'A Woman of No Importance' at the Vaudeville Theatre

A year of Oscar Wilde plays has started at the Vaudeville Theatre so it was time to jump in and get all Wildean. An additional draw was a cast headed up by Eve Best, Anne Reid and Eleanor Bron with the additional delight of William Gaunt having a small role as a local clergyman (I last saw him play John O'Gaunt, his namesake). With that cast and a Wilde play, what's not to like, especially when we were seated down the front of the stalls with perfect views?

The play opens at the country house of Lady Hunstanton who has invited a range of different people in the hops of having an interesting weekend. We have a young lady from America, various members of the aristocracy that seem to go from one country house to the next, a young clerk that Lady Hunstanton has taken an interest in, a politician and various others. A late Victorian play is, of course, full of morality and preaching and very so often you can clearly hear Wilde's Irish views spouted by the young American lady, a cypher for his own views on 'society' and the upper classes.

When Lord Illingworth offers the young clerk, Arbuthnot, a job as his secretary everyone is happy for him. It's a good step, after all. And his mother is invited to join the party for dinner. And that's where the tone changes since Mrs Arbuthnot ran away to live with Lord Illingworth when they were both young but he refused to marry her when she became pregnant. She doesn't want her son to have anything to do with the father who did nothing to help them all those years ago and we see her explain that Lord Illingworth is actually his father. That's where the twists and turns become ever more sharper.

It's a very enjoyable production, excellently delivered. Eve Best is a safe pair of hands as the 'woman of no importance', independent and strong whose only flaw seems to be her relationship with her selfish son. The son annoyed me - that's partly the writing of course, but mainly his stupid 'Ed Sheeran' hair style that was all over the place while everyone else was in character. It was a delight to see Eleanor Bron on stage who was imperious and, well, she played Eleanor Bron really well.

A very pleasant surprise was seeing Anne Reid on stage for the first time. Not only did we get a great performance but she came out in-between acts with some of the 'servants' to sing appropriate songs that helped the story move forward and she has a lovely singing voice. She was a friend of Barbara Cook so that's hardly surprising.

Once we got over young Arbuthnot's tantrums at the end of the play he finds a glove in his mother's drawing room, not knowing that Lord Illingworth had visited earlier and his mother had slapped his face with that glove. Her response to the question of whose glove it was was a very satisfying ending when she said it belonged to 'a man of no importance'. Take that!

Well done all, I really enjoyed this production and I'm looking forward to the next one now. Seeing a Wilde play every few months seems like a nice thing to do. Thank you Vaudeville for taking the plunge and committing to a Wilde year!

'Love In Idleness' at the Menier Chocolate Factory

'Love In Idleness' is the latest in a lengthening list of plays by Terrance Rattigan to be performed in the last few years - is there a campaign to rehabilitate and re-evaluate his work? If there is, I'm not objecting. I've seen a few of his plays in recent years and I've enjoyed them all, and 'Love In Idleness' is no exception. It's directed by Trevor Nunn who seems to have married two scripts for the play together to keep the light comedy mood but reintroduce some of the more political elements from the original script that are often missed out. It makes for an interesting evening.

The play opens with Olivia planning a dinner party during the Second World War and phoning round to ensure attendance. She lives with Sir John, a wealthy industrialist and member of the war-time Cabinet who is getting a divorce from his much younger, frivolous wife. Olivia's husband died a few years before and their son, Michael, was evacuated to Canada. Cue problems when they hear that he is returning and has already landed in the country since Olivia hasn't told him about Sir John or that she lives in his house. Relationships are further fouled when it turns out that Sir John is reviled in Canada by Michael and his 'socialist' friends both as a war-mongering industrialist and as a politician. Will Olivia stay with Sir John and their comfortable life with her as a successful society hostess or will she leave with Michael to a life of penury but keep her son's love? You'll have to go and see it to find out because I'm not telling.

I thoroughly enjoyed the play and it had me smiling and laughing (which is no mean feat). Some of 'capitalist'/old fogies versus 'socialist'/younger radicals comments and banter were a bit odd and felt out of place (or maybe that's a 21st Century audience looking at a 20th Century play?) but I felt it all worked really well. I liked the set of Olivia's townhouse and the dingy little flat in West London and the lighting was good. I also liked the scrim curtain that surrounded the stage before each act and onto which was projected newsreel footage from the time.  There were some great references to things like wartime rationing that kept everything set in it's time and space.

It's a small cast led by Eve Best as the over-indulgent Olivia and Anthony Head as Sir John, along with Edward Bluemell as Michael and Helen George as Sir John's ex-wife Diana. Eve and Anthony worked really well together and there seemed to be real chemistry between them, probably borne of a past on the stage of making things work. Whingey Michael needs to grow up a bit and Edward got that mostly right, while Helen was a joy as the ex-wife sick of a boring marriage and wanting some fun.

I'm really pleased I've seen it and would happily go again. I'll add it to my growing list of Rattigan plays I've seen and liked. It's already been agreed that it will transfer to the West End for a short run, so that's a good thing.

'Anthony and Cleopatra' at The Globe

I have a bit of history with Shakespeare's 'Anthony & Cleopatra', not that I've ever seen it on stage. I 'did' the play at university but the most abiding memory is getting the bus past the Theatre Royal Haymarket in the mid-80s and seeing the posters for Vanessa Redgrave as Cleopatra and thinking 'I must see that'. And then one evening going past on the bus and seeing posters for another play - I'd missed it. It's been performed since then, obviously, but I'd never seen it until last night when I saw it in the open-air warmth of The Globe after a day wandering round both sides of the river Thames hunting for literary benches. Shakespeare's bench is, naturally, outside The Globe under a tree and (usually) covered in tourists (and bench-hunters).

What I like about 'Anthony & Cleopatra' is the carefree love and playfulness of two mature people who each have countries to rule and responsibilities beyond the lovers bed. The jealousies we see from both characters help to make their love believable and say to us that the loves of emperors and queens are the same as ours but have greater consequences when they fail. Their golden period is closing when we first meet Anthony and Cleopatra, when Anthony hears of the death of his wife and must go back to Rome from Alexandria. He is part of the ruling triumvirate after the death of Julius Caesar and his duties call him back to the intrigue and factions of Rome where he marries Octavian's sister to keep the peace. But, naturally, he longs to return to Egypt and Cleopatra. The rest is inevitable, with Octavian becoming Augustus Caesar and emperor over the deaths of Anthony and Cleopatra.

This is an excellent production and (with one exception) all I could've wished for in my first viewing of the play on stage. Eve Best and Clive Wood were excellent as our lovers with great and touching scenes of passion and playfulness, jealousies and lusts and people around them that understood their passions. Phil Daniels was great fun as Anthony's captain Enobarus for most of the play, serious and cutting and comedic by turns, who defects to Octavian and regrets leaving his master. I'd also pick out Sirine Saba as Charmian, Cleopatra's main servant and confidant and Peter Bankole as Cleopatra's messenger and Anthony's man, Eros, both of whom were excellent and got great laughs as well as pathos.

My exception? Well, it was Cleopatra's final speech which Eve delivered with determination and great intent. But I wanted passion and fire, I wanted anger and power and disdain - the anger of a queen at the death of her lover - not quiet determination. I can fully see why it was delivered like that in the context of the play but it's not what I wanted. Cry to the heavens in anger and joy at joining your lover, Cleopatra, this is not just a political act, it is an act of love.

The lines I have remembered for over 30 years are:

"Give me my robe, put on my crown
I have immortal longings in me...
I am fire and air, my other elements
I give to a baser life..."

I want the heavens to open on those lines, for lightning to fork in the skies as the gods rebel against any concept of natural order, and Cleopatra, standing tall and proud, railing against the fates and sending her soul to seek Anthony in a world beyond this one. That's what I wanted but I'm happy with what we were given.

This is a great production - we were even given envelopes full of gold paper to shake down on the union of Anthony and Cleopatra at the end of the first half to join in the celebration of their love. It's on until the end of August so make sure you see it. It'll stay with me for a long time.