man named after a foodstuff. That’s my advice. You’d do well to mark it young Barnaby.

[Barnaby shuffles closer to Wentworth and away from Jam]

J: Me Mam just liked the name…that’s all.

[B shuffles closer to W]

J: [with a note of desperation in his voice] Chaps? Everyone likes Jam…

B: [triumphantly] But that’s got a double meaning too! Do you mean everyone likes Jam-the-man or Jam-on-toast. [pause] Or bread. Or scones. I mean, I like jam on scones. But Jam-the-man….well, at best I’m indifferent.

J: Barnaby! 

B: Which did you mean?

J: I…

W: [hard] Either way, you have now made a pun and told an untruth. This cannot stand.

J: [wildly] An untruth? I…certainly…did not…

W: [gathering steam] From Barnaby’s previous statement it is clear that not everyone likes Jam-the-man, he is “at best indifferent”, and I happen to hate Jam-on-toast. And scones. Thus, neither interpretation of your pun is truth.

[B and W are now shoulder to shoulder, facing J]

J: I didn’t intend…to pun…

B: But you did.

W: Twice.

B: Although the second was feeble.

W: Nonetheless.

J: I should…

W: Go.

B: Yes.

Exit J. W and B shake hands.

The production that Barrie Rutter described in the after-show talk sounded wonderful in principle, but sadly it bore little relation to the play I had just seen. An extraordinarily young-looking Juliet, (played with freshness and energy by Sarah Ridgeway) was far and away the best thing in this rather shambolic production. She was by turns sweet, pasisonate, naïve and worldy, and her love was totally convincing from first to last. Her death-scene was apallingly garbled and wasted, but I feel this had more to do with the direction than her acting. Romeo, however (Benedict Fogerty in his debut), simply couldn’t bear the weight of the part. His verse-speaking was admirably clear, but his Romeo was all wild eyes and wild hair – and little else. He was lacking in passion, and his love for Juliet was stilted and unconvincing. Rutter’s insistence on finding the rhythm of every phrase makes for very clear dialogue, but is also rather self-indulgent at times and becomes slow and heavy to listen to. This lack of pace would be more excusable if there were something exciting to look at, but the bare wooden stage of the New Vic and meagre props offered no spectacle. I have no objections to minimalist sets, but the acting must then be superlative in order to carry the audience with them and away from the empty theatre space, something this production failed to do. I was no closer to Verona than if I had attempted a flight from terminal five. The incidental musical interludes were mostly successful, making the Capulet ball into a wild romp woked – until the coutly masque became a taditional clog-dance, which was bizarre to say the least. I know Rutter likes to incorporate traditional Northern elements into all his performances, but as with any additions to Shakespeare, it must be justified, and this exuberantly noisy dance, although exhilerating and fun in itself, did not sit well alongside the more traditional elements of this production. What should have been an extraordinarily poignant moment of a jolly wedding march entering Juliet’s chamber to find her dead was spoiled by miss-timed bells and a general lack of gravitas. Furthermore, I do not find brass intruments as intrinsically amusing as the cast and director appeared to.

Juliet’s last speech was given well, but again failed to convery much tragedy – most of the pathos of the scene came from the fact that Ridgeway looks so young rather than what she said or did. The Nurse (Sue McCormick) seemed not to have understood any of the subtleties of her speech, her double-entendres may as well have been singles for all apparent word-play, which made her come across as merely inappropriate not amusing and ribald. The other servants provided much more humour, particularly a spectacularly camp and long-suffering Peter (Thomas Dyer Blake) who made the most of a small role.

The main problem with this production was that there was little variation. The comic interludes had less impact because they were not accompanied by equally high-octane tragic scenes. All of the (many!) deaths were thrown-away, Mercutio’s epic curse ‘a plague on both your houses’ might as well have been asking for a pint and he did not appear to be in any pain from his fatal stab-wound. The inability to feel pain was a common problem, Romeo’s poisoned death, Juliet’s stabbing of herself, Tybalt’s murder, Paris’s murder, they all passed away with barely a murmer. I am not asking for buckets of blood and realistic screams, but such momentous scenes in the play were thrown away and failed to tug the heartstrings at all. There was little evidence of emotional pain in the play either – Lady Montague (Kate-Lynne Hocking) was convincingly distraught at Romeo’s banishment, but Lady Capulet’s (Lisa Howard) grief at finding her only child dead on her wedding day managed to be both mechanical and melodramatic. Barrie Rutter’s Capulet was big of gesture and voice, but sadly small of emotional range. Romeo’s pain at the news of Juliet’s death was unconvincing and wooden. Once again, the only actor with any emotional depth was Sarah Ridgeway, whose horror at the thought of being forced to marry County Paris was palpable, her defience of her father was stirring and did not descend into petulent teenager territory, and her grief at Tybalt’s death and Romeo’s banishment was utterly captivating. It is a mark of desperation, perhaps, on the part of a director who is emphatically against ‘naturalism’ onstage that Romeo and Juliet begin the second half stark naked (apart from Juliet’s tasteful g-string) in a bid to engage the audience’s attention. Sadly for the actors, getting naked in front of an audience of school children is a bad idea, but the fact that the audience remained restless throughout the second half is a good way of judging how well -or, in this case, badly- the play worked. What began as an exuberant and lively romp failed to attain tragedy at any point, and teetered between farce and melodrama.

The Royal Shakespeare Company

Director: Tim Carroll

Carroll’s rather lacklustre production of this, one of Shakespeare’s most problematic comedies, was a hodge-podge of conflicting ideas. What could have been interesting conceptual decisions lacked the courage of their own convictions, and the few very strong moments were lost in the midst of mediocrity. 

This was Shakespeare without the drama, without the passion, without the pain, and cartainly without the suspense. There has been a tendancy with the RSC over the last few years to perform Shakespeare’s plays in such a way that the characters always seem to know what is coming next, and this was one of the worst culprits I have seen. This was the kind of Shakespeare that puts people off Shakespeare.

Carroll appears to have tried to combat his production’s lack of energy with ‘West Wing’ style talking-while-walking. While in the West Wing this lends importance to what’s being said unfortunately in this production it  just meant many lines were inaudible and fluffed. The cast were generally dull, but Amara Karan’s Jessica was particularly insipid. She had one expression (deer-in-headlights) and portrayed no emotional turmoil at leaving her father’s house or eloping. None of the rest of the cast were actually bad, but there was no-one who drew the eye or commanded the open and empty stage of the Courtyard Theatre.

This production began with an exuberant jig dance-sequence, which was repeated at the end. While some of the cast were clearly more at home dancing than others, this was a successful visual piece, and when reiterated at the end demonstrated how well this cast could do physical storytelling. All of the relationships were explained within the changing of partners and movement, it was just a pity that this neat choreogeaphy did not translate into the rest of the play.

Carroll had made some interesting conceptual decisions, but they did not seem to bear any relation to the sense of the play. This meant that they ended up seeming gimicky and did not enhance the production. During the casket scenes, Portia was stood in a kind of cave at the back of the stage, dressed in white with a head-to-toe veil covering her. She was portrayed as some kind of ice-queen, the caskets themselves were made of ice and their keys were icicles. Portia was surrounded by stalactite icicles, which were visually interesting but leant nothing to the performance. It felt as though Carroll had lost the energy and tension of this scene and was relying on spectacle over substance to bring it back.

Musically, the casket scenes – and, indeed, all the scenes – were excellent, although I would again question Carroll’s use of the visual to compensate for the lack of tension: the atonal and atmospheric music really enhanced the scene, with the sound of resonating wine-glasses making the choice take on huge significance. But, the fact that you could see the wineglasses being used meant it had less impact, with the disembodied hands of the musicians serving only to distract attention. However, the wine glasses were later used to great visual effect, the sparkling arc of elevated glasses each consecutively filled with blood in an eerie forshadowing of Shylock’s exaction of his bond.

All of the interesting ideas in this production were visual. The drama of the court scene was mostly wasted by a rather butch but underwhelming Portia/Bellario, but the tall Shylock straddling an Antonio (James Garnon) who was held in a cruciform shape was a truly arresting image. But again, Carroll did not push it, and givne that he spent the rest of play playing down Shylock’s physical Jewishness (he was bare-headed and dressed in a plain suit) it was bizarre to suddenly try and find some tension by emphasising the sacrifical nature of Antonio as a scape-goat.

The fact that Shylock was not dressed in traditional Jewish costume was again an interesting visual idea – a not particularly subtle way of suggesting that actually there was little difference between Antonio and Skylock. However, once again Carroll did not take this idea anywhere; the other Jewish character, Tubal, was dressed in much more obviously Jewish clothes with a covered head. This made the decision to make Shylock look un-Jewish rather pointless.

This production felt as though Carroll had explicitly removed the Jewish element of the play but then not replaced it with anything apart from unjustified visual effects and pantomimic audience participation. Those of a nervous disposition should not sit in the first row of the stalls! It seems to me that if the laughs in a so-called ‘comedy’ (and I admit that that term is problematic with this play) are all coming from ad-libbing and insulting the audience then the play itself is bound to be neglected.

Shylock (Angus Wright) epitomised the problem with this production. He had the most stage presence of any of the cast, but still did not really stand out. Even when sharpening his knife on the sole of his shoe 6 inches from me he was still not intimidating, and neither did he have any pathos. Carroll had not made the essential directorial decision of how to play Shylock, so he was neither victim nor villain, just a rather dull take on such a complex character. The basic problem with this production was that it did not have the courage of its own convictions. Carroll had some interesting ideas but failed to push them far enough to make any kind of real statement, and a bland and unexcting cast failed to capitalise on what he did do.

Right. I’m barricaded in my safe house (a secret location somewhere in Leamington Spa). I’ve blacked out all the windows. Taped shut the letterbox. Bought some heavy-duty earplugs. Insured myself. Assumed the Brace Position. And now I’m ready to surf the wave of public disapproval that has so far varied from accusations of grumpiness to the opinion that I should be shot. OK, here goes: I do not like Harry Potter. In fact, I’ll go further. Really stick my neck out. I actively dislike Harry Potter. Before you ask, yes, I have forced myself to read them all, just so that I can defend my point my view against the forceful tide of popular opinion. The books’ popularity continues to astound me, because they are so…average. I like to pretend to be a reasonably balanced and open-minded person so I’m not going to carelessly rip them to shreds. 

I’m going to meticulously rip them to shreds.

Firstly, they are unoriginal. This, I feel, is a fairly major flaw. There is an argument that there is no such thing as ‘new’ story and that all plots follow one of 7 basic plotlines. I concede that to write a totally original story is impossible; it would need the invention of a new language, culture, society, mindset. However, this argument simply highlights the importance of combining familiar elements in exciting, unexpected and intelligent ways -none of which Rowling does. Stories of boarding schools are hardly innovative, and neither is the idea of a school for young witches and wizards. Magic is always a tricky problem because it can provide a handy get-out clause for characters in sticky situations. Masking the spells with pseudo-Latin words does not hide the fact that there is, if you are super-clever enough to *shock* use the library, a spell for everything. This removes any tension that the books could have mustered and means climaxes fizzle out rather than exploding.

Furthermore, Rowling’s writing verges on the Enid Blyton-esque in places, (I say Harry, pass the sardines. Scrummy) and she deals in nothing but clichés and formulae. Her writing style is patronising (us Muggles are a bit slow) and her world is often poorly realised –why bother being consistent when inconsistencies can be explained away with magic? The ‘clues’ that she puts in the earlier books are just a way of allowing self-congratulatory fans to second-guess the forthcoming plotlines, which removes what little suspense she has managed to create. 

Rowling’s characterisation is unrealistic and two-dimensional; and her idea of how teenagers behave is outdated and, in places, ridiculous. The idea that our hero would not notice girls until his fourth year is frankly laughable. The entire social fabric of a school is based on who likes who and whether either party is going to do anything about it. I’m tempted to invite Rowling to Peckham and show her what mixed schools are actually like, but she might not survive the experience and I have nothing against her personally. Perhaps wizards are late developers. 

Harry as a character is so fantastically annoying, self-pitying and whiny that I’m surprised the stereotypical geek-with-a-heart and wimpy sidekick who save his hide don’t just leave him to the dragons/dementors/basilisks/dark wizards/pixies. Especially the pixies. 

Generally the “good” characters are all too smug and self-centered, except when they’re being noble and sacrificing themselves for their friends. They verge between the two extremes with no middle ground, thus rendering them impossible to empathise with. Dumbledore is annoyingly understanding and good and noble, buck up, man, or there’ll be anarchy at Hogwarts. Harry’s enemies on the other hand are so pantomime that the potential threats get trivialised in the unintentional comedy.  A friend argues that it is impossible not to be drawn into Harry’s world because Rowling has imagined it so vividly, but, as you may have gathered thus far, I found it possible. Easy even. I’m afraid that my view is that if Harry’s world is so prefectly formed in Rowling’s head I’d much rather it stayed there.  I have yet to be even slightly persuaded that the entire Harry Potter phenomenon is anything more than a mediocre children’s book, hyped beyond sensible proportions until no-one actually reads the books critically any more. Oh, and one more problem: Voldermort is not scary. 

Here Endeth the Rant. 

Next Week: Dan Brown Bashing.