“Joseph Prowen takes the lead with committed intensity”
If ever there were a time to champion free speech and the right of the press to hold the powerful up to mockery, then this is it. Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s ‘Trial by Laughter’ tells the story of bookseller and satirist William Hone’s epic battle against government censorship in 1817. Hone faced not one but three trials for both libel and blasphemy.
This is personal for Ian Hislop, who as editor of Private Eye is purportedly the most sued man in English legal history. The two playwrights’ new work is strong on history and courtroom drama. It’s also something of a ‘ripping yarn’– a fast-paced funny story about how Hone used ridicule to get himself out of legal hot water.
Joseph Prowen takes the lead with committed intensity. He’s well-matched by Peter Losasso as the celebrated caricaturist George Cruikshank, who created nearly 10,000 vicious satires and illustrations during his long career. Both bring youth and likeability to their roles, Prowen most so when he is driven to nervous exhaustion at the end of three successive trials in three days.
Nicholas Murchie delivers a hilarious parody of legal pomposity as Justice Abbott and like several other members of the cast of eight, doubles several other roles including the ‘grand ole’ Duke of York. Dan Tetsell (previously seen in Hislop and Newman’s ‘Wipers Times’) has splenetic menace as Hone’s other judge, Lord Ellenborough, whose unsuccessful attempts to direct the jury were followed by his death soon after.
Helena Antoniou, Eva Scott and Jeremy Lloyd make up a trio of what looks like Blackadder-inspired comedic clowning in their scenes as the Prince Regent and his favourites. Eva Scott has an important ‘straight’ role, too, as Hone’s wife Sarah.
An ingenious set by Dora Schweitzer makes the most of the Watermill’s intimate stage, switching from Regency courtroom to palace in a matter of seconds by using some clever projections and multi-level cupboards, doorways and windows. As Hone wins the mob over with his wit and mockery, simple but effective sound design from Steve Mayo incorporates the audience into the action.
There are some pleasing period musical interludes by Tom Attwood throughout the show. One or two seemed just a little uncertain on the opening night of this packed production. The play ends with a slightly laboured scene pointing up Hone’s place in history.
This is a cracking play, both historically-rooted and completely topical, and well worth a trip to Newbury.
“The air is also blue with some magnificently filthy language, imbuing the evening with an irresistibly sinuous rawness”
Jez Butterworth’s ‘Jerusalem’ is a great swaggering blast of a play, set in the fictional Wiltshire village of Flintock on St George’s Day. Taking its title as much from William Blake’s ironic poem (‘was Jerusalem builded here among those dark, Satanic mills?’) as from its use by Parry as a patriotic hymn, Butterworth tackles head-on the idea of Englishness. He comes up with some answers that may surprise more than one regular theatregoer at Newbury’s dreamy Watermill theatre, which is nestled in bucolic woods and fields not far from those the play depicts.
At the heart of the play is the larger than life character of Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, (Jasper Britton, ex-RSC) an exuberantly crowing cock-of-the-walk who has lived for decades in a semi-derelict caravan deep in the woods. He’s a spinner of the most fantastic yarns. Born by immaculate conception with a full set of teeth, a daredevil with magic blood in his veins, he’s a man made of rock who has heard the trees sing.
But this is no enchanted forest from a Midsummer Night. Byron is also a drug pusher and a drunk who has been banned from every pub for his brawling. His life is a ‘Bucolic, Alcoholic Frolic.’ Around him cluster half a dozen or so wasted, washed-up kids, half-believing his wild stories, but quick to turn on him when he’s down. A kind of mythic haze hangs over the grimy clearing where Byron’s caravan is slowly mouldering into the ground in Frankie Bradshaw’s compelling set. The air is also blue with some magnificently filthy language, imbuing the evening with an irresistibly sinuous rawness. This is an inspired production that thanks to Lisa Blair’s excellent direction seems to grow out of the very earth the Watermill theatre stands on.
As Byron, Britton has made the part his own in a way that stands apart from Mark Rylance’s much-praised interpretation at the play’s Royal Court premiere. Britton is a colossal figure, bursting with fierce energy, mired in filth but brilliant with quick wit that lights up the theatre. The same quick-fire vitality marks the performances of several of Rooster Byron’s acolytes. Peter Caulfield as Ginger is one of the ‘Lost Boys’ – gawky and wasted, never growing up, always hoping for a break that he knows in his heart will never come. As Lee, Sam Swann has a touching innocence that’s just right for the part of the kid who thinks he’s heading to a better life tomorrow. Santino Smith is funny and compelling as Davey who has never seen the point of other counties. ‘I leave Wiltshire, my ears pop.’ Richard Evans makes the professor ethereal and vulnerable, making a vivid connection with the language of enchantment in the literature and lyrics he quotes. Robert Fitch gives a raw and edgy performance as Wesley, the hopeless morris-dancing publican who’ll take a line from Rooster and then ban him from his pub. Adam Burton, Rebecca Lee, Natalie Walter and an alternating trio of child actors as Marky all make excellent contributions to this brilliant show. Dialect coach Elspeth Morrison deserves a special mention for keeping the cast (mostly) on track in a broad Wiltshire accent.
This wonderfully involving three-act play opens with Nenda Neurer as Phaedra singing ‘Jerusalem’ with a kind of sweetly knowing innocence. What follows is both a compelling story but also a brilliantly crafted meditation on what it is to be of an ancient land where continuity and chaos, truth and fiction, hope and despair are all wrapped up into an enthralling mixture.
The Watermill Theatre’s ‘Jerusalem’ continues to Saturday 21 July. Lighting by Christopher Nairne, Sound and music, Tom Attwood, Paul Benzing, fight director.
