Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
Forty Years On possesses the same sharp wit, lightness of touch and playful satire of the great British institution of the public school as his more well-known play, The History Boys (brought to the attention of libidinous teenage girls everywhere by Dominic Cooper in the film adaptation). Yet the script itself is not as structurally sound: it uses the ‘play within a play’ convention rather haphazardly, with the action oscillating between the different time frames too quickly. This play feels very much a springboard for the immense success of The History Boys, touching as it does on the same images and themes: stuffy old teachers, unruly students, bullying, pubescent boys and one boy who is able to sing remarkably high (Nik Fenwick). But there the similarities stop. Forty Years On has more of the style of a revue, focusing less on a direct plot or the relationships between the schoolboys and masters, and instead displaying a juxtaposition between the idyllic Edwardian England that the Headmaster (Robert Pickavance) hankers after, and the modern, no-nonsense world championed by the dryly ironic master, Franklin (Martin Barrass).
Pickavance takes on the role famously played by John Gielgud, a character which has the potential to be solely blustering and indignant with little else thrown in, and yet he perfectly balances comedic aspects of the Headmaster with more genuine moments, such as the touching monologue about a car ride down to a country house during the First World War. Barrass as Franklin and Jonathan Race as the schoolmaster Tempest have some hilarious scenes together caricaturing various typically British staples such as Oscar Wilde, Leonard Woolf and Bertram Russell, but these scenes rely too heavily on physical humour, which, whilst very well done, errs too much on the side of slapstick. Quintessentially Bennett-esque wordplay means that the humour requires no embellishment, and consequentially the pantomime style that Barrass and Race used was irritating. The only women in this – understandably – male-centric production are Sarah Quintrell as Miss Nisbitt and Andrina Carroll as Matron, both members of the rolling YTR Ensemble. Of the two, only Quintrell impressed me with her sweet and ingenuous portrayal of ‘Nursie’ (her character in the end-of-term school play that is being put on at Albion House, the public school where the play is set) and Miss Nisbitt. Carroll failed to make Matron, a woman desperate to be the femme fatale both in and out of the school play, anything more than an entertaining side-note to the rest of the action.
This play gels perfectly with the in-the-round space (although, pedantically, I’d say it is more traverse), and the detailed set serves only as a backdrop around the edges of the stage, leaving the central area free for the tussles, songs and wide-eyed schoolboy pranks of the ‘Community Company’ – the young actors from the local area who play the students at the school. This is a tight production of a not-so-tight play, but the Bennett gags and Pickavance’s stellar performance make this a play worth seeing.
Forty Years On is showing at York Theatre Royal until Saturday 15th October. You can book tickets at the Box Office on 01904 623568 or go online at www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
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