Tag Archives: Peter Clements

HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR MOTHER

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King’s Head Theatre

HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR MOTHER at the King’s Head Theatre

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β€œthere are some lovely moments, and some laudable dialogue between Maitland and his wife”

How to Survive Your Mother is the newest play from playwright and former journalist Jonathan Maitland, dramatising the work of his 2007 memoir of the same name. Working with director Oliver Dawe, this play explores Maitland’s relationship with his mother, throughout his childhood and early adulthood, as she hot desks her way through different men, and opens up Britain’s first ever gay hotel (this definitely didn’t get enough attention).

Whilst the piece is strewn with moments of humour and astute observation, it was let down by a distinct lack of theatrical action. And by this, I mean a narrative arc; a dramatic structure; a climactic rise and fall, punctuated by catharsis. A play needn’t be a tragedy to necessitate such structures. Perhaps Maitland is jarred by his journalistic instincts, veering into the realm of witty and engaging reporting, but at the expense of theatrical flow. Thus, in lacking direction, the play also lacked pace, making the 90 minutes – sans interval – drag somewhat.

The work lacked that je ne sais quoi that electrifies theatre into life. It felt more like a loose montage of memories of Maitland’s mother’s outrageous displays of narcissism and abuse, than a constructed account of his mother and their relationship. So perhaps, actually, I do sais quoi, and it is the pressing lack of a coherent narrative.

Whilst both play and staging did feel overly busy at times, the set design (Louie Whitemore) and use of props were accomplished and inventive. I especially enjoyed a birthday cake’s transformation into a steering wheel, and shortly after, an airbag.

Within the small cast, majority were multi-rolling, and excellently so, interspersing humour and subtlety into their every character. Personally and perhaps unfairly, I have a long-held vendetta against child actors, and the inclusion of a child (Brodie Edwards and Howard Webb, alternately) in this play did not help to dispel my prejudice.

Maitland has his own role on stage: he appears as himself in the present day action, addressing the audience, and sometimes his wife. At other times, he just circles the stage, or plops himself down in the audience for long stretches. Whilst his self-effacing commentary on both this choice and his lack of acting ability is amusing – and fascinating on a meta-theatrical level – it undermines the dramatic action, detracting focus from the scene itself.

The play, as one would assume, revolves around Maitland’s mother. And whilst he does point out that he has written β€˜a play, not a diagnosis’, his mother dabbles in all sorts of textbook narcissism. The problem with narcissists, though, is that they often straddle charisma and malice simultaneously (PSA: I’m not a psychiatrist). The problem with the portrayal here is that, as effervescent as Emma Davies is, Maitland’s mother is consistently selfish, nasty, and completely objectionable. And with the absence of a narrative arc compelling us to her, it’s hard to develop a strong enough interest in both her and her relationship with her son.

It is the lack of coherence and narrative that lets this play down. Despite this, there are some lovely moments, and some laudable dialogue between Maitland and his wife, largely deliberating on the nature of The Female Middle Age Crisis to Trained Therapist pipeline.

Oedipus did a great job of sparking our collective obsession with mother-son relationships, and Maitland’s new play is an interesting addition. But Oedipus also excelled in its very story, without which there is little appeal. How to Survive your Mother, whilst entertaining, needs this appeal if it is to also be affecting.


HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR MOTHER at the King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed on 28th October 2024

by Violet Howson

Photography by Charles Flint

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

TWO COME HOME | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | August 2024
THE PINK LIST | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | August 2024
ENG-ER-LAND | β˜…β˜…β˜… | July 2024
DIVA: LIVE FROM HELL! | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | June 2024
BEATS | β˜…β˜…β˜… | April 2024
BREEDING | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | March 2024
TURNING THE SCREW | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | February 2024
EXHIBITIONISTS | β˜…β˜… | January 2024
DIARY OF A GAY DISASTER | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | July 2023
THE BLACK CAT | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | March 2023
THE MANNY | β˜…β˜…β˜… | January 2023
FAME WHORE | β˜…β˜…β˜… | October 2022

HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR MOTHER

HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR MOTHER

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THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR

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Marylebone Theatre

THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR at the Marylebone Theatre

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β€œfor a comedy of misunderstandings, it is easy to understand why the play has become a classic”

The Russian-American novelist, VladΓ­mir Nabokov, said of Gogol’s β€œThe Government Inspector”: β€œIt begins with a blinding flash of lightning and ends in a thunderclap… and is wholly placed in the tense gap between the flash and the crash”. Patrick Myles’ adaptation stays perfectly true to Nabokov’s description, literally reading it as a stage direction. Except Myles has downplayed (for the better) any sense of tension, filling the gap instead with its flashes and crashes of humour. There are subtle updates in the language that bring the play closer to our own time, but the original satirising of greed, stupidity, political corruption and hypocrisy needs little tweaking to sound as relevant today as it did nearly two hundred years ago.

In a Northern English provincial town, Governor Swashprattle (Dan Skinner) wakes from a nightmare only to be plunged into more misery as the town’s corrupt officials assemble to spread the news that an incognito inspector will soon be arriving to investigate them all. In the flurry of activity to cover up their misconduct and misdemeanours, further panic erupts from the suspicion that he has already arrived. They blindly assume that the over-privileged Londoner staying at the local inn is he. Percy Fopdoodle (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) quickly cottons on to their mistake and, being the unscrupulous hustler that he is, milks it for all he can, accepting all their bribes and soaking up their wine and women.

 

 

The comedy is frequently slapstick, and always farcical. But perhaps too pronounced, exaggerated even, as the characters compete for laughs. There is a definite β€˜Blackadder’ feel, with Pythonesque touches. And it is difficult not to bring to mind β€˜Fawlty Towers’ – particularly, of course, β€˜The Hotel Inspectors’ episode. Yet there is also a restoration feel, and the characters all have names that are a mix of P. G. Wodehouse and pantomime. It is a mash-up that is reflected in Melanie Jane Brooke’s set and costume. The Governor is a Napoleon lookalike, while his daughter (a hilarious Chaya Gupta) dresses like an overpampered poodle. Cultural references surf the centuries too, yet bizarrely it somehow works, like a Chuck Berry guitar solo layered over Beethoven’s β€˜da-da-da-dum’.

The performances are suitably heightened. Skinner’s Governor Swashprattle is a distinctly unlikeable chap, but we warm to him in a boo-hiss kind of way. Smith-Bynoe’s smooth-talking grifter holds the show with a commanding performance. We (almost) sympathise with the irresistible urge of this con-man to out-con the con-artists. The narrative is fantastically preposterous, until the fourth wall is broken and there is a sinister realisation that the farce is quite close to the bone. The famous last lines that the Governor throws to the audience β€œWhat are you laughing about? You are laughing about yourselves!” are famous, yet overshadowed in topicality by others in Myles’ revised text; at one moment poignantly stealing from, and paraphrasing, Stalin: β€˜It’s not who votes that counts – it’s who counts the votes’.

Social commentary or fantasy? β€œThe Government Inspector” is both. Its targets are obvious and the depiction of them clear cut but caricature. Opening and closing with a bang, it is loud and funny in between. Some subtlety wouldn’t have gone amiss, but for a comedy of misunderstandings, it is easy to understand why the play has become a classic.

 

THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR at the Marylebone Theatre

Reviewed on 8th May 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Oliver King

 


 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MAN | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | March 2024
A SHERLOCK CAROL | β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… | November 2023
THE DRY HOUSE | β˜…β˜…Β½ | April 2023

THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR

THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page