AS YOU LIKE IT (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon)
Verdict: Vintage frolics
ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST (Theatre Royal, Haymarket)
Verdict: Comic mayhem
What an inspired idea for the RSC to pair Geraldine James (72) and Malcolm Sinclair (73) as ‘young’ lovers Rosalind and Orlando in Shakespeare’s woodland romance.
The duo are appearing in a cast of golden oldie actors, aged mostly over 70 — even though tales about old folks falling in love can feel a wee bit queasy (not least to the oldsters themselves).
But romance doesn’t have to be all Romeo and Juliet to work. After a lifetime of heartaches, old people have as much to lose as younger lovers — and they definitely have more to malfunction.
Best of all, it puts an unexpected playfulness back into the story — ironically thanks to our platoon of pensioners needing to move more gingerly about the stage, and take it easy in the fight scenes (including a wrestling match at the start).
So, when our pensionable Rosalind and Orlando escape from Court to the Forest of Arden, they stumble on an assembly of outlaws banished from court, who’ve set up a Sixties-style hippy commune.
What an inspired idea for the RSC to pair Geraldine James (72) and Malcolm Sinclair (73) as ‘young’ lovers Rosalind and Orlando in Shakespeare’s woodland romance As You Like It
And as an elderly rock band descends from the rigging before the interval, we could be back in Glastonbury, with portly Elton hitching up his trousers, as he did on Sunday.
Wisely, Omar Elerian’s production is staged as a gentle rehearsal, with the senior citzs dressed in jeans and beanies as they recreate a fictional 1978 production from memory.
And Elerian also ensures they’re supported by four youngsters, serving as understudies, prompts and unofficial carers. The seniors don’t exactly leave scorch marks on the stage, but what they lack in zip, they make up for in experience.
James, in particular, as ‘young’ Rosalind is a revelation. The RSC should be kicking themselves that this (incredibly) is her debut with the company. Supple of joint, and loose of limb, she is everything you’d want from a Rosalind 50 years her junior: girlish, charming, scheming, solicitous and lovelorn. Despite giving off senior civil servant vibes, Sinclair is in top form, too. His solemn features mean the years hang more heavily upon him, but his Orlando also exudes the delight of a man astonished to find his love reciprocated.
And James Hayes makes light work of the often-laborious fool, Touchstone. He could pick up the pace a little, but he slyly tailors the part to his talents, with cuts and quips of his own.
The one thing missing on Press Night was the leonine Oliver Cotton’s Jaques (the wry woodlander who delivers the ‘All the world’s a stage’ speech). Cotton was indisposed this week (a problem this production may be unusually prone to). He was gallantly subbed by a barely rehearsed Christopher Saul.
But please, can we ask that actors stepping in to the breach be allowed to hold a script, rather than take a noble stab at lines from memory? We the audience really don’t mind.
Accidental Death Of An Anarchist boasts a phenomenal performance by Daniel Rigby as the ‘Maniac’ showman who has infiltrated police HQ by impersonating an investigating judge
Who’s have thought Accidental Death Of An Anarchist, a 50-year-old comedy by an Italian socialist, rooted in the turbulent politics of the 1970s, could make a West End hit? Not I. Three reasons why it has . . . First, Tom Basden’s script updates Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s original to make a riotous spoof of a doomed cover-up by the Metropolitan Police of a fatal defenestration in their custody. It’s a two-hour blizzard (paused only for the interval) of very high-grade gags that give no time to think.
Second, it boasts a phenomenal performance by Daniel Rigby as the ‘Maniac’ showman who has infiltrated police HQ to wreak surreal havoc by impersonating an investigating judge. Rigby performs with rocket-fuelled hyperactivity, reminiscent of Eric Morecambe on hospital strength amphetamines.
Third, Daniel Raggett’s ingenious production on Anna Reid’s set of a dismal office with surface wiring, marker board, carpet tiles and UPVC sliding window, is its own helter-skelter death plunge into comic oblivion.
Yes, there are one or two trite gags obeying PC norms. But otherwise this is a sensational vision of ultrasonic mayhem.
Merry men? Not likely in this right-on Robin Hood
ROBIN HOOD, THE LEGEND RE-WRITTEN (Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park)
Verdict: Off the mark
Paul Hunter stars as The King in Robin Hood at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre
Next in line for historical correction is Robin Hood. If you were hoping for a fun family night out in leafy Regent’s Park, forget it.
This ‘new telling’ isn’t recommended for under tens, and under fours won’t even be allowed in. There’s no sign of anything as un-PC as a cheery Friar Tuck.
Despite the title, Robin is replaced, literally, by Marian (a supercilious Ellen Robertson), who we first meet complaining about the smell of men. She is the wife of the wicked Sheriff who’s helping a consortium of warlords build a highway through the forest. But she hides her loyalty to the peasants by pretending to be an alcoholic. As you do.
But the really unfortunate thing about the supposed larkiness of Carl Grose’s script and Melly Still’s production is that it turns the Robin Hood legend into a tedious PSHE (Personal, Social, Health And Economic Education) lesson.
Ironically, the most fun is had by Alex Mugnaioni’s wicked Sheriff. He’s like a highly strung deputy head teacher keeping order with hangings and finger amputations. Unfortunately, he also uses potions to subdue Paul Hunter’s madcap King.
What did poor old Robin Hood do to deserve this?
Two titans of the stage talk a good game
STUMPED (Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, London)
Verdict: Playwrights pad up
Stephen Tompkinson and Andrew Lancel in Stumped
Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter had more than a Nobel Prize for literature in common (in 1969 and 2005 respectively) — they were both avid cricket fans. Indeed, Beckett appears in Wisden for his first-class appearances for Trinity College, Dublin, as a decent left-handed batsman.
The cricket connection is the inspiration for Shomit Dutta’s new play (first seen at Lord’s thanks to the hybrid live/live streaming company Original Theatre), a tender two-hander directed by Guy Unsworth which imagines a meeting between the titans of 20th-century literature in a 1964 match for the Gaieties cricket club, a team for people associated with the theatre.
The two men admired each other’s work and frequently corresponded, but never padded up together. Dutta places the men on a bench in a pavilion waiting to go into bat, in a clever echo of Beckett’s Waiting For Godot and Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter. They chat, bicker, trade epigrammatic witticisms and philosophical points. It’s played — unlike the current men’s and women’s Ashes series — at a slow to medium pace.
Andrew Lancel’s Pinter is the nervy fanboy to Stephen Tompkinson’s bone dry Beckett, 24 years his elder and at this point much more acclaimed — although just as nervous for his first hit in decades.
Mr Lancel captures Pinter’s increasing testiness as his day starts on the back foot and goes downhill from there, while Mr Tompkinson — recently acquitted of causing grievous bodily harm — gives a touchingly witty performance as the Irishman.
You don’t have to be a cricket fan to enjoy the show, but it helps if you know the work of both writers — and Shakespeare and ancient Greek dramatists, as the references to their works are frequent (and frequently funny).
It’s a gentle village knock rather than all-action Bazball, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Until July 22 (hampsteadtheatre.com)
VERONICA LEE
