Sher pleasure with Pinter
I topped and tailed my weekend in the same place, with one or two of the same people.
On Friday night the National Theatre hosted the new exhibition of paintings and drawings by Antony Sher, and on Sunday the Olivier auditorium was packed for a remarkable celebration of Harold Pinter.
Alan Rickman joined the Sher throng on a break from rehearsing his Old Times scene with Lindsay Duncan for the Pinter tribute. And Sher’s cousin, playwright of the moment Ronald Harwood, mingled with fellow South African refugees Sue McGregor, Janet Suzman and Richard E Grant before returning for his old friend Harold’s special evening.
If a bomb had gone off at either event, the British theatre would have had to start all over again this morning. I doubt if so many distinguished folk have ever crowded into the National over one weekend before — and there had already been a big exodus to the Tony Awards in New York where Billy Elliot has won ten gongs, one less than Spring Awakening two years ago (and about ten too many, in my view).
The Sher show has a big new canvas called The Audience, in which you can have fun spotting a wide gallery of heroes and villains in Sher’s life, and a few big oils that are really oustanding. My favourite is that of Mark Rylance in his youth in Stratford, sitting on a sofa like an other-worldly Peter Pan, eyes staring, boots scuffed and discarded. It could be yours for £3000.
There are beautiful crayon drawings of Brian Cox as Titus (Brian turned up in the flesh for the Pinter party), Thelma Holt in New York and Rupert Graves. And there are separate pen and ink studies of Ian McKellen and Eric Porter in the NT’s 1992 Uncle Vanya in which Sher played Astrov alongside those two great classicists.
Gregory Doran, Sher’s partner, is drawn reading against an olive tree, while Sher’s former partner Jim Hooper was excitedly checking out his own representation with his brother Robin. I said hello Robin to Jim and hello Jim to Robin, and they’re not twins or even remotely similar looking, but it was Friday night and the wine was flowing, so nobody cared too much.
The Pinter performance was one of the best tribute shows I’ve ever seen — I do hope somebody filmed it — and was quite beautifully directed by Ian Rickson. Everyone in it was wonderful, even Jude Law who’s taken a bit of a battering for his angry but dull Hamlet.
Michael Sheen and Douglas Hodge were not outshone but certainly matched by David Bradley and Lia Williams, but Jeremy Irons upstaged everyone with his extraordinary red ruby shoes. Not a friend of Dorothy, after all, surely?
Sheila Hancock and Eileen Atkins played two old gals in a cafe like an embalmed Dud and Pete sketch, and the LAMDA students whom Michael Billington directed last October in a Pinter programme joined their professional precursors in a moving finale.
There were some good “starters for ten” questions to pose among ourselves, such as — what was Maggie Smith’s only connection with Pinter? She gave one of her finest early film performances in The Pumpkin Eater which Pinter scripted.
Maggie was accompanying her great friend Joan Plowright, sitting across the aisle from Peter Eyre. Howard Jacobson and Tony Harrison (with his partner actress Sian Thomas) joined other playwrights Hugh Whitemore and Stephen Poliakoff in toasting their great contemporary.
I sat in a critics’ row with Matt Wolf, Vanessa Thorpe (arts reporter on The Observer) and Benedict Nightingale, and our nearest neighbours included Lynsey Baxter, Michael Blakemore, radio producer Ned Chaillet, Timothy West and Prunella Scales (son Sam brought the great Somerset cricketer and Pinter friend Arthur Wellard to life, although Ben Nightingale thought that he was about to recall someone else altogether, the flat-faced old character actor Arthur Mullard).
It was a marvellous evening and one of the best performances was that of BBC arts supremo Alan Yentob roaming the stalls bar in the interval to see if he could find anyone as important as himself to talk to.
June 8th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Never saw a better HAMLET!!!!!!!!!! (and I’ve seen a lot)
Nothing about dullness. Jude Law as Hamlet is great, marvellous, unique!
June 8th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Angry but dull Hamlet? Did you see a different Hamlet? I just read the reviews and most of them were positive and glowing. Variety’s review actually came close to a rave!
June 8th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Thank you Li and Ria for answering back to these self important remarks denigating Jude Law’s wonderful performance in HAMLET.All of those who wished to turn his triumph to dust sound the same and lie,I
guess hoping that no one actually read all the reviews.I assure you there are those who have read every
single one and except for a self-centered small amount whio cannot admit defeat all have now jumped on
the bandwagon. Why shouldn’t HAMLET be angry and why shouldn’t he be honest with himself about it.?Of all writers in the English language Shakespeare saw the deepest into the human heart.
Bravo Jude, I truly wish I could fly to London for all the things you do but there’s a lot of water between us I
will be coming later on and like many others have had my seat since the day they went on sale. I wish
I could have been to the Pinter tribute last night also.
June 8th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I’ve heard they’re wanting Jude’s dull Hamlet to play in New York. I hope it does.
June 8th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
edit: “dull” (as in, so-called)
June 8th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Thanks for the review. I’d have loved to read some more details, though. How was Alan Rickman’s and Colin Firth’s part in the Pinter tribute?
June 8th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Oh, and some pics would have been great, too :-)))
June 8th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
are you insane?….where did you read that jude’s hamlet was dull? on some grafiti in a men’s room. shame on you for denigrating a performance that the public and the critics have hailed. it’s time you bloggers who use the internet to empower yourself to stick knives into successful people stopped. this is your moment of glory. jude law is an important film and theatre star and michael because you post on the internet you feel you have the right to write untruths and “stick it” to people who have really made it. it’s not an admirable quality and i think you should retract your unfounded statement.
June 8th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Michael Coveney is about the only person who gave Jude Law’s Hamlet a bad review. He now seems to want to recruit more people to follow his point of view so he doesn’t feel left out in the cold. Well tough. I went with my family and saw exactly why it has had such marvellous reviews. It’s a magnificent performance in a brilliant production. There was cheering at the end and the whole afternoon was a celebration of good theatre and all for £10 a ticket
June 8th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Jude Law’s Hamlet “dull”? Who says? Did you see the same production I did? I saw it on a preview night and “dull” is the last thing I’d call it. I found it exciting, thrilling even. Jude’s Hamlet was the best part of all. He owned that stage! Anyone who’d call him “dull” has no life left in them.
June 8th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
I was lucky enough to get to go to the Pinter celebration. I thought Jeremy Irons was weak and looked dreadful - the shoes were a real error of taste - but others were superb. I was very taken with Michael Sheen, and Gina McKee was excellent. Pinter’s poems leave something to be desired, but were well performed.
June 9th, 2009 at 3:13 am
[…] (read) - Harold Pinter: a celebration, National Theatre, London (read) - Sher pleasure with Pinter (read) - Theatreland remembers Harold Pinter […]
June 9th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Dull….Hamlet???? What reviews did you read?????? Only one i found hasnt given anything but a positive review..oh and that was yours for the Independent! You obviously went to the wrong play.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Methinks Michael Coveney is embarrassed that his review of Jude Law’s Hamlet was the only truly negative one and is trying to recover some ground. Sad man.
June 9th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I want to find good pop music. Help me please.
June 10th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Jude! Dull?
I’ll have you know I’ve been blind all my theatregoing life but now, as a result of Jude’s consumate artistry, I can see!
We’re looking forward to his Iago, when, if current form is any indication, he’ll be able to raise the dead.
Not that I’m partisan, but we can’t be far away from Jude sprouting stigmata.