EleanorTurney.co.uk

It may be more spectacle than substance, but this production of Doctor Faustus is so jolly that one can’t help but be carried along on the tide of flashes and bangs. While some of the subtleties and delicacy of Marlowe’s language get lost in director Matthew Dunster’s eagerness to rattle along to the next magic trick, these are done with such flair and joie de vivre that it’s easy to forgive this production’s weaker points.

Arthus Darvill is a jauntily-dressed, pointily-bearded Mephistopheles, who reeks malevolence and is clearly enjoying toying with Paul Hilton’s tormented Faustus. However, with both, there is a sense of holding back: Darvill throws away one of  Mephistopheles’ greatest lines (“why, this is hell, nor am I out of it”), almost muttering it to a cowering Faustus, and Hilton doesn’t always cut to the heart of Faustus’s inner turmoil – both could do with more emotional heft.

Although there were many things to enjoy in the production, that’s what’s stuck with me: it was a bit lightweight. For a play that examines the depths of human desires, that ponders intense philosophical questions, that deals with life and death, salvation and damnation, I can’t help but feel that Dunster has sacrificed depth for exuberant colour and clowning. It was much funnier than I was expecting, and while this is fine, it needed some darker moments to contrast.

However, the lighter moments are excellently done. The comedy trio of Robin, Dick and the horse courser are all excellent, playing up to the audience, milking every bawdy joke (and adding some in for good measure) and generally playing for laughs. The threat of hell for those who meddle in magic and necromancy is real enough, and Mephistopheles’s casual cruelty to those foolish enough to try briefly brings a much-needed sense of peril to the proceedings.

The props and puppets (designed by Paul Wills) are gorgeous – especially a rather wonderful pair of dragons. The costumes, too, are sumptuous, and Wills has let his imagination run riot for the devils and angels’ costumes with great effect. The music (composed by Jules Maxwell) is entertaining and mostly spot-on, although again I feel that Dunster relies rather too heavily on thunderous drum-rolls to create tension. He could do with coaxing his cast to produce more of the tension themselves.

The production overall is snazzy, slapstick and, well, sexy, but doesn’t always hit the mark in the darker scenes. Faustus’s soul-searching never comes to much, and despite Darvill embodying Mephistopheles with a louche swaggering menace, it is hard to believe that Faustus is really in mortal peril until the very end when he is dragged kicking and screaming to hell. For a show that is lacking in depth and has over-invested in spectacle, it is, at least, spectacular to look at.

Dr Faustus is playing at the Globe Theatre until 2nd October. For more information and to book tickets, see the website here.

Tim Walker in the Telegraph has written one of the most objectionably snobbish pieces I have read about the theatre in a long time. This may have something to do with the fact that I tend to avoid the Telegraph like the plague, but still. (You can read his piece here if you are of a masochistic bent, but choice quotes from it will appear below). He claims that Tennant’s casting as Hamlet was a blatant piece of ‘celebrity casting’. Fair enough, Tennant is a celebrity. The point that Walker resolutely misses is that the reason Tennant was cast as The Doctor is that he is a very good actor. Hence his casting as Hamlet. The RSC want good actors, Tennant is a good actor. In fact, his Hamlet was the best I have ever seen, and one of the best shows overall that I’ve seen in a long time. The fact that people wanted to see the play purely because ‘Dr. Who’ was in it shows a smallness of mind on their part, but good for the RSC for sticking to their ‘no refund’ policy in support of their well-rehearsed understudies. Ed Bennett was, by all accounts, very good, if lacking the exuberance and speed of Tennant’s Prince.

Walker suggests that “theatre managers, when they pick a major television celebrity to appear in a play, draw people into their establishments who are likely not enjoy the experience”. This implies that it is impossible to enjoy both Dr. Who and Shakespeare. Nice work, Tim. Keep the television-watching riff-raff out of theatres. He continues that Dr. Who fans in the theatre “didn’t get so much as a “sorry” from the man [Director Greg Doran], or, indeed, any prospect of a refund”, but why should they? The RSC has a well-established understudy policy, and it is commendable that the cast were well rehearsed enough for Ed Bennett to step into such big shoes at such short notice. I went to see Hamlet on the 3rd of January, and when we bought tickets at 10a.m posters were up all around the box office saying that due to back injury, David Tennant had had to pull out, and it then listed the three undrstudies who moved up accoridngly (Hamlet’s, Laertes’s and Guildenstern’s). Nevertheless, I was excited and pleased to be able to get tickets so easily. When The Producer came on stage just before the house lights went down, and annopunced that Tennant was back, the whole place went crazy. While feeling suitably smug that we were able to move into plum seats that had been ostracised by people wanting to see Tennant (I presume, maybe they had Noro…), I also felt really quite sorry for Ed Bennett, waiting backstage and hearing the screams of joy that he would no longer be the Prince. I would have liked to have seen him play Hamlet, but he was a superb Laertes, and good luck to him.

The most objectionable part of Walker’s article was his assertion that: “Doran seemed to expect these people, not one of them a natural theatregoer so far as I could see, to sit through almost four hours of Shakespeare without so much as a glimpse of their hero”. By “these people” he means Dr. Who fans, but I’d like to know exactly he means by “not one of them a natural theatregoer as far as I could see”? How can he possibly tell? What does a ‘natural theatregoer’ look like? White, middle-class, well-dressed? I’m white and middle class but I went in jeans and borrowed gloves. Would I pass Walker’s narrow-minded and rather bigoted test to be seen as a ‘natural’? Now, I would argue that almost four hours of Shakespeare is a treat devoutly to be wished, especially if you have managed to sneak into comfy, dress circle seats, but I can understand that not everyone agrees with me. Fine. That does not make them any less of a ‘natural’ theatregoer – you don’t know what you like until you try it. Technially speaking, I am a ‘natural’ oper-goer, in that I’m from a middle-class background, have the money to afford the occasional ticket and have training in classical music. However, I’d rather see Shakespeare any day. I wonder if Walker’s antenae could detect that? The problem here is that, unfortunately, “as far as I could see” in Walker’s case, is not terribly far.