★★★★

“A gripping and heartfelt true story”

Based on a true story, Going for Gold is a moving retrospective about a British boxing champion’s greatest triumphs and losses, told from the ringside perspective of the woman who loved him.

Yes, there is boxing onstage and you will hear the Rocky theme.

Written by Lisa Lintott, Going for Gold tells the story of two-time National ABA and Commonwealth Games 1974 middleweight champion, Frankie Lucas (Jazz Lintott). Frankie came to London from Saint Vincent as part of the Windrush generation, and we first meet him as a nine-year-old when he joins a boxing club in Croydon. As he trots off, a woman enters and addresses the audience: “I’m not his mother”. This is Gene (Llewella Gideon), who fell in love with Frankie when they were both teenagers and soon after gave birth to their son, Michael (Daniel Francis-Swaby). The immediate break of the fourth wall and the age difference between the actors portraying Gene (50s) and Frankie (30s) tells us that this play is Gene’s memory of her long-term boxer boyfriend. She is our narrator, with Gideon showcasing a natural gravitas that compels the spectator. The play showcases highlights and challenges from Frankie’s life. He valiantly fights against systemic racism to build his sporting legacy in 70s England, but at the expense of his family.

The stage design (Erin Guan) is symbolic of Frankie’s battles outside the boxing ring. We see a living room to the left, a gym office to the right and a boxing ring in the middle. In the left corner is Gene, urging Frankie to come home to see Michael. In the right corner is Frankie’s trainer George (Nigel Boyle), who also urges him to go home to his “missus and son”. In the middle is Frankie whose hunger for success turns into self-sabotaging paranoia. As boxer and trainer, Lintott and Boyle make a fabulous pair. Boyle is exceptional, finding a cool balance between being a stern coach and supportive brother figure. Lintott sometimes struggles with the Saint Vincent accent, but he commands attention with a suave presence and spectacular comedic timing.

The stellar collaboration of the creative team shines during the boxing matches. The play covers Frankie’s greatest fights from 1971 to 1980, executed with excellent movement direction by David Gilbert and fight choreography from Rupert Charmak. What makes the fights impressive, is the clever use of cinematic devices onstage. Here, a knockout is shown in slow-motion, supported by foley boxing sounds (Lo Wu) and strobe lighting (Cheng Keng). A cut-away shot is recreated by jumping between the stage and the projector. The projector shows us archival footage of the real Frankie Lucas fighting in the ring. Lights come on, and we see Frankie falling onto his corner stool onstage. This allows the audience to become immersed in both the public spectacle of boxing and the private moments between boxer and trainer.

The play’s only real issue comes at the end. Frankie and Michael have a conversation that rushes to get key plot points across to the audience before the ending. The unnatural pace (which is at odds with Philip J Morris and Xanthus’ otherwise spot on direction) prevents the moment from having the emotional impact the play seeks in the final scene. Despite this, the story has a satisfying ending. The show’s star is Llewella Gideon who seamlessly navigates between being present onstage and addressing the audience, thus delivering a stunning performance.

A gripping and heartfelt true story about a boxer who was forgotten by history but championed by his family, Going for Gold makes for an insightful and exciting evening at the theatre.

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.

GOING FOR GOLD at Park Theatre

★★★★

“A gripping and heartfelt true story”

GOING FOR GOLD at Park Theatre

Reviewed on 12th November 2024

by Lara van Huyssteen

Photography by James Potter

Previously reviewed at this venue:

GOING FOR GOLD

GOING FOR GOLD

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