'Jerusalem' at the Apollo Theatre

A few weeks ago I went up to the West End and continued travelling to Chippenham and then further into deeper, darker Wiltshire where the May Queen still rules, there's a spirit in every tree and you can meet giants at dawn. 'Jerusalem' is a strange kind of play that works on so many levels and we're lucky to have both Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook back in their leading roles for this revival at the Apollo Theatre. I saw it years ago so had to see it again. 

It's the tale of Johnny 'Rooster' Byron, a middle aged man living in a caravan in the rural Wiltshire woods that are his world. He's a reprobate, a drunkard, a drug taker and dealer, up for fun at a moments notice, divorced with a young son but all he's interested in is partying. His contemporaries have mostly grown up  and got on with their lives so he associates with younger people who still want his drugs and the outlandish life he lives and the tales he tells. The Byron's have lived in the area for centuries and he views the woods as his heritage. But the complaints about his behaviour and the noise grow and he's going to be evicted and his caravan seized. What next for Johnny?

The staging is splendid, with his caravan parked on the stage surrounded by trees and chickens living underneath it. Scrappy furniture out front for people to lounge on as they tell their stories and listen to Johnny's even more outlandish ones. Like the one where he was a motorcyclist jumping over buses or when he met the giant who built Stonehenge and gave him a drum-sized earring as a keepsake. At the end of the play Johnny is beaten and bloodied but still defiant as he beats the drum to summon the Byron Boys from their graves, his ancestors, and asks the giant to save him as the police approach to evict him. The trees shake and the lights go off. The end. I believe. 

How on earth Mark Rylance can maintain that level of intensity for so long - night after night - is astonishing. He must be exhausted after every performance. Every now and then I had to think for a moment about what had been said in those West Country accents and wondered how Broadway audiences managed.There were hints of Spencerian lyric poetry and the brutal reality of the modern world, the unbelief that one of their own would fly to Australia for a new life when Chippenham was so exotic and tales of the olde world of the May Queen and the jingling of morris dancing. A world in conflict, a modern mythology that Johnny is incapable of solving. Go and see it, you won't regret it. 

'My Night With Reg' at the Apollo Theatre

We went to see 'My Night With Reg' at the Apollo Theatre, the West End transfer of the revival of the play from the Donmar Warehouse. We saw it twice last summer and loved it so were due a top-up on the joy and frivolity and sadness. I first blogged about it last year and it won a 2014 Plastic Bag Award so it must be worth seeing.

The play has recently been noticed for the poster which was turned down by the Transport for London authorities for showing a bit of bum (see right). The poster that's been published uses 'Ziggy Stardust' to cover the bum entirely and most demurely except we all know he's naked behind that record sleeve. I've no idea why Kevin Elyot chose Ziggy to embody his characters but we get a fun version of 'Starman' during the play.

Anyway, you know the story, right? If not then read my previous blog. It's the same story and the same cast just played a bit bigger to fill the Apollo Theatre as opposed to the more bijou Donmar Warehouse.

We never meet Reg but he's referred to constantly. He's Daniel's lover and, seemingly, everyone's slept with him apart from Guy but Daniel doesn't know. The play opens in 1985 with Guy's flat-warming party when three gay friends from university fifteen years earlier get together again. We have Guy, a copywriter who's just bought his first flat, Daniel, a flamboyant art dealer and John who lives off family money but who Guy fell in love with at university but has never told him.

There's Eric who's finishing off painting the conservatory while listening to the Police on a walkman (how novel - I probably listened to my first walkman at about the same time). There's also Bernie and Benny, the mis-matched gay couple who frequent the pub Eric is a part-time barman at.

 Three acts introduce us to the characters and let us see what happens to them in the short-term.  All scenes take place in Guy's flat with its nice, big sofa and conservatory. The first act introduces us to the characters and the second takes place at the wake after Reg's death that Guy hosts and the tales about Reg start spreading. The third act takes place after Guy dies and leaves his flat to John. There's a lot of death in the play but it's really funny - even I laughed out loud a few times.

There's a difference between a Donmar theatre audience and a West End audience. The Donmar audience was middle-aged male dominated but the Apollo was more representative, particularly with some older couples who possibly saw the original production in the '90s. I liked the couple in their 70s in front of me laughing along to the rude jokes and the old folks discussing the 'gay plague' and people they knew at the end as we all left. The play brings people together. It's a shared history in some ways.

It was nice that we saw the same cast as at the Donmar. Jonathan Broadbent as Guy, everyone's friend but no-one's lover, Julian Ovenden as John the rich kid and Geoffrey Streatfield as Daniel, Reg's lover and art dealer with a jet-set lifestyle. Then we have Matt Bardock and Richard Cant as the mis-matched gay couple Benny and Bernie and, of course, Lewis Reeves from the poster as Eric, the painter, decorator and part-time barman.

It's a play of secrets and lies, of infidelity, of friendships, sexual mores and unknown consequences. What will happen to me?

I laughed on and off throughout the play, laughter alternating with moist eyes. The final scene between John and Daniel was particularly thought-provoking when Daniel said he had to leave because he was tired after a night of cruising on Hampstead Heath in the rain. John agrees that he can't sleep and that he's tired too but with yearning eyes that say there's more.  Is this John saying yes I'm tired so you can go so I can go to bed? or John saying I'm tired, join me in bed? Or John saying I'm tired, I think I've got it as well? I think it's the latter and that's sad. The 'plague' continues.

Perhaps Eric is the future? The young man who doesn't sleep around and won't let John seduce him. But he's also been seduced by Reg. So what happens next?

Go and see this play if you can - it's very thought provoking, particularly to anyone who lived through the 80s.

Bum Cleavage and TfL

I couldn't believe it when I was told today that Transport for London had banned a poster for the play  'My Night With Reg' for a bit of bum cleavage. Really? So I had to look it up and here's the offending image.

'My Night With Reg' has just opened at the Apollo Theatre and I'm seeing it next week (I saw it's run at the Donmar last year and am going back for more).  The poster is of Lewis Reeves who plays the painter-cum-barman in the play who Julian Ovenden tries to seduce in the later stages of the play (and we see a lot more of Mr Ovenden).

OK, there's some bum cleavage in the poster but we've all got a bum and we all know what bums look like so what's the problem? It's not as if it's sexualised in some way (unlike many posters of scantily clad and suggestive images of women). Apparently, the version of the poster that's been approved has the 'Ziggy Stardust' album cover slightly further back to cover the bum entirely. Does that make it a bit more suggestive?

At least it's nice to know that Transport for London appears to have no problem with male nudity by allowing these posters for Bulk Powders with the hashtag #revealyourself. The man in question is clearly naked but his crotch is pixelated and there's a man and a woman looking at him askance as he gets off the train. But is there any real difference between the two posters? Which one - if either - is more sexualised or suggestive?

I find the #revealyourself poster more irritating by imposing an image of 'male perfection' on tube travellers, the vast majority of whom share little with the model used in the poster (I speak from personal experience here). A hairless musculature that bears little resemblance to most men probably isn't a good look or a good message in overall health terms.

This Sunday also appears to be the annual 'take your trousers off on the tube' day which TfL does nothing to stop. If you take your trousers off then you're supposed to wear underpants of whatever sort you prefer so long as they're not too tight or revealing. It's odd what turns up when you search for a poster being used on the tube network. It's also odd to think about who makes decisions on images on the tube network.

Anyway I'm looking forward to seeing 'My Night With Reg' next week - it's what the term 'bittersweet' was invented for and will have special meaning to anyone who lived through the '80s. I did.