The Entertainer

Went to see 'The Entertainer' at The Old Vic this evening and sat right down the front, within easy spitting distance of the stage. It's a nice theatre with a nice bar/restaurant downstairs, the staff all have a strange, fixed smile and the downstairs barmen are incredibly slow. It's seen a lot of history and some of the seats creak. That gives you a context to work from.

Back in 1957 this was challenging theatre with John Osborne as the 'angry young man' but, after the first act, my immediate impression was that it was dated. Not just all the contemporary references but the feel of it. The theme of Britain as tired and drained almost being sledge-hammered into us by the number of times the characters say they're tired was a trifle over-done as was the depiction of the Rice family as being disfunctional and booze-soddened. I suppose we've seen so many families like that in recent years, but this was probably one of the first.

I liked Robert Lindsay as Archie Rice and Pam Ferris as Phoebe, both seeming to live their parts, with Robert switching between the family play and performing his music hall act inbetween scenes. Less successful were the rest of the family who were less believable and should have been bouncing off Archie and Phoebe but didn't. That might have been the direction? It felt like an opportunity lost.

I'm sure this was a shocking, ground-breaking play when first performed - you could almost see the bits that would have had audiences gasping at the rudeness or the implications or the language. Not so shocking now but not quite a history piece. I enjoyed it.

My main problem throughout the first half or so of the play was Robert Lindsay. I don't know why, but I couldn't get Woolfie Smith out of my head, his character in 'Citizen Smith' in the late '70s. I never really liked that programme since his part was played as a pseudo revolutionary hippy whereas in the real world the revolutionaries were my punk heroes of the time - the hippy language just didn't fit in with what was happening. It was, of course, all playing to stereotypes with him as a lay-about dole-scrounger playing with politics that he doesn't really understand. One of the scenes in the opening credits showed him outside the terribly exotic and far off Tooting Broadway tube station which these days is, of course, my station of choice - who would have thought it when I lived in a little ex-pit village up North?