Last night my uncle and my husband and I went to the wilds of Islington (which is actually far less wild than Dalston, where Ibsen and I last crossed swords) to the Almeida to see Ibsen’s Rosmersholm. I’m on an Ibsen quest, like my Pinter quest, though Ibsen is making it easier by being dead and thus not making it possible to have new play added. We ponied up for a program, which revealed some important Ibsen tidbits for me, especially regarding the order in which he wrote his plays: Rosmersholm preceded Hedda Gabler by four years (1886 and 1890), and was written just before The Lady from the Sea. This gave me an idea of where he was in terms of his skills as a playwright – oddly, near the height of his powers, given that the nearly perfect John Gabriel Borkman was written in 1896 and his last play in 1899. (I can also now say that I have my list of plays to see: I’m going to plan on skipping the critical failures, which I don’t think will ever be produced anyway, but I also have a dire need to see Ghosts and Peer Gynt.)

Rosmersholm (the home of the Rosmer family is the correct translation, I believe) is an odd play. I ended the first act feeling elated, but the second act left me dissatisfied and the third disgusted. As in Lady from the Sea, this comes down to problems with the script. The first act was very naturalistic, mostly concerning a confrontation between Mr. Rosmer (Paul Hilton) and an old friend of the family, Doctor Kroll (Malcolm Sinclair, last seen in Dealer’s Choice – boy, can this guy act!). Listening to Kroll go on about the values of conservatism, the ignorance of the masses, how wives should get their opinions from their husbands, how liberals are evil and a force of corruption to true and noble values, and how wretched the press is was (etc.) was actually a blast. He was strongly opposed to many of the things I personally believe in, but, even though some of his opinions were merely dated, so many of them seemed to still hold relevance today and I found his rants quite intriguing. I was also fascinated by how quickly he shrugged off Rebecca’s (Helen McCrory) attempts to engage him in conversation – after all, what could a woman know about politics! Then Rosmer dropped his bomb on Kroll, the shit hit the fan, exciting debates about atheism and what liberals believe in ensued, and I was hooked, and ready to recommend this play to all of my friends.

Unfortunately, act two descended into, I don’t know, something like “truthyism” but perhaps better described as “writeryistic.” Plot points need to be made, and what better way to do it than two letters sent by a dead person! (I was kind of reminded of the arrival of heralds in the Greek plays, describing off-screen action, such as murders and wars.) We just weren’t buying it and the endless exposition was beginning to grate. I couldn’t buy Kroll rejecting Rosmer’s friendship outright in act one, and his subsequent return in act two layered a second thick improbability on the first. C’mon, this is all supposed to be naturalistic, have the people actually act naturally!

Speaking of which, I was really having problems with Helen McCrory’s costuming and performance. Victorian women didn’t keep their hair in modern office girl fluffy half-twists, they didn’t slop their bodies all over the place, and, in general, I just think she didn’t do her research on properly playing a woman of the era, even if she was a free thinker. I also found the way she made herself tremble when she was confronting Rosmer just a little too much. How is it that an English actor can go to so much effort to get an accent right and then totally drop the personal representation of a historical era?

The penny finally dropped in the third act, when Ibsen threw reality out the door and suddenly went for a sort of Young Werther gothic drama. Rebecca’s revelations were all a little too much to be believed, Rosmer’s endless mood changes were completely over the top, and the ending was just … ridiculous and as over the top as a pasted on Hollywood ending a la Lady and the Sea. If Ibsen has gone to all of this trouble to create real people with real problems, why have them start acting like silly ninnies just to wrap up the show conclusively? All three of us grumbled as we left – such high hopes, so cruelly dashed! I’ll still keep seeing Ibsen, but I’m hoping he doesn’t let me down as roughly as he did last night.

In other news, my esteemed colleagues the West End Whingers have been blamed by a cast member of Gone with the Wind for that show’s “untimely” demise. I think it’s ridiculous to think that anyone who pays to see a preview as putrid as the one they described should be considered in anyway obliged to keep mum about it – in my mind, they were doing a public service! If you want it to be a secret, then workshop the show or have more dress rehearsals, and if you’re genuinely concerned about what to add and what to keeep and how it will play in front of a live audience, then for God’s sake do what they did for Hairspray and trial it in some smaller theatrical markets (Seattle and Chicago in this example). Could this show have succeeded? Possibly, with months more of rewrites – but from what I heard about the songs, I think perhaps not.

(This review is for a performance that took place on Thrusday, June 12th.)

Wanna be in my club? No, me neither. It would all be very enthusiastic to start with. There’d be badges, and uniforms like this, and cigars, and mead, and trifle. Then we’d all get bored, and someone would forget to cancel the order of twenty-five dancing eunuchs, and we’d all get a bit tired and red and cross and go and read in the corner.

There are two sorts of people who run clubs. Ruthless rural women with hard eyes, hard hands and tight smiles who are experts in the subtle workings of patronage, competition and cakes; and ruthless urban women with hard eyes, cold hands and tight dresses who are experts in the subtle workings of patronage, competition and not eating cakes.

London’s a difficult place for clubs. The Groucho’s just a bit dirty and snooty; Bungalow 8’s just a bit small and slick; Soho House’s just a bit over; and the Frontline Club is pretty wonderful, but makes you feel like a waste of space on this earth unless you spend your life getting blown up in the cause of truth. Shoreditch House is really quite nice, but the whole Tsar Nick Jones empire thing is just so… unclub.

The best club in London at the moment is the poker circle operating out of Trafalgar Studios in Sam West’s production of Patrick Marber’s Dealer’s Choice. The great club of the theatre press (all bi-focals, beautifully cut coats, and bile) have vociferously got there before me, but humbly I concur: it’s ace. It’s a wonderful study of the male club: a tooth-and-claw shed-cum-cave microcosm of addiction and obsession where everyone knows the rules, and is therefore free (women never understand about rules). It’s a little theatre where they can act out their roles with their props: cards (for choices) and chips (for love).

It’s a near-perfect show, with a stand-out performance by Malcolm Sinclair as the patriarchal restauranteur and club leader Stephen. The gesture at the end of the play where he half-embraces, half-sniffs his prodigal son’s chair is one of those theatre moments which stay with you forever.

I still have my Brownies housekeeping badge. To get it, I had to light a candle without burning everything around me. There’s some symbolism in there, somewhere.

The policy of the West End Whingers this year is to take fewer risks by reading the what the critics have to say and then plodding mindlessly in their wake.

So first off for 2008 was a visit to a Saturday matinee of the much acclaimed Dealer’s Choice at the Trafalgar Studios which seemed to have been been received rather warmly:

“Drama that’s as good as it gets” (Dominic Cavendish)
(Lyn Gardner)
(Nicholas de Jongh)

Would it come up trumps or would the Whingers be dealt their usual lousy theatrical hands? Both Whingers had seen Patrick Marber’s play first time round in 1995 but neither could remember a thing about it other than that it was centred around a poker game which wasn’t much of an incentive: Phil knows nothing about poker (the only dealing he’s acquainted with is his afternoon shot of his TV fave Deal Or No Deal) and Andrew’s monthly afternoon whist drive didn’t promise to deliver much in the way of expertise. And it’s an all male cast.

The mood was not helped by the fact that the Trafalgar Studios is hardly the Whingers’ favourite auditorium – any further back than row F and you might as well be watching from the top of the Gherkin.

But apart from all that, they went with open (empty?) minds.

Both perked up to find that the first act was played out partly in a restaurant kitchen. While the (capacity!) matinee audience fussed around trying to find their seats (Clue: There is a letter and a number on your ticket. These correspond to a particular row and seat. You’re not at the Menier Chocolate Factory now) Ross Boatman (eight series of London’s Burning and a professional poker player to boot) was preparing food! You can imagine Phil’s excitement as he watched Mr B chopping, slicing and dicing and then peeling live potatoes, there was even a bowl of cherry tomatoes, what a fabulous start to the new year for Phil.

Sadly no food was consumed on the stage (except possibly a Snickers bar – forgot to pay attention) although there were copious amounts of red wine drunk. This made the Whingers feel very at home and when Andrew suggested an interval drink Phil assumed he meant wine (remember this was a matinee, but that wasn’t going to stop Phil). Andrew stuck to overpriced mineral water then proceeded to swig from Phil’s wine anyway. Let us pray that neither Whinger is carrying the norovirus; the theatre has enough potential to induce projectile vomiting without throwing a nasty bug into the equation.

Samuel West ’s production is as good as they say. Top marks all round to the cast too, but especially Stephen Wight (who made such an impression in Don Juan in Soho) as Mugsy who proves himself to be something of a comic genius – the new Rory Kinnear perhaps?

The relatively starry cast also includes Samuel Barnett (the original Posner in The History Boys), Roger Lloyd Pack (Trigger in Only Fools and Horses; Owen in The Vicar of Dibley) and Jay Simpson (Rome). But the top marks for acting go to Malcolm Sinclair (right, playing the double agent Dryden shot by Bond in the pre-title sequence of Casino Royale, another poker-themed work).

The acting was excellent, the cast seemed to have a real chemistry between them, or perhaps this just good acting? Clever folk these actors, West had clearly drilled them well. However the Whingers found themselves preoccupied by rather more prosaic matters. For example, they couldn’t decide whether the play had been updated or not. Were Snickers bars around in 1995? (Yes, Marathon was renamed Snickers in 1989). Did people have mobile phones in 1995? (Yes, but only about five million subscribers compared with 70 million today).

Then there was the matter of the chips and cards in the poker game itself. This seemed such an extraordinary feat of stage management that the cards played were the same as those mentioned in the text! There were so many deals and so much counting of chips that the Whingers sat in awe of the level of organisation that must be applied by the props people. And where were all the fresh pre-sorted packs hidden? Under the table? It was astonishing.

Yes a jolly good show all round, a great deal and a good choice for their first theatrical foray of 2008, the Whinger’s used the Get Out of London Theatre offer (as Phil calls it) for their cut price seats. Highly recommended but check what seat’s you are being offered before buying.

Chewing on a Mexican at Wahaca later the Whingers reflected on how difficult all this must be – an actor mis-dealing the cards would throw the whole thing out. Does it ever happen? They were tempted to go back for the evening performance. Moreover, Phil was tempted to ask Ross Boatman and Stephen Wight who were sitting just two tables away from them. Andrew dissuaded Phil from pouncing on them, but is regretting it now.

Footnote

Apart from the terrible seating, the worst thing about the Trafalgar Studios is the way they mock you by having huge pictures of real stars such as Maggie Smith, John Gielgud, Diana Rigg and Beryl Reid all over the walls. It’s as though they are rubbing it in that you won’t be seeing any real stars. It’s unkind really.

On the plus side, they have installed a Dyson Airblade in the toilets. Andrew was thrilled, never having seen one before, but Phil (who has hygiene issues with hand dryers) couldn’t be persuaded to give it a whirl. Perhaps this will help:

Why Dyson Airblade™ works properly

Working with leading hygiene academics, Dyson scientists and engineers have developed the fastest and hygienic hand dryer. Speed of drying Dyson Airblade™ takes just 10 seconds to dry hands, compared with other hand dryers which can take up to four times longer. No hand rubbing When using Dyson Airblade™, users don’t need to rub their hands together. So any dormant bacteria remains undisturbed. Dirty air in, clean air out Other hand dryers suck in dirty washroom air and blow it onto clean hands. Dyson Airblade™ uses a HEPA filter to remove 99.9% of bacteria and mould from the washroom air it sucks in. The risk of hand contamination from airborne bacteria is therefore virtually eliminated. Anti-microbial coating Other hand dryers are a breeding ground for washroom bacteria. When users touch them (either by accident or to start them) these germs end up being transferred. Dyson Airblade™ is infused with anti-microbial additives to reduce incumbent bacteria and mould by 99.9% and lower the possibility of user contamination.