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Friday 9 January 2009

Masochists and miserablists

Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress
Leicester Square Theatre

Liberty
Globe

Sons of York
Finborough

The Globe season ends in sheer misery. Which is fine, if sheer misery’s your passion. Glyn Maxwell’s version of Anatole France’s novel, The Gods Are Athirst, takes us into the heart of the French revolution. We follow a character based on Robespierre who is transformed, very, very slowly, from an inspired humanitarian into a bloodthirsty tyrant. Aside from the slow-coach narration, the unappealing characters and some desperately smug acting, the real problem is the blank-verse dialogue which is as lofty and vacuous as a hot-air balloon. I heard one lady exclaim, ‘Absolutely atrocious,’ as the first 82-minute act ground to a halt but when I spotted her returning for the second half I realised she was one of the masochists and miserablists the show is aimed at.

She’s in for a treat if she’s already booked a ticket for Sons of York at the Finborough. This grim-oop-north drama is set in Hull during the winter of discontent and it traces a working-class family as they grapple with the issues that will shortly face the electorate. Writer James Graham certainly has the gift of accuracy and he portrays the bigotry, insularity, cultural myopia, emotional immaturity and sheer nastiness of life in this freezing backwater with horrible naturalism. The main character, Dad, is a garrulous small-minded bully who makes Fred Dibnah sound like Socrates. But Graham also wants to add metaphor to his melodrama. While Dad trumpets his desire for a general strike, ‘One out all out. That principle’s sacred,’ he can’t bring himself to admit that his ga-ga wife will never recover from her dementia. The poor woman is shown writhing on a Draylon sofa in her soiled nappies, muttering gibberish and vomiting over her eiderdown. This episode takes place during a power cut while her grandson, in the same room, is trying to wash himself in a tin bath. Does the spewing old ruin represent British socialism? Is the bookish grandson a proto-yuppie? The scene isn’t funny enough to work as comedy and it’s too clotted and gruesome to appeal on a symbolic level. The show’s best asset is Steven Webb as the teenage lad. One to watch, Webb has enough talent and unselfconscious charm to light up any show he’s in. Even during a power cut.

More articles from: Lloyd Evans | this section

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