This one didn’t really float our boat, although it should have done. Michael Frayn, wrote it, Michael Blakemore directed it, Roger Allam was starring in it, the full forces of the RNT were behind it…
…but it didn’t work for us.
It is basically the story of the turn of the 20th century German/Jewish impresario Max Reinhardt, retold as a morality play.
We saw a preview and wondered whether the production was not quite ready when we saw it, but the reviews seemed to share our reservations:
As is the RNT’s wont, no on-line archive resource (inverse correlation between organisation’s size/budget and its ability to do sensible things on-line blah blah), but there is an Official London Theatre stub – click here.
In truth, I remember little detail about this piece. My impressionistic memory of it is that we found the piece impenetrable and sensed that Miller was, sadly, well past his prime when he wrote it. I didn’t write anything positive or negative about it in my log…which is a tad negative.
Article from 28 Jul 2000 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England)
Even Arthur Miller, even the Almeida (which was terrific back then) could muster the occasional dud and this was one of those.
Janie and I quietly agreed that we’d think twice before again booking to see plays written by great writers once they were quite so deep into their dotage.
I rated this production very good indeed at the time and I can understand why. Superb cast, with Michael Gambon as Vanya, Imelda Staunton as Sonia, Greta Scatcchi as Yelena, Jonathan Pryce as Astrov, Michael Blakemore directing…
I’ve either mislaid or never had the programme for this one, sadly, so I needed to do a bit of on-line searching.
The log makes it clear that i went to see this play with Bobbie and that we both thought it was “really good”.
I do remember enjoying it and I especially remember an early scene in which Maggie Smith, as a tour guide, starts making up the history when her memory fails her and/or the reality doesn’t seem interesting enough.
These days I quite often hear the Lord’s tour guides explaining the history of real tennis to a tour group while I play. Sometimes they are pretty accurate and sometimes they indeed dwell into fiction. On one recent occasion (February 2019) they told the group that the charming woman I was playing against, whose handicap is some 10 points less impressive than my modest handicap, is a former open champion and one of the finest players in the world. We both lifted our performances a little to try and impress.
“Fantasy floods in where fact leaves a vacuum”, as Lettice puts it in the play, Lettice and Lovage, which is the very thing I am digressing away from writing about here.
Apparently it opened in October 1987 so we got in fairly early in its long West End run. It was at the Globe Theatre – i.e. the West End Globe, not the Shakespeare facsimile thing that didn’t yet exist in 1988…obvs.
By all accounts it was a big hit – hence the long run and subsequent Broadway run too.
Maggie Smith was terrific as was Margaret Tyzack as her foil/nemesis. I don’t in truth remember what the supporting cast was like – probably just fine. Michael Blakemore directed it, which is usually a very good sign.
By all accounts, including his own, Shaffer wrote the Lettice part with Maggie Smith in mind, which makes sense:
I recall that the play was both funny and thought-provoking about issues of conservation, history and the grey areas between historical fact and fiction.
Here’s the diary extract for that weekend starting with Friday:
Friday 3 January 1986 – Went in to the office this morning – finished Ashley’s files. Met Caroline for lunch – went to Effes [meaning Efes] – v pleasant. Had a lazy evening at home + a fairly early night.
I’d forgotten that I sometimes treated Efes in Great Titchfield Street as a lunch place in the Newman Harris Cavendish Square days. My recollection was as a “soak up the beer after work” place, as I said in my write up of the Z/Yen Seasonal Party there, many years after the 1986 visit:
Update: Caroline remembers Efes as a lunch place more comprehensively than I do – even recalling that her luncheon of choice was No 13- chicken shish. Extraordinary powers of recall, that.
Saturday 4 January 1986 – Lazyish day – went to the high road in afternoon to library etc after lazing for most of the morning. Petra came over late afternoon – went up to town – saw Noises Off – very funny evening, went for late Italian meal. Came back to stay + late night.
Despite having been going for best part of four years, Noises Off was still filling houses and still had an excellent cast: Christopher Godwin, Stephanie Cole, Hugh Paddick, Michael Cochrane, Colette Gleeson, Timothy Carlton, and others too numerous to make it onto the newspaper classifieds at the time. Probably my first sighting of those people and probably my first sight of a Michael Blakemore directed piece too.
I do recall finding the play very funny – especially the middle act. I am really glad to have seen the original production of Noises Off, albeit not the very first cast.
Sunday 5 January 1986 – Saw Petra off this morning – had a big Italian lunch with folks – watched an old movie in the afternoon and had a generally lazy time at home reading etc.
