Tag Archives: Max Ringham

THE HUMAN BODY

★★★

Donmar Warehouse

THE HUMAN BODY at the Donmar Warehouse

★★★

“this is a play that promises much and fails, ultimately, to deliver”

Lucy Kirkwood’s new play The Human Body is a complex creation, not unlike the human body itself. Michael Longhurst and Ann Yee’s stylish direction makes many pretty pictures of the bodies on stage from this overly length piece. They have assembled a talented cast, lead by Keeley Hawes and Jack Davenport. Cinematic touches, created by onstage videographers, and clever screening of the images, give a touch of glamour to the proceedings. But the overall effect is to remind us that we are not in the cinema, watching a sharp edged black and white movie, but in a theatre, watching a play that is just out of focus.

Set in 1946, the same year that Parliament passed the National Health Service Act, The Human Body is a timely reminder of what an enormous difference free health care made to Second World War exhausted Britain. GP Iris Elcock, (Keeley Hawes) and her disabled war veteran husband Julian (Tom Goodman-Hill) are attempting to rebuild their marriage in much the same way that the rest of the country is attempting to rebuild. Which is to say—they are outwardly supportive of each other as Iris juggles her household responsibilities with her medical practice, and her political ambitions. Presented as an outwardly successful, New Look woman, It’s in the interior spaces of home, her GP practice, and later, a railway carriage, that all Iris’ juggling comes off the rails.

Echoes of the British movie Brief Encounter allows playwright Kirkwood an attempt at some of the glamour and powerful, yet repressed emotions captured so well in director David Lean’s classic. But The Human Body is less about the passionate affair Iris has with actor George as a result of a chance encounter in a railway carriage. It’s more about her boundless ambition to be in Parliament. Kirkwood’s play isn’t even about the passing of the National Health Act, despite the occasional reference to Aneurin Bevan, who spearheaded the passing of the Act. The Human Body is ultimately about Iris—seen from every angle, thanks to the presence of those videographers on stage. We see Iris attempt the impossible. To be a wife, mother, successful career woman, politician, and lover to George. When we see Iris fail to manage all these roles, even her assistance in supporting the passage of the National Health Act, isn’t quite enough to salvage The Human Body. No amount of brilliant acting, stylish direction, and onstage videographic wizardry can overcome a script that fails to give an audience some sense of catharsis.

 

 

Yet Keeley Hawes manages to keep Iris a fully rounded character despite the shortcomings of the script. She is ably supported by fellow actors Jack Davenport and Tom Goodman-Hill. Jack Davenport’s portrayal of George is particularly noteworthy. He manages to reveal George the man with a complex family life, lurking beneath the film actor’s polished charm. Tom Goodman-Hill has the thankless task of portraying Julian, Iris’ resentful husband, but succeeds in making Julian sympathetic nonetheless. He, along with Pearl Mackie and Siobhán Redmond take on a host of other roles as well. Together these seasoned actors bring energy and a sense of ever-changing drama to The Human Body.

Nevertheless, The Human Body cannot decide whether it is a play, or a film. Kirkwood writes the script as though it were a screenplay, but bringing on bits of furniture, endless props, often held by stagehands while the actors use them, simply serve to remind the audience that film can manage all these complicated changes of location simply by saying “Cut!” and moving on. If one tries to change the location in the theatre on stage, it merely looks clunky. In Iris and George’s passionate encounters, the camera is an intrusive third party, no matter how beautiful the images captured on the screen above the actors. What’s happening on stage is a messy distraction, and even good lighting and snatches of Rachmaninov’s lovely music cannot help the actors establish the same intimacy when there’s a camera in the way. There is a profound difference in the ways that theatre achieves its magic on stage, and film on the screen, and The Human Body is a very good lesson in why that is.

It says much for the skills of the actors that the playing time of The Human Body passes as quickly as it does. Fans of Keeley Hawes and Jack Davenport will not be disappointed. But this is a play that promises much and fails, ultimately, to deliver.

 


THE HUMAN BODY at the Donmar Warehouse

Reviewed on 28th February 2024

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Marc Brenner

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

LOVE AND OTHER ACTS OF VIOLENCE | ★★★★ | October 2021

 

THE HUMAN BODY

THE HUMAN BODY<

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

 

King Lear

★★★★

Wyndham’s Theatre

KING LEAR at Wyndham’s Theatre

★★★★

King Lear

“an approachable and nothing-to-fear Lear”

Kenneth Branagh acts in and directs this welcome West End Shakespearean production. Compressed into two hours and performed without an interval, this is an approachable and nothing-to-fear Lear. When on stage, Branagh leads from the front, always at the centre with an arc of supporting characters around him. The direction is sparse, a long succession of comings and goings between characters, often carrying letters to be delivered or discovered.

An extended opening scene before any dialogue is spoken places us in ancient Britain. A dramatic tribal dance (Aletta Collins Choreographer), a Pagan ceremony perhaps, with much thumping of staffs in which King Lear (Branagh) appears dressed in animal furs, his staff held high.

The set is a visual delight (Jon Bausor set and costume designer): A semi-circle of monoliths set to the rear that morph between representations of Neolithic standing stones and Dover’s white cliffs. Above the stage is a huge astral disc. Light and projection brilliantly lifts and lowers the mood (Paul Keogan Lighting Designer, Nina Dunn Projection Designer). Darkness is used to great effect, especially in the storm scene and to represent Gloucester’s blindness.

“Allowing the text to breathe, he gives every consonant its full importance”

It is a reliable-enough performance from Branagh, whilst we may question if he acts old enough or mad enough for the role. Above everything, his Shakespearean diction is exemplary. Allowing the text to breathe, he gives every consonant its full importance. This style may no longer be to everyone’s taste but it works well here and dually provides a working lesson to the supporting cast of RADA alumni around him.

There is little time to get to know the other characters. Goneril (Deborah Alli) and Regan (Melanie-Joyce Bermudez) are both cold and spiteful with little to love in either of them. Jessica Revell brings out delightfully the loving and empathic side of wronged Cordelia but appears less comfortable in her double role as the zither-strumming Fool.

The half-brothers Edmund (Corey Mylchreest) and Edgar (Doug Colling) are admirably chalk and cheese. Edmund is rugged, hirsute, greasy and grimy but played by Mylchreest a little too close to pantomime villain at times. Edgar is the clean-shaven, boy-next-door. Colling provides the scene of the night as he guides his blinded father Gloucester (the excellent Joseph Kloska) in the guise of Poor Tom.

An exhilarating concluding battle scene (Bret Yount) is a mirror of the opening tribal dance but this time with a real fear of danger as the staffs are whirled as weapons.

Kenneth Branagh makes the stage his own in his final scene, cradling the body of Cordelia in his arms. As Lear’s last words stick in his throat, we witness an horrific, silent scream. Pure, perfect theatre.


KING LEAR at Wyndham’s Theatre

Reviewed on 28th October 2023

by Phillip Money

Photography by Johan Persson

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Oklahoma! | ★★★★ | February 2023
Life of Pi | ★★★★★ | November 2021

King Lear

King Lear

Click here to read all our latest reviews