I went to the theatre last week, myself and the wife were very excited as it's the first time we've been since our daughter was born (not that we went very much before then) . Now whilst the evening ended badly (4 o'clock in the morning with me lying in hospital being given morphine after a rather vicious attack of gastritis, sans pants), the play did not, so I thought something approaching a little review might be nice. One of the charming side effects of morphine is constipation, so when you see it don't be suprised.
I'm feeling better now, thank you.
Cougar in Summer
I think the joke runs something like this:
Upon delivery, what were Quentin Crisp's first words ?
'Well I won't be doing that again.'
Though if I look it up on the internet it is more famously the pithy comeback of a 38 year old Burnley grandmother after being prosecuted for having sex with a 15 year old last August.
Memory is clearly no substitute for the web.
But for anyone who has seen the film version of The Lion in Winter, James Goldman's 1966 stage play it might be a similar verdict. Not because it's bad, quite the contrary, I just wondered what anyone was going to add that Peter O'Toole (Henry) and Katherine Hepburn (Eleanor) hadn't already.
It turns out (that ever obliging internet again and I can't help but feel that in return for this and other knowledge it's going to want my soul) it's not even the only film - Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close had a go in 2003 and Lawrence Fishburne and Stockard Channing1, on stage, in 1999. So I resolved to watch Trevor Nunn's recent revival, this time with Robert Lindsay as Henry and Joanna Lumley as Elinor , without leaning over to my wife every few minutes and whispering, 'it's not as good as the film.'
As an aside Channing won a TONY. Though you'd hope she was used to the dialogue since the play was a favourite of Aaron Sorkind, writer and creator of the West Wing (in which she played the First Lady, Dr. Abigail Bartlet). Some of you may remember the line from an episode of the West WIng 'when the President stands nobody sits,' (No internet - that was me. Though I have to look up which episode - 25th 'The Midterms'), it's not very far from 'When the King is up, nobody sleeps.' Though (and again not the internet I am afraid) Henry was famous amongst the chroniclers for his boundless energy - constantly on the move, unable to stand still - so Goldman had perhaps done his homework. Certainly more than he was credited by recent reviewers who described the play as hokum and the dialogue owing much to Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
It's a tale of the Angevin Royal family at Christmas. Henry, King of England, Duke of Normandy, Count of Maine and Anjou etcetera etcetera and his Queen, Elinor, Countess of Aquitaine (a province that dwarfed its neighbour France in size and wealth) in her own right. Elinor has been locked up after one plot too many and is being trotted out for Christmas Court as well as their three surviving sons: Richard (Lionheart), Geoffrey, and John. The young King of France is there too as Henry's upstart rival, officially to recover his sister's dowry since she has not married the English heir as the treaty agreed. Not least because the heir is unclear and even more so since the sister is now Henry's mistress.
The action comes in the dialogue between family sparring over the succession. Elinor wants the throne for Richard and the Aquitaine for herself, whilst Henry prefers the youngest, John. Neither consider Geoffrey. Hokum it may be and full of anachronisms but the dialogue still flashes like the knives everyone carries. Poinard rather than rapier wit, it's still sharp as mustard, Lindsay and Lumley snap back and forth at each other with relish. And it's the anachronisms that save it from the inevitable comparison, delivered as pithy asides by the two main protagonists they're cleverly used to get laughs. That they manage it is down to some clever casting, knowing not to compete with the film for gravitas, Nunn has opted for a medieval My Family in which his two leads are perfectly cast.
Yes the line 'What family doesn't have its ups and downs? ' sits incongruously in a medieval drama, but as comic punctuation, delivered at the end of a particularly rapid exchange it's perfect as a means of establishing this version of the play as a sitcom Christmas special, which is what they have very sensibly aimed for. Occasionally when they're forced to stray into drama Lumley and the three (very young looking) sons struggle and have to resort to shouting at each other. Which is a shame, but doesn't happen very much. So yes, it's not the film, it sensibly doesn't try to be; instead it's a more self consciously light hearted production, that whilst not the perfect antidote to rich food at Christmas as was evinced by my hours of subsequent agony and drug induced vacancy, the rising bile that was there didn't come from the performance either. Both reminders of the onset of old age and one's own mortality, and whilst the latter was cheaper I'd very much recommend the former.
Worth seeing.
Though do wear some underwear.
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