Can you handle the truth?
Apparently nobody can
At a moment in history when ‘truth’ is, remarkably, a vexed concept, two shows in London are concerned with its importance, or lack of it. It makes you wonder if we’ve always been like this. God, people are awful.
What I’ve seen
I very much enjoyed The Misanthrope at the National Theatre, on until August 1. It’s a new version by Martin Crimp of Moliere’s French classic, which I studied at school in the original and remember precisely nothing about.
At its centre is Alice (originally Alceste, played here by Sandra Oh), a brilliant writer and thinker who cannot abide the fake sycophancy and niceties that ensure the smooth running of the society in which she (originally he) finds herself celebrated. Her friend John (the wonderful Paul Chahidi), a second-rate playwright whose work is, by his own admission, “good enough”, is more relaxed about this kind of thing, but finds his friend’s strength of conviction admirable nonetheless, even if he is happy to exchange familiar pleasantries on the stairs with a woman whom he later admits he has no recollection of.
Idealism is no match for love, however. Alice’s Achilles heel is her adoration for Stefan, here a actor and former (?) addict. She remains blinkered to his flaws, explaining away every trait that makes him a perfect example of everything she hates. Tom Mison, as the ridiculous Stefan, is excellent – damaged and layered but also irredeemably shallow and narcissistic at the same time.
It takes a minute or two to tune into the fact that Crimp has been faithful to the original play’s verse, but once you’re in it, it’s quite fun, although the very cleverness of it does keep you at arms length.
Oh is great – her Alice has something of the Lionel Shriver about her, rejecting small talk, lambasting social conventions (like pretending to like someone’s play when you think it’s shit – there’s a certain amount of knowing digs at the audience here) or the woke and anti-woke bullshit that she thinks pervades modern society. What’s interesting about Alice is that she is both quixotic and often perfectly right. But as John points out, her ideals are not feasible when overlaid on the real world.
The play itself, though, is enormously confusing. This may well be a problem with the source material (as I said, I remember not a jot of it) but the scenarios that are heaped upon each other as Alice finds herself increasingly isolated in her ivory tower of idealism, are also increasingly mad, to the point that the ending is completely baffling. There are also a number of elements that simply don’t pay off – no concrete consequences appear to come of Alice carelessly offending her publisher’s ghastly, talentless daughter Esmée (Imogen Elliott – excellent), nor does anything appear to happen to the journalist hacking into Esmée’s literary blog (I mean, to be fair, who cares). The only consequence for anyone is that Alice loses faith in her friends.
The heavily constructed politesse of our society is awful in many ways but it is also, on some levels, humane. Alice could deliver her perfectly correct criticism of Esmée’s dreadful work in a way that might not crush her, but she thinks it’s somehow dishonest to make the effort it requires to do that. And all the while she’s lying to herself about Stefan, and endlessly making allowances. She’s a hypocrite, no question, but in the way that all of us are at some time or another. She’s awful but you do sympathise, if you can work out what’s going on.
Another French play to consider the importance of how much truth we can and should be expected to handle is The Truth, at the Apollo Theatre until September 12. If you have an affair, it wonders, should you tell your partner and risk causing them pain if otherwise there is no chance of them finding out? It’s a question that most people would probably rather never be asked, at least not in front of said partner.
Christopher Hampton’s translation of Florian Zeller’s Parisian redo of Pinter’s Betrayal, directed by Lindsay Posner, has a lot of larky energy. I thought all the performances were great. Stephen Mangan is Michel, whom we first see at the end of an energetic bout of sex in a hotel room with Alice (Sarah Hadland), the wife of his best friend, Paul (Ardal O’Hanlon). Mangan is not a subtle actor; his slightly exaggerated style always takes a bit of getting used to, and I was concerned at first that the contrast with Janie Dee as Michel’s understated wife Laurence would be problematic, but it works. Dee is the standout here. She has scant lines but she says so much with a look, in particular in the final scenes.
The play is nicely constructed, stuffed with glittering little hints about what’s actually going on, some of which you only realise later, although it is still quite predictable – there’s no way that you don’t work it out extremely quickly, despite a number of moments clearly designed to put you off the scent. Still, it’s hugely enjoyable, and very funny – those who have only seen Zeller’s more serious plays (The Father, The Mother, The Son, for example) will find it a huge relief.
Also on
I’m always a fan of the brilliantly curated group exhibitions by the nomadic gallery OHSH Projects, and they’ve just opened their latest, CONTROL, at Peckham Oasis Gallery. The exhibition explores video games as a vital and expanding cultural medium, tracing the line between design and art, and asking at what point a rendered world, a crafted character, or a system of rules transcends its origins to become something more. It’s a fascinating question and one which I think probably rarely leaps a generational divide. That runs to August 1.
I’m also keen to catch the Cartoon Museum’s latest, Does my head look BIG in this? The art of portrait caricature. It’s a celebration of the art of portrait caricature from its origins in Renaissance Italy (nope, I had no idea either) to its outrageous Golden Age in 18th century England and onto its popularity in the present day.
For me it brings to mind Steve Bell’s representation of David Cameron as a man whose head was trapped inside a condom, which was probably the most devastatingly accurate visual satire I’ve ever seen. That’s on now and runs to November 1.
Book now
This is a reminder that tickets for Official London Theatre’s Kids Week went on sale today. There are more than 50 big London shows, including loads in the West End, taking part in the initiative, in which kids go free with an adult paying full price. Each adult paying full price can also purchase up to two additional children’s tickets at half price - all with no booking fees.
Shows include new participants like Beetlejuice the Musical, The Cat in the Hat, The Comedy About Spies, The Enormous Crocodile, The Hunger Games: On Stage, The Producers, and Sinatra the Musical, plus Alice in Wonderland, Bluey’s Big Play, The Lion King, The Gruffalo, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Horrible Histories, Matilda the Musical, The Play That Goes Wrong, Six, The Tiger Who Came To Tea, Wicked, and Zog, among many others.
It runs throughout the summer holidays, with tickets available to select performances from Monday July 20 to Monday August 31. I’d book it now if I were you – you can do that here.
Also for kids, though no doubt it’s huge fun for adults too, is Horrible Histories’ hit show Awesome Egyptians, to be shown among real historical artefacts in a pop-up run at the Ramses and the Pharaohs’ Gold exhibition at NEON at Battersea Power Station.
There are 180 Ancient Egyptian treasures among which to learn the ‘Mummy rap’ and discover all the gruesome and gory facts of one of history’s most enduringly fascinating civilisations. That’s on until the end of August.
Barbican Outdoor Cinema is coming back too this summer, starting Wednesday August 19 with Arrival, Denis Villeneuve’s captivating sci-fi, which will look stunning against the night sky in the brutalist environment of the Barbican. The festival continues until August 30, with the most brilliant and varied selection of movies – there’s The Florida Project, a child’s-eye view of life on the margins of American society; Makoto Shinkai’s animated fantasy Weathering with You, about a girl who has the power to stop the rain; and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, in which Godzilla meets his most iconic nemesis, King Ghidorah, for the first time.
The Barbican setting will be perfect too for the irresistible 1996 young gay love story Beautiful Thing, set on a Thamesmead housing estate; there’s Jean-Luc Godard’s anarchic Pierrot le Fou, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina; Jafar Panahi’s Iranian football comedy Offside; Poetic Justice, starring Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur; Mati Diop’s visually stunning Atlantics, and Susan Seildemen’s Desperately Seeking Susan. The series closes on Sunday August 30 with Spike Lee’s documentary, David Byrne’s American Utopia. Such a treat.
I have, I admit, never seen Cats, the stage musical. I think we all need to try to forget the film. Hopefully Drew McOnie’s new production at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, which starts previews on July 25 and runs to September 19, will be able to erase those particular Memories (did you see? Did you see what I did?).
There are a couple of great dance shows coming up at the end of the month – at one end of the spectrum, Marianela: Timeless, celebrating the great Marianela Nuñez, one of the greatest principal artists of the Royal Ballet, at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre between July 29 and August 2, which is almost sold out, ballet fans being the rabidly keen bunch that they are. She’s about 44 now, which is quite something for a dancer, but she’ll still be performing alongside her colleagues in a programme she’s curated, of one-act ballets from The Royal Ballet’s repertory and a selection of classic divertissements from much-loved works.
At the other end, if you love your dance with a fat dose of sex and storytelling, Matthew Bourne’s rather brilliant reimagining of Carmen, The Car Man, is returning to Sadler’s Wells between July 28 and August 29. It gives it a steamy bisexual frisson, and there’s a very funny scene in the back of a car. I really enjoyed it.
Somerset House is expanding its summer events series with Laughterama, a new comedy festival – the venue’s first – running from July 29 to August 2. Acts include Josh Widdicombe, Nick Mohammed. Sara Pascoe, Ross Noble, Ed Gamble, Nina Conti, Dara O Briain, Bridget Christie, Tom Allen, Tim Key, Fern Brady, Phil Wang, Rosie Jones and many more. All the obvious people, essentially, but none the worse for that.
And one last thing – from July 20, Trent Park, one of London’s most colourful historic houses (it’s the former residence of Sir Philip Sassoon, ‘the greatest host in Britain’) opens to the public as a museum for the first time this summer, with newly restored rooms and displays charting the central role the house played in British Intelligence from 1939 to the end of World War II. I had no idea it was even there, but it’s on a 413-acre estate, Trent Country Park, which is in Enfield.
Apparently it’s comparable in importance to Bletchley Park in terms of the info gleaned – from 1939, senior German officers, including 59 generals, were held captive there in luxurious surroundings, treated with immense courtesy, but unaware that their conversations were being recorded. Vital information was obtained by a network of miniaturised bugging devices, in walls and skirtings, light fittings, plant pots, window ledges, the billiard table, and even the garden benches.
Beneath the state rooms, teams of secret listeners, many of whom were German-speaking Jewish refugees, worked in concealed basement rooms, recording conversations between the captured officers and producing intelligence that gave the Allies a crucial advantage in the intelligence war against Germany. Quite why, as a German officer, you would not make the assumption that during your incarceration in an English country house you were being continuously surveilled to within an inch of your Leben, I can’t imagine, but I suppose they hadn’t seen as many spy movies as we have.
This is a short one this week because the wifi on this American Airlines flight is absolutely shocking, and I’m off on holiday to spend the next three weeks writing something nobody has asked for in Upstate New York. As a result, these will be slimmer than usual for July, but also free to read. As ever, I hugely appreciate your support.