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Mischief making

Lloyd Evans

Wednesday, 30th July 2008

The Female of the Species
Vaudeville

Hangover Square
Finborough

The Frontline
Shakespeare's Globe

Germaine Greer’s anger is justified and understandable but Murray-Smith is equally justified in using whatever materials she requires. The irony is that Greer has the instincts and skills of a champion street-fighter but she’s picked an unwinnable quarrel here because every blow she aims will merely strengthen her opponent. Ultimately, the deal is this. Celebrities ask to be famous. Having gained our attention they can’t then try to regulate how their notoriety is handled. It’s too late. They surrender control as soon as they answer fame’s call.

Patrick Hamilton, author of the Hitchcock classic, Rope, is acquiring a reputation as a ‘neglected writer’. This is a perilous position because no writer is neglected without reason, and the more we see of Hamilton the more we’re likely to sympathise with the neglecters rather than the neglected. Hangover Square traces the descent of London drifter George Bone into alcoholic collapse and psychosis. The construction is very peculiar. It begins at the end with an actress being murdered and it takes two hours to get back to the ending where it began with an actress being murdered in a slightly different way. Or is it a different actress? Not sure. And the actress, believe it or not, is played by two actresses, a decision which yields a bumper crop of confusion. George Bone is a hard chap to like, a needy alcoholic social climber who hangs around with a bunch of vacuous bores who call him nasty names when he’s not in the pub. I’m sure many in the audience were delighted with this show. It left me with a Black Sabbath of a headache.