Nadia Fall has misunderstood the play and, by seeking to make her mark on it, has come dangerously close to obliterating its impact. Bad casting and bad direction, however, is not enough to completely scupper Wertenbaker’s great play. In the end, the magical words she wrote come through – overcoming lightweight performances, an indulgent set, too grand a space and some interesting, but tiresomely intrusive, music.
There is no doubt that Mrs Henderson Presents should transfer to the West End. The material is first-rate and superior to many new musicals that have played there in recent years. It will need a bigger orchestra (and, accordingly, bigger orchestrations) and it could do with some casting fine-tuning and a larger ensemble (another dozen dancers at least) so that a grander sense of scale was permitted. In Bath, it comes across as a superb chamber piece, perfectly suited to the gorgeous Theatre Royal. In the West End, its aim can be higher.
After Monty Python and Blackadder it is not really possible to present this type of opera in full cross-gartered fustian without an ironic angle; so much better in many ways, therefore, to take it out of time and re-present it in another period altogether, or in contemporary dress – as here – where in effect it becomes The Merry Chavs of Windsor. The result is one of the best vindications of the Grimeborn ethos in the current season and a wonderful refutation of the Coward quote at the head of this review.
The play’s the thing – wherein to catch the conscience of a King. And the hearts of an audience. Turner needs to pay more attention to the play and the actors. At the moment, to slightly misquote Hamlet, “Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of Shakespeare’s greatest play.”
It was a brilliant and energetic concert that clearly showed that Verkaik is having the time of her life and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
There is an open-minded integrity about these conversations and characterisations that is highly impressive and which deserves a wider audience in a larger (but not too much larger) performance space
The evening as a whole provided a superbly invigorating beginning to the Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola. We were given new insights into an old work that made it seem much less forbidding and more accessible than usual; and in the second half the joyous, madcap side to the life of the clown and the circus was given full rein in a new one. Tradition and its subversion, the two governing tenets of Grimeborn, were in in this instance in perfect balance.
I doubt anyone could hope for a finer, more delicate production of this great play. It is genuinely funny in parts, full of melodramatic touches which are not silly but insightful, and incredibly moving when the final scenes play out. Davies is at the top of his game here- this is a symphony of theatrical pleasure. It should transfer to the West End and play and play. Producers should not be fearful of a good old-fashioned triumph.
