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London.
NEVER SO GOOD
by Howard Brenton.
Lyttelton Theatre In rep to 14 August 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Various mats 2.15pm.
Runs2ht 50min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7452 3000.
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 26 July.
Pointed, theatrical examination of a conscience going through a power surge.
Here’s a Fringe writer well in from the cold. A literal cold; Howard Brenton’s early play Scott of the Antarctic was written for performance on an ice-rink, and included the king of England instructing his wife to “Shut your regal cakehole you royal old hag”. There’s no such 1970s fringe brazenness about the upper-classes encountered in Brenton’s story of Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
But Brenton retains the shocks and surprises of his wild Fringe origins – who’d expect the play to start with Macmillan talking about his teeth? Yet they were one cause of the fuddy-duddy image mid-century youth had of him. (Similarly, who’d expect the Stalin of Brenton’s Weapons of Happiness, on this stage 30 years ago, to boast about Russia’s supremacy at – ice-hockey?)
Brenton hasn’t reneged, but he’s matured. As in Paul round at the Cottesloe a few years ago, or In Extremis at Shakespeare’s Globe recently, he’s achieving greater complexity of viewpoints, while still debating vigorously and with vivid theatricality.
Here the debate’s between Jeremy Iron’s mature Macmillan and Pip Carter as his younger self, with youthful enthusiasm for life and learning. Later, by heeding his mother’s scorn and letting iron into his soul as ruthless ambition, Macmillan betrays this young idealist, whose guilt at surviving the Great War after five woundings later takes on the rusty shield of ambition. He battles too with sexual jealousy over his wife’s affair, women's influence being beyond his grasp.
Macmillan seized his chance for the top job after Anthony Eden’s Suez adventure was undermined in 1956 by America threatening to bankrupt Britain if the government didn’t withdraw troops from the Canal. Difficult to imagine now, it was devastating for traditional-minded England, a last bedraggled journey home in the torn and dirty underwear of glorious dreams of imperial power.
As Chancellor, Macmillan took the President’s call then manoeuvred for the top job, a key part of Never So Good. Historians have laid plenty of knives into Macmillan, including for the ruthlessness to which Brenton gives dramatic context through the relation between the two Macs. Strongly performed, Howard Davies’ production is exemplary.
Harold Macmillan: Jeremy Irons.
Young Harold Macmillan: Pip Carter.
Nellie Macmillan: Anna Cartaret.
Dorothy Macmillan: Anna Chancellor.
Winston Churchill: Ian McNeice.
Anthony Eden: Anthony Calf.
Robert Boothby: Robert Glenister.
Neville Chamberlain: Terrence Hardiman.
Selwyn Lloyd: Peter Forbes.
Dwight D Eisenhower: Clive Francis.
Young Harry Crookshank: Ben Addis.
Older Harry Crookshank: Terence Wilton.
Ronald Knox: Tim Frances.
Sergeant Robinson: Nicholas Lumley.
Smithson: Jonathan Battersby.
Ensemble: Sarah Head, Sioned Jones, Anne Kavanagh, Charlotte Melia, Roger Ringrose, Janet Spencer-Turner, Claire Winsper, Rupert Young.
Director: Howard Davies.
Designer: Vicki Mortimer.
Lighting: Mark Henderson.
Sound: Paul Arditti.
Music: Dominic Muldowney.
Choreographer: Lynne Page.
Company voice work: Jeannette Nelson.
NEVER SO GOOD
by Howard Brenton.
Lyttelton Theatre In rep to 14 August 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Various mats 2.15pm.
Runs2ht 50min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7452 3000.
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 26 July.
Pointed, theatrical examination of a conscience going through a power surge.
Here’s a Fringe writer well in from the cold. A literal cold; Howard Brenton’s early play Scott of the Antarctic was written for performance on an ice-rink, and included the king of England instructing his wife to “Shut your regal cakehole you royal old hag”. There’s no such 1970s fringe brazenness about the upper-classes encountered in Brenton’s story of Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
But Brenton retains the shocks and surprises of his wild Fringe origins – who’d expect the play to start with Macmillan talking about his teeth? Yet they were one cause of the fuddy-duddy image mid-century youth had of him. (Similarly, who’d expect the Stalin of Brenton’s Weapons of Happiness, on this stage 30 years ago, to boast about Russia’s supremacy at – ice-hockey?)
Brenton hasn’t reneged, but he’s matured. As in Paul round at the Cottesloe a few years ago, or In Extremis at Shakespeare’s Globe recently, he’s achieving greater complexity of viewpoints, while still debating vigorously and with vivid theatricality.
Here the debate’s between Jeremy Iron’s mature Macmillan and Pip Carter as his younger self, with youthful enthusiasm for life and learning. Later, by heeding his mother’s scorn and letting iron into his soul as ruthless ambition, Macmillan betrays this young idealist, whose guilt at surviving the Great War after five woundings later takes on the rusty shield of ambition. He battles too with sexual jealousy over his wife’s affair, women's influence being beyond his grasp.
Macmillan seized his chance for the top job after Anthony Eden’s Suez adventure was undermined in 1956 by America threatening to bankrupt Britain if the government didn’t withdraw troops from the Canal. Difficult to imagine now, it was devastating for traditional-minded England, a last bedraggled journey home in the torn and dirty underwear of glorious dreams of imperial power.
As Chancellor, Macmillan took the President’s call then manoeuvred for the top job, a key part of Never So Good. Historians have laid plenty of knives into Macmillan, including for the ruthlessness to which Brenton gives dramatic context through the relation between the two Macs. Strongly performed, Howard Davies’ production is exemplary.
Harold Macmillan: Jeremy Irons.
Young Harold Macmillan: Pip Carter.
Nellie Macmillan: Anna Cartaret.
Dorothy Macmillan: Anna Chancellor.
Winston Churchill: Ian McNeice.
Anthony Eden: Anthony Calf.
Robert Boothby: Robert Glenister.
Neville Chamberlain: Terrence Hardiman.
Selwyn Lloyd: Peter Forbes.
Dwight D Eisenhower: Clive Francis.
Young Harry Crookshank: Ben Addis.
Older Harry Crookshank: Terence Wilton.
Ronald Knox: Tim Frances.
Sergeant Robinson: Nicholas Lumley.
Smithson: Jonathan Battersby.
Ensemble: Sarah Head, Sioned Jones, Anne Kavanagh, Charlotte Melia, Roger Ringrose, Janet Spencer-Turner, Claire Winsper, Rupert Young.
Director: Howard Davies.
Designer: Vicki Mortimer.
Lighting: Mark Henderson.
Sound: Paul Arditti.
Music: Dominic Muldowney.
Choreographer: Lynne Page.
Company voice work: Jeannette Nelson.