Culture

The elephant in the room (or what's wrong with theatre reviews part one)

February 14, 2008
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Sometimes things happen in the arts which are so strange that you look on in disbelief, jaw open. One such is the trailer for the film of Mamma Mia! (it's the moment when Meryl Streep starts singing the title song). Another is in its way even stranger.

The first act of the revival of Alan Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular (1972) at the Garrick is so full of strange and terrible things that it's hard to believe anything worse could happen. But then at the end of act two something even weirder happens. The terrific David Bamber (Mole in the National's Wind in the Willows, award-winning performance in My Night With Reg) plays the ghastly social climber, Sidney Hopcroft. Hopcroft is a small weaselly man, a small shopkeeper when we first meet him, married to his small nervous wife (played by the unbelievably over-the-top Jane Horrocks who seems to have modelled her performance on Michael Crawford in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em). And David Bamber is just right for the part, as he was for timid Mole in Bennett's adaptation of Wind in the Willows. And then he has to take off his shirt and stands there with a set of arm muscles that are extraordinary. He has muscles in places where Governor Schwarzenegger doesn't have places (copyright Harry Carpenter c1972). It could not be more extraordinary if Jane Horrocks suddenly walked on with an afro (actually, given her performance anything was possible). Little weaselly shopkeeper guy has turned into Popeye.

But no one reacted. None of the other actors said a word. Evidently the director hadn't said anything (he might have suggested changing a line or two of the script at this point before his main character suddenly lost all plausibility). The audience didn't react. More importantly, not one of the reviews I have read said anything either. That is the elephant in the room. How strange does something on stage have to be, how incongruous and totally bizarre (is David Bamber preparing for the biopic of Sylvester Stallone?), before anyone can acknowledge it has actually happened?

Of course, we have all seen Hollywood actors playing French peasants with dazzling white teeth or factory workers in the industrial revolution with perfect skin and a Malibu all-over tan. "Hollywood naturalism" was always bound by the iron laws of American fashion. Roman senators in 1950s haircuts. You know the kind of thing. But this was something else and Michael Billington (who would himself be perfect for Sidney, by the way) says not a word.

Mind you, the critics of the Guardian, the Independent and the Times were so busy giving out stars for this execrable production, that it may be odd to single out this odd moment. Isn't that rather missing the point, when these critics have collectively lost their sanity?

None of this would matter if two good tickets at the Garrick didn't cost close on £100. Perhaps it's time theatre critics started paying their way? That might help sharpen their critical faculties. At least help them tell the difference between a shockingly bad production and "Great holiday entertainment" (Daily Mail).