Disgrace of the critics and lost causes
Benedict Nightingale said the other day that the critics had disgraced themselves by giving Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party bad reviews when it opened fifty years ago. No they hadn’t. They just didn’t like it. Harold Hobson liked it but his review was utter nonsense.
Any good or valuable new work is going to be rubbished by the critics, that’s what the critics are for.
In the eyes of most theatre professionals, a critic disgraces himself in print at least three times a week, and Ben is no exception.That’s how life is, and should be. Turning the question round, though, I’d like to know which playwrights, projects and directors Nightingale has championed against the grain of public and critical opinion in order to make a real difference. Can’t think of any.
At a time when the repertoire is narrowing and new plays receive fairly bland and supportive notices however good or bad they are, it was salutary yesterday morning to attend a play reading of a forgotten French boulevard master, Eugene Scribe, best known if at all now for his opera libretti for Verdi and Donizetti.
The translation of his 1842 hit Une Chaine was done by Anthony Curtis, who has written expertly on Coward, Rattigan and Somerset Maugham over the years. He used to be my literary editor on the Financial Times, and his wife also happens to be my wife’s second cousin, so you can appreciate how much I enjoyed my own scribbled Scribe plot summary early on in the proceedings: a composer’s lover is the rich wife of his own fiancee’s godfather.
The farce became a little over-cooked and verbose as it went on, but the twists and sentiments were admirable and the plot prosecuted by a battery of missives, notes, contracts, deals, letters and announcements. Life was hell without email.
The delicious Belle Epoque frivolity of it all was set in stark contrast to the evidence of the resident production in the smaller of the Trafalgar Studios: the grimy Port Elizabeth shanty town parlour of the bereaved siblings in Athol Fugard’s Hello and Goodbye. And the cast — including Roger Ringrose and Sioned Jones, members of the versatile ensemble in Howard Brenton’s Never So Good at the National — picked their way through the love-and-money labyrinth with careful aplomb.
One actor really shone, even though clutching a script: Max Davis as the devious lawyer friend of the uncomposed composer. Tony Curtis (not to be confused with the Boston Strangler), and his wife Sarah, were on hand in good form, and the select audience included various agents and friends who might or might not come forward with cash to sponsor a full-scale production. I think we’re overdue a classy French farce season at somewhere like the King’s Head or the Finborough, don’t you?
