Lloyd Evans
Already a subscriber? Log in
Trickster nature has been maliciously kind to Simon Russell Beale. It made him the leading actor of his generation and instilled in him a desire to perform Shakespeare’s awesome roll-call of warrior princes. It also built him like a chest of drawers. His physique has always hampered his Shakespearean outings, so it’s a great relief, and a pleasure, to see him on the stage of the National in a role that complements every last bauble in his dazzling thesaurus of effects.
London Assurance, a slapstick comedy, was written in 1841 by a 20-year-old playwright, Dion Boucicault. It became an instant classic and has been revived many times since but no production can have benefited from such a sublime lead performance. Though Boucicault’s plot is a jumble of clichés, his gorgeous language is steeped in the traditions of Goldsmith and Congreve, and his comedy is handled with an amazing freedom and inventiveness. Russell Beale plays Sir Harcourt Courtly, a London beau, who wants to double his income by marrying an heiress half his age. Inevitably, the girl falls in love with her suitor’s drunken son.
Sir Harcourt fancies himself as a leader of fashion. His silk top hats are two-feet high. He takes breakfast in a purple cape and he favours tinted wigs with the tufts thrust forward like Caesar. When he arrives in the country he’s dressed in a tailcoat of bright orange. Though stout, he’s miraculously fleet of foot, and he accompanies his conversation with a repertoire of mimes and poses that emphasise and justify his vanity. He likes to skip on to a phantom rostrum, one arm raised and one lowered, in graceful asymmetry, as if a sculptor were on hand to render him deathless in stone. This is no fanciful caricature but a genuine portrait of a Byronic dandy, the embodiment of an Epicurean philosophy that devoted itself to the elegant pursuit of pleasure.
Russell Beale covers every inch of this complex terrain with perfect ease and even though the character is a preposterous fop he makes Sir Harcourt’s lofty panache and poetic singularity completely adorable. Having met his betrothed, Sir Harcourt is deceived into falling for Lady Gay Spanker, a shrieking, chortling, harrumphing countess besotted with country sports. Fiona Shaw doesn’t so much play this role as hurtle towards it like a stunt rider aiming smack into a lorryload of straw. The impact is glorious but it leaves her with nothing else to offer. She occasionally varies the note of maximum hilarity with hints of tenderness but there’s very little between these extremes. And I sensed a pre-emptive thoughtlessness here, an expectation that the audience must find her funny or be at fault. She couldn’t possibly be held responsible.
Richard Briers playing an old boy with a comic shudder does a much better job of securing our laughter. Shaw wants to steal every scene. (All actors do.) Briers shows that having stolen it you should give it back. There’s strong support from Mark Addy as a huffing aristo, and Matt Cross makes a dashingly lithe Cockney wide boy. But Russell Beale takes all the honours here. London Assurance is one of the best shows the National has staged in recent years. For its star this is the role of a lifetime.
The Duke of York’s opened in 1892 and has yet to welcome a return visit from the decorators. Its shabby interiors make a suitable setting for Peter Hall’s revival of Bedroom Farce. Written in 1977, Ayckbourn’s play is an essay in counterintuitive drama: a sex comedy minus the sex. He makes no secret of his reliance on contrivances, and he places three bedrooms, in three separate houses, side by side on the stage like non-identical triplets. Hardly a beautiful arrangement. With this blatant falsehood, he aims to get at the truth of sexual relationships by examining four couples in different phases of married life. I admit I’m not a mad fan of Ayckbourn but by the end of this show I was won over. His skill is to escalate his drama with gradual and relentless ingenuity. The squabbles of the first half are flimsy, and not hugely comical, but by doggedly pushing them to an extreme of absurdity he adds layers of pathos and depth at the same time. The sillier everyone gets the sadder they seem. That’s quite a feat. Hall’s cast are pretty near flawless. Rachel Pickup, as the needy Susannah, gives a bravura display of melancholy hysterics. Tony Gardner plays an invalid with a crocked spine and has to get all his laughs with the face and voice alone. His brilliance is matched by Sara Crowe as his errant wife. The savagery and sweetness of her thwarted lust are so judiciously mingled as to conceal the join completely.
Also in Arts Reviews
Also by Lloyd Evans
Latest
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in