Tag Archives: Wyndham’s Theatre

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“Charles III” at Wyndham’s Theatre

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Mike Bartlett’s biggest hit to date, Charles III, has made a much-deserved transfer to the West End after rave reviews at the Almeida. Billed as a ‘future history play’, Bartlett imagines Prince Charles ascending to the throne and a constitutional crisis that arises when he refuses to sign a bill privileging privacy over the freedom of the press.

As well as being topical and very funny, the ideas are so outlandish – especially the presence of Princess Diana’s ghost – that it might all have turned out a bit silly. But it works. Royally. With a set of buzzing performances headed by a superb Tim Pigott-Smith in the title role, all the actors manage a fine balance between impersonation and a deeper intent. There are laughs at first, but these are well-developed roles and the serious subject matter is fascinating. Director Rupert Goold is uncharacteristically restrained; he knows the play speaks for itself.

Bartlett takes on the Shakespearean mantle with courage and panache. The play is written in verse, a demanding choice that adds humour and holds the attention. References to Shakespeare’s plays are light; it’s not so much the form and language that Bartlett borrows from the Bard as those ambitious themes of responsibility, family and identity – all of which are dealt with so intelligently that the royal soap opera is left far behind.

Not that the house of Windsor doesn’t make great raw material. The drama of youth vs experience, so ably depicted by Princes Harry and William (two sides of Shakespeare’s Hal?), is embraced by actors Richard Goulding and Oliver Chris. Imagining future events in such a fashion makes the heritage of Shakespeare’s history plays a kind of prism, creating layers of speculation. Bartlett handles the possibilities with wit, ensuring that Charles III  is both entertaining and unpredictable, while raising big questions and creating real pathos.

Until 31 January 2015

Photo by Johan Persson

Written 23 September 2014 for The London Magazine

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“Relatively Speaking” at Wyndham’s Theatre

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It’s always a pleasure to see one of our most loved actresses, Felicity Kendal, on stage. A superb comic performer, she really comes into her own in Lindsay Posner’s revival of Alan Ayckbourn’s Relatively Speaking, which opened at Wyndham’s Theatre last night. The show confirms that when it comes to farce, Kendal is unmatched.

Relatively Speaking was Ayckbourn’s first West End hit, in 1967 – the summer of love – and it’s a comedy of mistaken identity surrounding adultery, with a battle of the sexes as a biting undercurrent. A young girl (Kara Tointon) about town travels from London to Buckinghamshire, pursued covertly by her boyfriend (Max Bennett), who aims to meet her parents, but instead encounters her lover and his suspicious wife. It’s a slim affair and all the more impressive for that: sleek and streamlined in construction, Posner puts his foot down and races through in under two hours.

Tointon and Bennett play the young sixties swingers convincingly, and are a pleasure to watch. Though Peter McKintosh’s designs are excellent, it’s a relief to report this production is nostalgia-free. Ayckbourn’s characters seem real and recognisable, regardless of the crazy situations they find themselves in. It’s a welcome take on this most mythic of decades, as well as being the key to great comedy.

The philandering Philip is played impeccably by Johnathon Coy. This golf-playing, sherry-spitting adulterer provides further insight into Ayckbourn’s changing times – and yet more laughs. There’s a joyousness in the writing that makes you feel Ayckbourn is having as much fun as the audience, with the hoops he jumps through to avoid resolution. The characters discover the truth while simultaneously pretending more and more.

No one plays this game more deliciously than Kendal. As the slightly dim, yet ‘perfect’ wife, she knows less than anyone, a position Kendal exploits to gain our sympathy. Kendal is a spry figure, full of energy, commanding attention with perfect timing. She could easily steal every scene, such is her charisma, but her disciplined performance is never overplayed. It’s only fitting that in the end Kendal gets the upper hand and the last of the evenings many laughs.

Until 31 August 2013

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Photo by Nobby Clarke

Written 21 May 2013 for The London Magazine

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“Doktor Glas” at Wyndham’s Theatre

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It’s a rare, welcome, event to have a foreign language production in the West End. Doktor Glas, based on the novel by the Swedish master Hjalmar Söderberg, owes its place in town to the presence of Krister Henriksson, famous for his role in the TV show Wallander and riding high on the trend for all detectives Nordic.

In Sweden, Henriksson is a well-known actor on stage as well as screen and he’s clearly passionately committed to this one-man show; he also directed along it with Peder Bjurman. It’s the story of a doctor’s obsessive love for a patient, hatred of her abusive husband and ambivalence towards her lover. And what should the depressed doctor do with the cyanide tablet he just happens to have made in his spare time?

Glas has an almost clichéd abundance of existential angst about him. In his profession he is “able to help others but never himself”, while in his personal life, he fears that time is passing him by. His view that sex should be something like a “ceremony”, seems a little too Fin de siècle. But Glas is still a compelling, if rarefied, character, whose plight does move you.

Henriksson makes the most out of the plays epistolary form. His impersonations of other characters are superb, injecting humour, and the touches of neurosis he brings to the character make his hypersensitivity believable. Glas’s sometimes-breathless anxiety is wonderfully executed. Indeed, Henriksson is so engaging it is hard to share your attention between him and the surtitles provided.

Doktor Glas is hard work, and not just for Henriksson. Though the lighting is superb, the staging is monotonous and the plot so clearly a device for raising philosophical issues it seems superfluous. While Glas’s anguish is portrayed with an intelligence it’s a pleasure to watch on a stage, I can’t help feeling that his predicament should be more interesting than the show allows.

Until 11 May 2013

Photo by Mats Bäcker

Written 19 April 2013 for The London Magazine

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“Quartermaine’s Terms” at Wyndham’s Theatre

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This revival of Simon Gray’s 1981 work, directed by Richard Eyre, marks a return to the stage by Rowan Atkinson. A story of schoolteachers, set in the early 1960s, it has plenty of laughs but is really quite a serious affair. A testing vehicle for its star attraction, it might leave some searching for more Mr Bean, but Atkinson rises well to the challenge.

As St John Quartermaine, long-standing staff member of the Cull-Loomis School of English for Foreigners, Atkinson plays a man blunted by life. The staff-room misfit and an appalling teacher, he’s a likeable nonentity (and, in Atkinson’s hands, sometimes a little too charming?). The problem for Atkinson is how to stop people laughing at him – the urge is almost impulsive – but Gray’s great creation is a strangely blank character that helps to put distance between the actor and his usual personas.


Most impressively, and appropriately, Atkinson appreciates that Quartermaine is a character around whom the action revolves rather than a star turn. His fellow cast members are, to use Quartermaine’s own catchphrase – “terrific”, and this is a strong ensemble piece. Malcolm Sinclair plays the school’s deputy head, a captain of education, with sardonic, steely beneficence. Felicity Montagu is superb as a study in repression and hysteria. And, as her old flame, Conleth Hill gives the real comic turn of the evening, with every gesture getting giggles, as the two flirt over the croquet sticks and lecture notes.

Increasingly “absent” as time goes on, Atkinson manages Quartermaine’s withdrawal with impressive control and intelligence; perfect for a play so concerned with the passage of time. Eyre’s direction has a thoughtful, elegiac quality, mostly arresting but sometimes robbing the play of zest. Yet as the family dramas that have occurred off-stage (they never involve the lonely Quartermaine) come to our attention, both Eyre and his star provide a melancholic sting that’s perfect for the piece.

Until 13 April 2013

Photo by Nobby Clark

Written 30 January 2013 for The London Magazine

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“The King’s Speech” at Wyndham’s Theatre

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Director Adrian Noble has a hit on his hands with his new production of The King’s Speech at Wyndham’s Theatre. Buoyed by the success of the film and interest in all things royal, the play is an entertaining work with humour and a touching sentimentality. And, to warm the hearts of theatregoers, it isn’t an adaptation. Remember, please, that David Seidler’s play came first.

And what a fine, well crafted piece it is. We all know the story of George VI’s struggle with his speech impediment – and his therapist Lionel Logue is now a household name – but the clear plotting of The King’s Speech and the skilful re-imagining of the pre-war period still impresses. It isn’t inspired or adventurous stuff – the play seems too short to allow any journey of self-discovery for its characters to really take off – but Seidler knows his job and does it well.

The King’s Speech works superbly as theatre. Noble stages at speed and Anthony Ward’s revolving design, around a gigantic frame, not only echoes the play’s theme of presentation but also focuses attention on the acting. No fancy locations or fetishisation of props here – the piece is theatrical enough to rest confidently on its story.

Noble’s is a focused presentation that gets the most out of his cast. There are stirring cameos from Joss Ackland as George V and Ian McNeice as Winston Churchill. Charles Edwards gives a technically astounding performance as the stuttering royal, swearing, singing and dancing his way through the speeches that terrify him, and Jonathan Hyde is full of charm as the “familiar” mentor Logue who becomes almost part of the family. Lionel’s wife Myrtle is made into a major role with a stealing performance from Charlotte Randle. Desperate to return back to Australia but devoted to her husband’s ambition, Myrtle’s forceful stage presence highlights a fascinating triangle of affection that derives from this production’s proud theatricality.

Until 21 July 2012

Photo by Manuel Harlan

Written 28 March 2012 for The London Magazine

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“Hamlet” at Wyndham’s Theatre

A key ingredient to the year long, highly ambitious Donmar in the West End project has been its ‘celebrity’ casting. Younger members of the audience at Jude Law’s Hamlet would certainly feel that the venture has saved the best until last.

It is always great to feel the excitement a star creates in a theatre and heart warming to see the different crowd of people that they attract. But while devoted fans are sure to have a thrilling evening, the rest of us are bound to ask if Law justifies such a charged atmosphere? It is good to report that he does.

Jude Law’s delivery of Shakespearean verse is clear and confident. His stage presence, if not commanding, is conscientious and a real effort is made to engage the whole auditorium. He seems fully aware of the space surrounding him, in a manner many actors working mostly in film frequently forget.

And Law’s engagement with the text genuinely adds something to our understanding of the play. His approach is to show us an angry Hamlet – one of the loudest we might have seen and certainly the most potentially violent. His is not just a brooding and tortured presence but also one who really does seem capable of the play’s bloody ending. Any melancholia has a dangerous edge, which adds drama. Viewers may find this bombast unconvincing, even humourless, but it is a refreshing take on the role.

Unfortunately, Michael Grandage’s production neglects the rest of the cast. So much attention has been focused on Law that other performances appear weak. Kevin R. McNally’s unfrightening Claudius seems to have stumbled on to the throne rather than plotted his way there – we get the impression that the murder of his brother was something that happened by chance. A fine actress, Penelope Wilton sadly makes little of Gertrude. While we can see that she comes to repent her marriage, we cannot fathom her motive for it. In avoiding a Freudian interpretation of the play we are left with a sexless Queen who wears comfy looking trousers. It is difficult to feel anything for her.

One problem might be the speed of this production – commendably, it is just as fast as a thriller and often as gripping. Yet while Hamlet’s soliloquies allow him to take time, the other characters seem rushed. Nobody else in the cast really gets the chance to stand up to Law – it they did then this might have been a great production. As things stand, we simply have a great Hamlet.

Until 22 August 2009

Photo by Johan Persson

Written 7 June 2009 for The London Magazine