Untold Stories, the new National Theatre
production now showing at Covent Garden’s Duchess Theatre, is the latest in an ever
growing line of the cultural powerhouse’s shows to transfer to the glittering
lights north of the river. A move which, geographically, at least, seems
appropriate given who said untold stories belong to. The much loved Yorkshire
playwright, Alan Bennett. The evening is presented as a double bill of two
previously un-staged memoirs. ‘Hymn’, otherwise known as Act One, is a thirty
minute piece detailing Bennett’s attempts at musicality in adolescence, with
the mixture of dialogue and classical pieces played by the four strong
orchestra also neatly steering us the young Bennett’s relationship with his
father, religion, and war. Act Two belongs to ‘Cocktail Sticks’, a more
traditionally Bennett-ian, conversational piece, in which he journeys back
through key points in his life, communicating with his now late parents along
the way about their desires and regrets in each time.
Alex
Jennings plays the man himself in both pieces and does so with, to use one of
Bennett’s own words from this very production, absolute aplomb. If indeed one ever
can play Alan Bennett with a word which is in itself a synonym for being
confident, cool and composed. But anyway, whichever word you care to use to
mean ‘bloomin’ good’, Jennings is it. Nicholas Hytner, Director of the
National, seems to hit the nail on the head in the show’s trailer, saying as he
does that Jennings plays Bennett better than Bennett himself. Down to every
gesture and mannerism, he seems to become a living portrait of the man he is
pretending to be, so much so that as an audience we rather forget that he is
pretending to be him at all. I for one had to keep reminding myself that the
man stood in front of me on the appropriately furnished stage was not actually
Alan Bennett, and neither was said appropriately furnished stage Alan Bennett’s
living room, so completely does he embody the playwright. Albeit with just a
tinge of cheekiness.
Left to Right: Alex Jennings and Alan Bennett
A
crucial aspect of Bennett’s work has always been his excruciatingly sharp use
of language. His cunning mix of nail head accuracy and soft Yorkshire lilt creating
really quite poetic images, which are kept all the more so by the fact that
because of this, they always have one foot in reality. The violin players of ‘Hymn’ going home on
the tram in their rain spattered raincoats being a particularly good example. I’m
willing to bet a toasted teacake or two that this unique skill of his is one of
the main reasons people still flock to see his work, and Jennings delivers every line to perfection. He seems to
enjoy each and every syllable almost as if he’s eating a boiled sweet,
savouring it and then delicately spitting it out into a handkerchief a few
moments later. In itself, an appropriately Bennett-ian idea.
And
how great the words those syllables make up are. For me, Bennett’s best work
will always be ‘Talking Heads’. It’s the first of his work I ever saw, back in
a Lancashire classroom tacked onto the school library (I think he’d like that).
For others it would be the classic, ‘The History Boys’. However there are some fantastic theatrical
moments in the production’s sublime second act, ‘Cocktail Sticks’ which I think
in years to come may even begin to rival some of his best known pieces. This is
especially true of the middle aged Alan searching through his late mother’s
cupboards, surmising parts of her character and life with each discovery, an
image which I think will stay with most audience members long after they’ve
left the theatre.
However it is precisely this greatness of the
moving, funny and cleverly written ‘Cocktail Sticks’ which lends itself to
criticism of the show’s first act. For poignant and nicely structured though ‘Hymn’
is, it is too short to ever really begin- we can’t settle in to it as an
audience as much as we should. The beauty of Bennett’s work is being able to
climb into his sharp tongued dialogue like a blanket (presumably a slightly
prickly one from a charity shop in Bradford) and forget about the world outside
of the little word castle he makes for us. The extensive inclusion of music in ‘Hymn’,
however, doesn’t really allow us to do this. Enjoyable as it is as a piece in
itself, its showy- almost self-indulgence
on the part of Nadia Fall’s direction, meant that it didn’t belong here
especially well. It would have been happier as part of another compilation, or
as a stand-alone feature, leaving ‘Cocktail Sticks’ to take to the stage solo,
un-interrupted by an interval, in much the same vein as recent productions Constellations or Peter and Alice.
All
forgiven and forgotten by Act Two as it is, however, this is a special night at
the theatre for fans of dialogue, drama, well actually for fans of pretty much
everything’s that is great and good about the art form. Gabrielle Lloyd and
Jeff Rawle give strong performances as Bennett’s parents, with the tragic
juxtaposition of Lloyd’s character’s social aspiring tendencies and later
descent into dementia portrayed especially movingly. Bennett has always
reminded me of T.S
Eliot, celebrating both the tedium and occasional beauty of
everyday life and objects simultaneously, usually in the same sentence, and
this production goes above and beyond achieving that. In fact, for a production
culminating in two deaths, even touching upon the playwright’s own brush with
cancer, ‘Hymn & Cocktail Sticks’ is actually teeming with life. And by life
I mean the Woman’s Own, cake tins, kitchen
tables and day trips to Morecambe.
The
main reason ‘Cocktail Sticks’ succeeds where ‘Hymn’ does not, is that one is
exactly what audiences expect from Alan Bennett, and one is not. If this
production teaches us nothing else, it’s that whilst Alex Jennings may indeed very
good at being Alan Bennett, the man himself is even better at it.
Brilliant,
in fact.
And by
that definition Untold Stories is pretty much Alan Bennett all over.
****
-Jen
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