Art

11/02/19

King’s Theatre, Edinburgh

I’ve been going to the theatre for a very long time now and, over the years, I must have seen literally thousands of productions.

But I’ve never seen Art. Which is faintly puzzling when you consider how ubiquitous this clever three-hander is. Written by French playwright Yasmina Reza and translated by Christopher Hampton, it first hit the UK in 1996, and enjoyed a residence at London’s Wyndham Theatre that lasted for eight years. Since then, it has had many revivals in a variety of locations and featured a whole host of celebrity names. But, for whatever reasons, I have somehow comprehensively failed to catch up with it – so this touring production from the Old Vic provides an ideal opportunity to rectify the situation.

Serge (Nigel Havers) has recently bought a painting, an original by a much celebrated contemporary artist. What’s more, he has paid two hundred thousand pounds for it, much to the disgust of his long-time friend, Marc (Dennis Lawson). When he looks at the picture, all he can see is a large white rectangle, which he immediately brands as a piece of ‘white merde.’ Marc wants Serge to admit that he’s been duped and, to this end, he enlists the help of their mutual friend Yvan (Stephen Tompkinson, in what is arguably the play’s showiest role) to convince Serge of his mistake. Yvan is one of those mild-mannered souls who basically wants to please everybody all of the time, so it’s a delight to watch as he attempts to walk a precarious tightrope strung between his two best friends’ unshakeable egos. There’s one nervy extended monologue from him that earns a round of applause all of its own.

This is a play about art, about how we perceive it in different ways. It is also, to some extent about class, but it’s mostly about friendship and the importance of having people we can trust. And how, oddly, our friends’ responses to a plain white canvas can feel uncomfortably personal, a judgement on us all.

As the three old friends embark on a doomed attempt to enjoy a night out, their various differences come looming like flotsam to the stormy surface and the result is fast, frenetic and very funny. There’s an extended silent sequence where the three men sit in Serge’s living room eating olives that is so perfectly delivered it has me in fits of laughter at every clink of an olive pit.

Don’t go the King’s expecting a slow, leisurely unfolding of the plot. This is a lean, lively sprint, peppered with witty dialogue and delivered by three seasoned actors who have clearly played these characters enough times to know them like old friends – which, in a way, is the raison d’être for seeing this.

It’s only taken me twenty-two years to catch up but I’m glad I’ve finally ticked this one off my ‘to see’ list. Don’t leave it as long as I have.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

The Bonnie Badger

10/02/19

Main Street, Gullane

It’s nearly Valentine’s day, and that’s all the excuse we need. Tom and Michaela Kitchin have opened up a country hotel a few miles away in Gullane, and we’re really keen to try it. So when a promotional email pops into my inbox, I am very tempted by the Luxury Winter Break package advertised therein. Philip needs very little persuasion: he’s a fan too. We’re lucky enough to live just five minutes’ walk away from not one, but two, of The Kitchin Group’s fabulous restaurants, Castle Terrace and the Southside Scran, so we’ve a fair idea what we can expect.

Gullane is a forty-five minute drive from our home in Edinburgh; it’s a sunny day and the roads are quiet. These feel like good omens, and they are. The coastline is gorgeous, and there are deer in the road; this is a pretty village, a world away from the city bustle. We park up outside the attractive grey stone building, and head inside.

Our package includes a welcome drink and a mini afternoon tea, and these make the arrival process an absolute pleasure. We sit in the garden room, looking out at a wood fire, drinking Prosecco (me) and lager (Philip), and tucking into home-made baked goods of the highest calibre. There are scones, served with cream and thick fig jam, and little squares of lemon drizzle and carrot cake. We make short work of it, then head to our room.

We have a ‘superior room’ in a cottage behind the main building, and it is utterly charming. One wall is all French windows, which open up onto a private garden space; inside, there’re all the usual touches: a big bed, a fancy shower, thick towels and bathrobes. The hairdryer is a GHD (good choice), and there’s a Nespresso machine, although we don’t use this, because we don’t like the single-use plastic pods. It doesn’t matter: we’re being so well catered for on this short break that we don’t miss an extra cuppa.

We head out to the sea, which is a short stroll from the pub, and it’s utterly, breathtakingly beautiful. Gullane Bay is one of the cleanest beaches we have ever seen, and we’re there as the sun begins to set, climbing the dunes and walking along the sand. We can’t keep the smiles off our faces, not that we’re trying very hard.

Then it’s back to the hotel to get ready for dinner, which is served in The Stables restaurant. Our package includes a bottle of house wine; we go for the white, which is a French blend of Roussanne, viognier & grenache blanc – and very light and tasty it is too.

To begin, Philip has the smoked ham terrine and quail egg, which he declares a triumph, while I have the Orkney King scallops, served with cauliflower and raisins. These are soft and delicate and perfectly cooked, with the raisins adding an unexpected but very welcome sweetness to the dish. We’re off to a flying start!

For my main, I have the Highland Wagyu sirloin steak, which is cooked on ‘the big green egg’ (a barbecue of sorts, outdoors) and is as succulent as you’d expect, served with chips and roasted vegetables. Philip’s fish pie is also rather marvellous, robustly flavoured and generously filled with smoked haddock and prawns. He also orders sides of chorizo potatoes and honey-glazed baby carrots; the potatoes are a spicy, garlicky delight, and the carrots – though tamer – are rather lovely too.

For pudding (of course we have pudding), Philip plumps for the treacle tart, which he opts to have with vanilla ice cream. The tart is as sticky and sweet as it should be, but lighter than the stodgy stuff we used to love at school – and a good thing too after the meal we have just had. I have the vanilla cheesecake with poached rhubarb, which is a remarkable thing indeed, all light sweet creaminess and tart fruit, the tangy rhubarb sorbet being especially inspired.

We retire to the bar for a nightcap, then stagger back to our room, where we find two small flasks of hot chocolate and some cookies waiting for us. It’s a lovely touch, but we can’t face the cookies right now. We wrap them up and put them away to enjoy another time.

In the morning, after a good night’s sleep, it’s time to start eating again. We can scarcely believe it, but we’re actually hungry, so we shower quickly and head over to the bar for breakfast. The atmosphere is very relaxed; we’re sitting next to the window, looking out at the quiet high street. We’re offered coffee, and then plates of food are brought to the table: there’s Prosciutto, Swiss cheese, smoked salmon and avocado; fruit bread, rye bread, little croissants, pains au chocolat and the tiniest, sweetest cinnamon swirls. There’s freshly squeezed orange juice, home-made jams, a pot of honey – everything is here. We order poached eggs and bacon and sausages too, because we’re greedy, and all of it, everything, is just wonderful. Best of all are the pots of home-made granola with rhubarb compôte and Greek yoghurt. Phew!

It’s time for us to check out, so we do, but – once we’ve packed everything into the car – we head back to that beach, because we really need to walk off some of what we’ve consumed. It’s no hardship: we spend ninety minutes walking five miles in glorious sunshine, exploring that gorgeous stretch of coast. It’s a wonderful end to a wonderful treat.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

 

 

All Is True

09/01/19

All Is True is a gentle affair and, actually, a perfect Sunday afternoon film. You know what I mean: it’s one to settle down in front of when you’ve eaten too much dinner and you want to engage with something clever but not challenging, fun but not frenetic. It’s a quality piece; how could it not be with its fine pedigree? With Kenneth Branagh starring and directing; with Judi Dench supporting; with Ben Elton providing the script? (Okay, I know Elton has his naysayers, but there’s no denying he’s good at this historical comedy stuff. Blackadder is still up there, I think, and Upstart Crow is pretty decent too.)

It’s the tale of William Shakespeare’s latter years, back in Stratford with his family after living apart from them in London. But now his theatre – the Globe – has gone up in flames, destroyed by a misfired prop cannon; he’s lost his mojo and he needs somewhere quiet to lick his wounds. Returning home also gives him the belated chance to mourn his dead son, Hamnet, who died of the plague while his father was away, and to repair his fractured relationship with his daughters and his wife. But there is scandal in small towns as well as in cities, and Will’s no stranger to it. His own father was a thief, and now his daughter, Susanna (Lydia Wilson), is caught up in a lawsuit, accused of adultery.

Interestingly, this is the second fictional interpretation we’ve seen of this affair (the recorded facts are sparse, but we do know that her accuser was found guilty of slander and excommunicated for his lies) – the first, The Herbal Bed by Peter Whelan, was performed at The Lowry in 2016 – you can read our review of it here: https://bouquetsbrickbatsreviews.com/2016/04/02/the-herbal-bed/.

But Elton’s scope is wider than Whelan’s, focusing too on the strange details of Hamnet’s death, and his twin sister Judith (Kathryn Wilder)’s reaction to it, as well as on Shakespeare’s own insecurities as a grammar-school educated merchant’s son, occasionally mocked by the upper-class university graduates he counts as his peers.  There’s a meandering quality to the movie that suits its Stratford setting; the light is gorgeous and the period is beautifully evoked. It’s funny too, and informative. There’s no denying it’s a slight piece of work, a little bit of whimsy to while away the hours, but it’s entertaining and engaging, and, provided you’re not in the mood for something more demanding, perfectly enjoyable.

3.8 stars

Susan Singfield

Velvet Buzzsaw

08/02/19

On paper, it all looks very promising.

In 2014, writer/director Dan Gilroy gave us Nightcrawler, a brilliant movie with arguably career-best performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo. Velvet Buzzsaw, set in the LA art world, must surely be an opportunity to pull off a similar trick, making us care about essentially unlikable people… mustn’t it? Unfortunately, the characters who inhabit this movie are such an appalling collection of poseurs that it’s hard not to cheer when awful things happen to them. Which is only the first of its problems.

Gyllenhaal plays Morf Vandewalt, an influential art critic. One word from this man and an aspiring artist can kiss goodbye to his career (Hmm. I wonder what it’s like to have that kind of influence?). Morf has a bit of a thing for Josephina (Zawe Ashton), who works as an assistant to hard-nosed art dealer, Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo). Josephina has lately been struggling in her career but an unexpected opportunity arises when reclusive artist Vetril Dease drops dead at an art launch and she chances upon a massive haul of his paintings hidden in his apartment. Despite the fact that Dease left strict instructions that his work should be destroyed in the event of  his death, Josephina steals his pictures and, with the help of Vandewalt and Haze, sets about selling them to the highest bidders. But Dease was a troubled soul and his paintings have taken on certain aspects of his personality – probably because he used bits of his own body tissue when mixing his paints.

To be fair to Gilroy, he sets out his stall expertly, skewering the world of contemporary art and pointing out that, in this day and age, it is inextricably bound up with commerce. In this film, people cannot mention an artist without pointing out how much his or her work is currently selling for. But having created this world, Gilroy seems to have nowhere interesting to take his characters, except along an extremely well worn path of bumping them off in increasingly unpleasant circumstances. Which would be all right, if it weren’t for the fact that this is supposedly a horror movie and it fails comprehensively to generate any sense of terror. More damning is its predictability. The demise of rival art dealer Gretchen (Toni Collette) is so clumsily signalled, you know what’s going to happen to her well before she does.

And then there’s the little matter of the film’s own internal logic. Many of the deaths here  really don’t make sense in terms of the premise that has already been established. That catchy title by the way, refers to Rhodora Haze’s previous incarnation as a member of a punk band of the same name. It also leads to one of the film’s most tenuous plot twists.

This Netflix Original has certainly divided opinion. I’ve heard a lot of people decrying it and just a few speaking up in its defence, but I have to say I’m with the naysayers. This is, frankly,  a massive disappointment.

Interested parties can find our review of Nightcrawler here: https://bouquetsbrickbatsreviews.com/2014/11/03/nightcrawler/

2.6 stars

Philip Caveney

The Cat in the Hat

06/02/19

King’s Theatre, Edinburgh

We went to the theatre to see a new show:
The Cat in the Hat – we were happy to go!
The venue was heaving with Dr Seuss fans,
Lots of kids and their parents, who’d clearly made plans
To have a good laugh and a really nice time –
And this being Suess it was mostly in rhyme.
Now I know that I’m old and the stuff on the stage
Was aimed at those fans of a much younger age,
But the thing about Seuss (and the cast get this right) –
It needs to be pacy and racy and light.
The staging was clever, the effects were supreme
(Though the songs weren’t as catchy as they might have been).
The parts that worked best were the bits that were busy,
When Things One and Two made us all feel quite dizzy!
And the Cat in the Hat had to clean up the mess
That was causing the little ones so much distress.
I’d say this works best for the youngest ones present
(The older kids may not find things quite so pleasant).
So if you have youngsters who need entertaining,
You could do much worse – on a day when it’s raining!

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Capernaum

03/02/19

Capernaum opens with a scene that could have been lifted straight from a mawkish Hollywood weepie. Twelve year old Zain (Zain Al Rafeea) is attempting to sue his parents. Their crime? They have given him life and it has turned out to be one of unrelenting misery. If this device seems sensational, stay in your seat – because from here the film cuts away to show us Zain’s existence on the streets of Beirut, and it isn’t long before we’re pretty much in agreement that he’s been dealt a bad hand of cards.

Zain lives cheek by jowl in a tiny run down apartment with his eight siblings. The children are all forced to participate in the money-making schemes of their desperate parents, which largely revolve around forging prescriptions for Tramadol and distributing the drug to various relatives housed in the local prison. These scenes are explored with almost documentarian attention to detail, plunging me headlong into harrowing poverty and desperation and making me supremely grateful for my own comfortable existence. The actors are all non-professionals, which adds to the sense of verité.

When Zain isn’t dealing drugs, or selling fruit drinks on the street, he’s fetching and carrying and trying to look out for his eldest sister, Sahar (Haita ‘Cedra’ Izza), who has just started menstruating and, at the tender age of eleven, is therefore considered a promising matrimonial prospect for Assaad (Nour El Husseini), the man who owns the property in which the family live. So no pressure there.

When, in one of the film’s most devastating sequences, the family is forced to hand Sahar over to Assaad, Zain reaches breaking point and runs away from home. Finding himself in a ramshackle fairground, he is taken in by Ethiopian immigrant, Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw), who gives Zain food and shelter in exchange for him babysitting her infant son, Yonas (Boluwatife Treasure Bankole). But Rahil is working in Beirut on forged papers and, when she is arrested, Zain is, quite literally, left holding the baby. His life now consists of finding food and water in order to keep Yonas alive.

This is a harrowing and deeply affecting story, centred around a truly extraordinary performance from Zain Al Rafeea. He trudges resolutely through an onslaught of slings and arrows, looking for all the world like a glum-faced angel – indeed, the moment where he finally locates his smile is almost transcendental. His scenes with the (adorable) baby are also beautifully judged, even though they amp the anxiety factor up to the maximum. Complex issues are brilliantly explored with plenty of nuance and subtlety and, for the most part, the film is not judgemental. Zain’s parents are not the evil caricatures they could so easily have been, but people driven to extraordinary measures in order to survive.

So it’s a shame, then, that the film’s final message – that poor people should have fewer kids – is over-simplistic and only partially explained by the fact that it’s essentially a child’s-eye view of the situation. We all know, don’t we, that the problem is far more complicated than that?

But Nadine Labaki’s film is an undeniably powerful one and it’s no surprise that it’s been nominated for this year’s foreign Language Oscar. It’s also the latest in a whole series of movies that have me weeping inconsolably in my seat. Capernaum may not be perfect but I defy anyone to sit through this and not feel moved by it.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

02/02/19

Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a fascinating tale, as much about the spurious nature of ‘worth’ as it is a personal memoir of triumph and degradation. We enter the obscure world of literary memorabilia, where trite postcards or carelessly dashed-off letters command big bucks, just so long as they’re written by a person of note. A thank you card from Noël Coward? That’ll be six hundred dollars, please. And if Coward didn’t actually write it? Well, what’s the difference, really?

Lee Israel, played here with real aplomb by Melissa McCarthy, is a biographer, justifiably proud of her published work, but dismayed to see her stock falling. Having hit the dizzy heights of the New York Times Best Sellers list with her 1980 book about Dorothy Killigan, she’s devastated when her next project, about Estée Lauder, is a flop. Her bitchy agent, Marjorie (Jane Curtin), stops taking her calls, and laughs openly at Lee’s ideas for future work. Unable to afford the vet’s fees for her beloved cat – or, indeed, to pay her rent – Lee starts to look for other ways to turn a buck.

Israel is a complex character: prickly, tough-talking and isolated, proud of her abilities but unsure of how to make them pay. She’s not especially likeable: she drinks too much; she’s sarcastic; her apartment is filthy and covered in cat shit. And, when the going gets tough, she turns to crime. It’s to McCarthy’s great credit that she imbues the troubled author with enough pathos and vulnerability that we find ourselves rooting for her, willing her to find a way out of her situation. This is helped in some measure by Israel’s putative (and fictional) relationship with a sweet-natured bookseller, Anna (Dolly Wells), which allows us to see how self-destructive Israel is, and how lonely she makes herself.

Still, every crook needs a partner in crime, and Israel’s is Jack Hock, a drinking buddy with whom she develops a friendship of sorts. It’s great to see Richard E. Grant back in a role he can relish (because, let’s face it, he’s not been given much to get his teeth into since Withnail), and he certainly makes the most of the opportunity to show off his acting chops. This is true of McCarthy too, whose performance here has far more depth and subtlety than most of the rumbustious comedic turns she’s previously been noted for.

Israel’s aptitude for forgery is rooted in her real writing skills, and she takes a perverse pride in possessing a wit caustic enough to pass for Dorothy Parker’s, arch enough to pass for Coward’s. There’s a sense here of a woman taking revenge on a literary world that has spurned her, exposing the stupidity of the very people who say she’s not good enough. Director Marielle Heller does a good job of quietly teasing out these themes, and the film is tightly constructed, with every scene earning its place.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a first-rate movie and one which is, ironically, likely to make the value of an authentic Lee Israel forgery soar. Now, where can I get hold of a typewriter?

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield

 

Green Book

31/01/19

It’s 1962, and at the Copacabana Nightclub in New York, Italian American Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) is working as a doorman/bouncer. Known as an ace exponent of BS – and also for being very handy with his fists – Tony finds himself in a bit of a fix when the club is unexpectedly closed for renovations. How is he going to support his loving wife, Dolores (Linda Cardellini), and his two sons (one of whom is destined to grow up to be a Hollywood scriptwriter?)

Salvation comes in the form of an unexpected job offer. Celebrated musician, Dr Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), is planning to embark on a three month tour of America and, since he intends to appear in several venues south of the Mason Dixon line, he needs somebody to drive him – somebody who can handle himself in a tight spot. Tony seems like the logical choice.

But there’s a fly in the ointment. Tony, you see, is a racist. Not a confederate flag-waving agitator or anything like that, but a man who chooses to drop a couple of drinking glasses into the trash after they’ve been used by black workmen who do some work in his apartment.

However, he’s also a pragmatist. He needs a job and this one will pay well, provided he gets his client to every single booking, so off the two men go in a hired Cadillac, using the titular Green Book to locates those rare hotels that are actually prepared to admit black guests.

On their travels, the two men’s relationship gradually develops into mutual respect and, as Tony witnesses the humiliating travails that Don has to undergo in those Southern states, the more he begins to understand how wrong he’s been for all these years. Here is a country where the man who has been booked as the star turn at a swanky establishment is unable to dine in the restaurant or even use the same toilet as the other (white) guests.

Of course, this could so easily become trite and over sentimental – but the script, written by Nick Vallelonga, successfully walks a perilous tightrope over the potential pitfalls. It is often downright hilarious and, when it needs to be, suitably heartfelt. Peter Farrelly (yes, that Peter Farrelly, the one who wrote Dumb and Dumber!) handles the direction with perfectly judged restraint. Mortensen, who has beefed up almost beyond recognition, is terrific as Tony, a man whom I initially dislike intensely, but who gradually works his way into my affections with his brutish attempts at humour.

It’s Ali, however, who is the real standout here, managing to imbue his effete character with an affecting vulnerability. Don, it turns out, is a stranger both to the white world in which he plies his trade and the black one, of which he ironically has little experience. Sitting in his swanky apartment above Carnegie Hall, he looks like the loneliest man in the world. One of the funniest scenes in the film is the one in which Tony introduces him to the music of Chubby Checker and Aretha Franklin – and then to the dubious delights of Kentucky fried chicken. I should also add that Linda Cardellini makes the very most of her limited screen time as Dolores, imbuing her character with real warmth.

Of course, this being based on a true story, there have been some rumblings of discontent, mostly from Don Shirley’s surviving relatives,  who claim that the friendship between the two men has been wildly exaggerated for dramatic purposes. This may be true but, whatever the realties of the situation, Green Book is nonetheless a terrific film that never loses momentum, despite a running time of two hours and ten minutes.

It fully deserves its five Oscar nominations. Go and see this, if only to remind yourself of how recently the horrors of segregation held sway in the American South – and, of course, to watch those two knockout performances.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

 

If Beale Street Could Talk

28/01/18

After the meteoric success of 2016’s Moonlight (only his second attempt at direction), Barry Jenkins could probably have chosen any subject he fancied for his third feature. As it turned out, he’d already begun developing If Beale Street Could Talk at the same time as his Osar winner, adapting it himself from a groundbreaking novel by James Baldwin, so of course it was a logical step to move straight on to that. Set in the early 1970s, it’s a stylish slow burner that centres on the doomed relationship of two young people.

Tish Rivers (Kiki Layne) has known Alonzo ‘Fonny’ Hunt (Stephan James) since the two of them were kids. She’s the youngest daughter of a loving and supportive family and is still based at home, while he’s become more of a loner, living in a rundown basement where he’s trying to establish himself as a sculptor. (His work, it must be said, is spectacularly underwhelming). When romance finally blooms between Tish and Fonny, it seems almost inevitable that they will end up as man and wife – but when he is wrongfully accused of rape and sent to prison, she discovers that she is pregnant with Fonny’s child; and all their hopes for the future come tumbling down around them.

Jenkins takes his own sweet time over the narrative, skipping back and forth in chronology to hone in on key points in the couple’s relationship. We also spend time with Tish and Fonny’s respective parents and in particular, we focus on Tish’s mother, Sharon (Regina King) and her increasingly desperate attempts to prove Fonny’s innocence by travelling to Puerto Rico to confront the poor woman who has mistakenly identified Fonnyas her assailent. King’s performance has garnered the film a ‘best supporting actress’ Oscar nomination, along with Nicholas Britell’s score and Jenkins’ for best adapted screenplay. But this is essentially Tish and Fonny’s story and the two leads play their roles with absolute conviction.

There’s a rich, languorous intensity about If Beale Street Could Talk that really takes us inside the central characters, revealing everything we need to know about them and the way they relate to each other. If the glacial pace occasionally palls – the scenes where Fonny reconnects with his old friend Daniel (Bryan Tyree Henry) could have benefited from a little pruning – this is nonetheless a considerable achievement and something that in these times of short attention spans, we are rarely witness to. This puts me in mind of the films of the late, great Douglas Sirk, who worked in a similar way.

I love the film’s brutal honesty, refusing point blank to offer us anything resembling a convenient conclusion, pointing out that real life rarely comes with such luxuries attached – and for a young black man in America, justice is a commodity that’s very hard to find.

This may not be the absolute knockout that Moonlight was, but it’s nonetheless an engrossing and beautifully directed film that deserves the widest attention.

4.7 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Touching the Void

26/01/19

Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

I have to confess that my first thought when I see this production advertised is, ‘How the hell are they ever going to put this on a stage?’

Anyone who has read Joe Simpson’s true account of his disastrous misadventure in the Peruvian Andes in 1985 – or seen Kevin MacDonald’s subsequent documentary – will know that Touching the Void is an epic story of adventure and survival against all the odds, with most of the action taking place on the remote peaks of an icebound mountain. The Lyceum has a reputation for inventive staging, but it’s clear from the get-go that this production will necessitate designer Ti Green and his crew to pull out all the stops.

David Greig’s canny adaptation begins – rather disturbingly for those who know the story – in a climber’s pub in Glencoe, where Joe Simpson’s sister, Sarah (Fiona Hampton), welcomes us all to her brother’s wake. She tells us she’s forgotten to make sandwiches and then cranks up the jukebox with a few eighties classics. Joe’s climbing partner, Simon (Edward Hayter), turns up, accompanied by the nerdy Richard (Patrick McNamee), the young man who served as assistant on Simon and Joe’s recent climb, and Sarah asks them for more information about what happened up on the mountain.

Simon begins by trying to explain the allure of mountain climbing by literally showing Sarah the ropes. They start small, by ascending an upended dining table, but pretty soon they are using ropes and winches to scramble up the sides of the proscenium arch. Sarah is astonished to find that she is enjoying the experience, but she still wants to know more…

And then Joe (Josh Williams) appears and, at the rear of the stage, a representation of the Peruvian mountain rears slowly into position so that Joe and Simon can re-enact their climb.

This is the point where the audience’s disbelief must be fully suspended if this is going to work – and I’m happy to report that it doeswork, quite brilliantly. Clambering about on a haphazard construction of metal and paper, the actors somehow manage to generate extraordinary levels of suspense, leading inexorably to the point where disaster occurs. It’s a heart-stopping moment, simply but convincingly staged.

If the play’s second half doesn’t quite fulfil the promise of the first, it is perhaps because it chooses to focus on the concept of solitude as a badly injured Joe is faced with the Herculean task of dragging himself back to base camp, accompanied only by a hallucinated version of Sarah, whose method of encouragement consists mostly of repeatedly whacking her brother’s broken leg with an ice axe. The characters of Simon and Richard are largely forgotten here and it might have helped to involve them a little more in the proceedings. Simon in particular seems poorly served. We never really share the feelings of guilt he must have had over what happened – indeed, we find out very little about what lurks behind his impassive expression.

That said, the story’s powerful conclusion, where we finally see the true grandeur of the mountain itself is undeniably exhilarating, and the four actors fully deserve their enthusiastic applause.

We’re all familiar with that famous quote about climbing a mountain ‘because it’s there.’ This production seems to live by a similar ethos, fearlessly tackling a subject that few theatre-makers would dare to attempt and, for the most part, taking it to dizzy heights.

4 stars

Philip Caveney