Whispers at Hampstead Theatre
One of the most evocative moments in Life After Scandal at Hampstead is when Edwina Currie reveals how she and John Major used to whisper to each other about their next sexual assignation while sitting on the green front bench of the House of Commons.
As befits the show, there was a lot of whispering all over the place last night. First, when Neil and Christine Hamilton arrived in the flesh to see themselves brilliantly impersonated; then when the doddery, benign old Lord Montagu of Beaulieu arrived on his sticks to do likewise.
Some celebrities weren’t even in the play, shock horror: Jemima Khan, for instance, who told me that she’s planning a verbatim show of her own — about billionaires, naturally — at the Tricycle Theatre. Jemima was on the arm of Nicolas Kent, the Tricycle director, who has put Jemima together with Gillian Slovo, one of his Guantanamo Bay theatre piece writers.
Diana Quick’s guest was Joseph Mydell, who has just finished a stint as a cardinal in The Last Confession, and I also bumped into Mary Evans, widow of the fabled actors’ agent Laurence Evans, who used to look after Albert Finney when he (Finney) was domesticated with Quick — before her strong and still happy marriage to Bill Nighy.
Mary, it turns out, had introduced Life After Scandal author Robin Soans to Jonathan Aitken at a party, and was thus instrumental in sowing the seed of the play. She was not all that happy about the manner in which her friend came across on the stage.
While it is true that Aitken exudes a wonderful arrogance, he is not half so repellent as the impersonation of Guardian journalist David Leigh by the actor Bruce Alexander. Alexander presents a scrofulous, embittered version of Leigh who becomes mightily agitated when Aitken turns up at a Guardian party, years after his conviction for perjury after after his failed libel case against the newspaper.
When I point out Anthony Holden to Quick she says, “Well, we’re all here, then…” referring to our Oxford days together. Who else, I say? “You, me, Anthony and Bruce.” I’d completely forgotten that Alexander was an Oxford actor. He’s a bloody good one, that’s for sure, and one of the funniest we have.
Holden, incidentally, is quick to remind me that he claims responsibility for the Olivier gala at the National on Sunday. As one of Olivier’s biographers, he was incensed that the proper date of the centenary was not being honoured at the NT last May. And he told them so. So there. Who says the Oxbridge influence is on the wane?
At least one Oxbridge critic, I am pleased to report, is impervious to the invasion of the celebrity culture. The second act of Soans’s play begins with a cardboard cut-out of David Hasselhoff, the star of Baywatch, staring out at the audience. “Who’s that?” asked the saintly John Peter of the Sunday Times, clutching a learned tome to his incorruptible breast.
Before I could recover my astonishment at this yawning gap in the critic’s education and experience, Peter was joined by former Hampstead director Jenny Topper who drew a similar blank when challenged on the cardboard cut-out’s identity, let alone his place in the global television culture of our day. For heaven’s sake, the chap nearly appeared here in pantomime last year.
I gave my deprived colleagues a quick thumbnail guide to Hasselhoff’s achievements and bodily statistics and promised I would pray for them both while they languished in the outer darkness of their own ignorance. Jenny muttered something about not having her glasses on and went back to her seat. Peter emitted a great sigh and stayed immoveable, and unimpressed, in his.