Review - Nocturnal, The Gate

It was a beautiful, sunny day in old London town yesterday, and with the Silver-Fox working to top up that credit card which keeps the dream alive, I indulged in a little theatrical masochism by dropping by The Gate for the matinee of Nocturnal by Spanish ombre Juan Mayorga.


I was there mainly because of Jasper Carrott-look-a-like Amanda Lawrence
who has become a pet project of mine since finding her in Tim Crouch's An Oak Tree at The Soho Theatre and then loving her as scootering Beryl in Kneehigh's Brief Encounter, but the cast was also made up of Justin Salinger, who we saw in Bliss at The Royal Court, Paul Hunter (another Kneehigh regular) and Justine Mitchell (The Stone also at The Royal Court). Great company for 80 minutes, no interval. The audience wasn't without interest either as Sam West and his partner settled into the seats behind me, and I adjusted my posture to catch whatever critical pearls might come my way. So.....

Short Man, council employee/personality vacuum, meets Tall Man, book-loving/sensitive/care worker in old people's home, in a cafe revealing that not only are they neighbours but that he is aware of Tall Man's illegal status in the un-named country and that in order to guarantee his silence Tall Man must become Short Man's new best friend. Nothing sexual you understand, just chatting, playing with his model train, visiting the zoo where he loves to sit in the nocturnal animal enclosure.

Short Man's wife (you're going to love this...Short Woman)meanwhile, suffers from insommnia and has become addicted to a late night phone-in TV show in which a supposed doctor in a dodgy fez (Matthew Dunster) dispenses advice to the sleep deprived. Tall Woman, luckily married to Tall Man, translates pulp Westerns and wears a really nice pair of trousers, while being creeped out by neighbourly visits from Short Man and developing an extra-marital relationship with, unseen, Hat Man. Tall Man becomes increasingly dominated by Short Man, and Short Woman having discovered the real basis for the friendship between the two men shifts from victim to aggressor, demanding the last dance of him at her husband's birthday party, after rejecting Tall Woman's offer of joining her and Hat Man on the last stage-coach out of town.

It's about neediness and alienation and there are quite alot of hats in it. It's billed as a satire, but of what? Neighbours are hell, and Randy Newman got it right about short people? Ben Stiller's underrated 1996 film The Cable Guy has a much darker portrait of friendship and blackmail delivered chillingly by Jim Carrey, the best thing he's ever done.

On a wall there's a poster of a theatrical performance starring Karen Carpenter, which led to thoughts that reports of the death of the seventies superstar may have been greatly exaggerated.

Best moment of the piece, the blinking marmoset-type creatures in the zoo created by Matthew Walker's animation, and out of the corner of my eye the sight of Samuel West resting his head on his partner's shoulder seeming as close to sleep as Short Woman was as far.

The programme notes interestingly that Nocturnal was originally commissioned by The Royal Court, but didn't play there.

(A Really Bad) Review - The Fever, The Royal Court Theatre

Is it me?
Last night at The Royal Court one woman gave a bravura performance of a depth and nuance rarely seen in SW1. Eyes flashing and with a hint of a smile touching the corners of her expressive mouth she laughed, sighed, nodded with sympathy. For 90 heightened minutes she delivered her solo, carrying the audience with her to a climax of resounding applause. And why did she chose to display her skill thus? Because she was sitting in Row E seat 13 and Wallace Shawn the author of The Fever was sitting directly behind her in Row F seat 14.
Wallace Shawn, the voice of Rex the dinosaur in Toy Story, the Masked Avenger in Woody Allen's Radio Days,
the (inconceivable!) Count Vizzini in The Princess Bride,

Vanya in his own production of Vanya on 42nd Street, himself in My Dinner with Andre,

and more than all that Jeremiah ...... Diane Keaton/Mary's ex-husband in Manhattan. "He was just this oversexed, brilliant kind of animal."
As the applause died away I turned round, interrupting his conversation with Dominic Cooke's very attractive partner, and congratulated Mr Shawn whom I'm sure had found me a very impressive audience member. He shook my hand and sounded just as he should.

Silver-Fox favourite Claire Higgins also gave a performance last night that I'm afraid passed me by somewhat. She was wearing a white shirt that wasn't particularly flattering, a pair of pale blue "I'm a middle-aged American woman and I don't care what you say about my hips you won't get me a pair of boot-cut" jeans and flattened hair. She spoke directly at the audience, mostly standing centre stage pausing only briefly to take sips of water from a plastic cup filled from a water cooler. (The Royal Court has adopted the completely "bare, stripped down to the brick wall look" that worked so well for last year's The Ugly One... so well I contemplated asking an usher if they had been burgled overnight.)

She seemed really upset about something, upset about having too much money, being too priviliged, being part of the problem that keep the poor poor. Then I started to get upset, 'cos isn't that me ? and why should I be made to feel her middle class guilt when all I did was by a ticket to the theatre, but I suppose that is Mr. Shawn's point.

Anyway my mind started to wander, even though Ms Higgins is fabulous and a lot more engaging than the solo performance of Vanessa Redgrave in The Year of Magical Thinking, which by the way is the reason I was seeing this piece on my own as the Silver-Fox now has an aversion to celebrated English actresses speaking in American accents with nothing to support them other than bad tailoring and some nice lighting effects. The Royal Court should also take some responsibility for my lack of concentration as it was selling some extremely quaffable wine at a knock down price in the bar and I felt impelled to help them out. However they helpfully have printed the whole script in the programme, so it was possible to re-visit my self flagelation all the way home on the number 19.

The Silver-Fox and I will be returning to the Court for Mr Shawn's new play Grasses of a Thousand Colours ( look, English spelling) in which he will be appearing with Miranda Richardson and another Woody Allen player Jennifer Tilly. Maybe he won't be so hard on us and I'll let the Fox share my bottle of wine.