KING JAMES at Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“a pitch perfect dissection of male friendship, that tender bond painted in violent strokes”

The saying (almost) goes, of all the unimportant things, sport is the most important.

One reason: sport is the lingua franca of male friendship, all those off-the-shelf metaphors and handy comparisons to fill in for intractable thoughts. Those ups, downs, bruises and heartbreaks. Computers talk in code, men channel life through the fluctuating fortunes of the team they follow.

In King James, we track Matt and Shawn on that journey.

First up, we’re in La Cave du Vin in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and Shawn is here to do a deal for Matt’s precious tickets for the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, the Cavs. This is 2004, the rookie season of local hero LeBron James and, even now, these cagey strangers sense he’s going to be an all-time great.

And he’s theirs.

What the two men don’t know yet is that they’re going to be yoked together serving in the court of King James for the next 12 years (we time-jump to 2010, 2014 and 2016) and their friendship will reflect the comings and goings of the basketball star.

The goings (as LeBron sensationally quits for Miami Heat) are a betrayal and a trauma; the comings (when he returns to end half a century of Cavs failure) are a time of euphoria. Unless you judge a man’s worth not by his impact but by his loyalty.

Loyalty is everything to Matt. He is fragile, hangdog out of choice, riding a mostly luckless life. He has aspirations but they don’t take him far. He’s over reliant on his careless privilege and indulgent parents.

Shawn is sharper round the edges, more purposeful, but that doesn’t mean he is destined to carve out prosperity. Shawn heads to New York and LA to pursue a writing career (mirroring the playwright’s own life). Meanwhile, in between moments of good fortune, Matt tends his parents’ dusty bric-a-brac shop.

Matt is white, and Shawn black, which doesn’t matter much until Matt lets slip what Shawn perceives as a slur.

In this delicate, conventional two-hander, the chemistry is bro-code standard – funny, deluded and nerdy. (LeBron better than Jordan? Discuss.)

The story marks out tiny gradations of disappointment, how life is a study in the futility and necessity of connection. Tension underpins everything – who’s winning, who’s losing. Under Alice Hamilton’s direction, Sam Mitchell (Matt) and Enyi Okoronkwo (Shawn) – both excellent – capture the tone and rhythm of the script with such elan, every exchange feels like a hand-wrapped gift.

Arguing over the origin of the word “fan”:

Matt: No, it’s for “fan” – like electric fan or something.

Shawn: Why would that be the case?

Matt: I dunno! Because we’re cool?

Award-winning playwright Rajiv Joseph is a Cleveland native and this one’s from the heart. His razor-sharp vignettes – slangy and real – are held together with the scar tissue of a veteran sports fan, full of pangs, longing, and the most dreaded thing of all – hope.

King James is a pitch perfect dissection of male friendship, that tender bond painted in violent strokes. Joseph captures these moments in all their delightful and infuriating folly and significance.

You don’t need to know basketball to love King James. You just need to know a man’s essential sorrow.

Treat yourself to a court-side seat.

KING JAMES at Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed on 21st November 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Mark Douet

Previously reviewed at this venue:

VISIT FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN | ★★ | July 2024

THE DIVINE MRS S | ★★★★ | March 2024

DOUBLE FEATURE | ★★★★ | February 2024

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL | ★★★★ | December 2023

ANTHROPOLOGY | ★★★★ | September 2023

STUMPED | ★★★★ | June 2023

LINCK & MÜLHAHN | ★★★★ | February 2023

THE ART OF ILLUSION | ★★★★★ | January 2023

SONS OF THE PROPHET | ★★★★ | December 2022

BLACKOUT SONGS | ★★★★ | November 2022

KING JAMES

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THE FORSYTE SAGA at Park Theatre

★★★★★

“flawlessly executed under Josh Roche’s stylish direction that adds a unique clarity to the sweeping story”

John Galsworthy’s “The Forsyte Saga” earned him the Nobel Prize for literature. Its epic chronicle of the leading members of an extended upper-middle-class Victorian family has understandably been adapted many times for cinema and television. It is a brave undertaking to adapt the extensive series of novels for the stage, especially for a society that, a century later, will undoubtedly balk at the societal norms embedded in the period. Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan have woven together the various strands of the story into a truly magnificent two-part stage play that presents the full meaning and intention of Galsworthy’s original with aesthetic truthfulness. While also allowing it to resonate with a thoroughly modern audience and still be relevant to the way we live our lives now.

First things first: the logistics. The two parts of the play are showing in rep. “Part 1: Irene” and “Part 2: Fleur”. On select days both parts can be seen back-to-back. The programme notes express the hope that ‘each play stands alone, but the experience is far richer if you see both’. More than a clever marketing ploy, the statement is partly true. Yes, they do stand alone (Part 1 more so than Part 2), but it’s not just a far richer experience – it is absolutely essential to see both. For the simple reason that they are both unmissable. What’s more – view them in the correct order. It’s a bit of a marathon coming in collectively at just under five hours, but every moment counts. The shift in the dynamics of the second part involves more investment from the audience, but the whole effect is one of a four act play rather than two independent two-act pieces (you’ll have a couple of hours in between so check out the delicious pizza they serve in the bar).

“The Forsyte Saga” is a male dominated story, yet from the outset this is subverted. The women are very much at its heart here. Pumping that heart is Fleur, played with a subversive passion by Flora Spencer-Longhurst. She introduces, narrates and guides us through the generations – initially the ghost of what is yet to come, but as the events catch up with her, she steps fully into the story. The device is flawlessly executed under Josh Roche’s stylish direction that adds a unique clarity to the sweeping story. Scenes overlap, and with little more than a turn of the head we are transported to a different time and location. Anna Yates’ set consists of nothing but a plush red carpet and matching velvet curtains that draw back to reveal the plain brickwork of the playing space. The vivid picture that the performers plant in our imaginations with such conviction ensures that the bare wall becomes a country house, the rolling countryside, a ballroom, a city street, the riverside… well, you get the picture.

Having got to grips with the multiplicity of characters, the main action follows Soames Forsyte (Joseph Millson). His newly acquired wealth and status give him a self-imposed right to want to own everything he sees, including his wife Irene (Fiona Hampton). Millson drags his character deeper and deeper into this delusional obsession with a remarkable performance that ultimately grabs our sympathy by the throat. Irene consistently gains the upper hand, resisting Soames’ grasping intention, and Hampton brilliantly draws us into her world of male entitlement that she refuses to submit to. The domesticity swiftly becomes uncomfortable to watch (remember that marital rape only became illegal in 1992). Yet everybody is a victim in their own way. Andy Rush as the tragic love interest of Irene encapsulates the snowballing effect of action and reaction.

Most of the cast multi-roll, and as the period shifts from the late nineteenth century to the nineteen-twenties in Part 2, the aging of the characters is passed on to other members of the company with a smoothness of transition that puts Doctor Who’s regenerations to shame. At times it is hard to reconcile the mind to the fact that only nine actors are portraying such a vast league of gentlemen and ladies. I would love to highlight each performance just as I would like to lay out each of the plot twists and turns, but in the interests of column-inches, I will instead simply urge you to discover it for yourself.

Except to say, though, that Spencer-Longhurst’s performance is the cornerstone. Barely offstage for five hours, her journey is epically moving. The daughter of Soames, she is a woman ahead of her time, childlike and mischievous but ultimately unable to escape her father’s gene pool. Forbidden love thwarted; she settles for Michael Mont (Jamie Wilkes in fine form as an escapee from P.G. Wodehouse). However, her love still lies with her cousin Jon (Andy Rush – unrecognisable from his other ill-fated characters). Here Spencer-Longhurst pulls out all the stops of her versatility as she crumples into a carbon copy of her father, with a desire to repossess Jon that borders on obsession and selfishness. The past is uncovered and tragically recycled. Roche’s staging again employs remarkable devices to enhance the poignancy, with Alex Musgrave’s lighting steering us towards a strikingly emotive climax. Likewise, Max Pappenheim’s compositions and sound design echo the journey made through time and through the characters’ swooping arcs.

We have travelled from 1886 to 1927 in the course of an afternoon and evening. Two plays, two generations. One company. To describe it as a period drama is a disservice. It crosses all ages. Within the Forsyte dynasty we see how each generation is the product of its time, but also the product of its predecessors. Watching it in 2024 we also get a sense of that indestructible link to our ancestors. We may like to think it is broken, but splinters still pierce the skin of our modern-day vulnerabilities. McKenna and Coghlan have skilfully and powerfully transposed an outdated and convoluted storyline into a modern and intimate theatre, finding both humour in the humourless and pathos in the unforgiving. In the hands of the excellent ensemble cast, it is a must see. You could get by on seeing just ‘Part 1: Irene’, or ‘Part 2: Fleur’. But don’t settle for merely ‘getting by’. Indulge yourself in the whole saga.

KING JAMES at Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“a pitch perfect dissection of male friendship, that tender bond painted in violent strokes”

KING JAMES at Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed on 21st November 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Mark Douet

Previously reviewed at this venue:

KING JAMES

KING JAMES

THE FORSYTE SAGA at Park Theatre

★★★★★

“flawlessly executed under Josh Roche’s stylish direction that adds a unique clarity to the sweeping story”

THE FORSYTE SAGA at Park Theatre

Reviewed on 19th October 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Mitzi De Margary

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE FORSYTE SAGA

THE FORSYTE SAGA