False trails

The Shawshank Redemption
Wyndham’s

Othello
Trafalgar Studios

All change at Wyndham’s. The wayward sophistication and creative adventure of Michael Grandage’s first West End season has drawn to a close and been replaced by a karaoke version of The Shawshank Redemption. Smart move. Cameron Mackintosh, the theatre’s owner, must be hoping that this stale piece of air guitar will sharpen our appetite for Grandage’s return in 2010. The Shawshank copycat, directed by Peter Sheridan, has been cast with lookalikes in the Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman roles, reinforcing the impression that the priority is to cook up a comfort-food replica and not upset the punters with unfamiliar tastes. It’s a maddeningly average concept. But the show is still wonderful entertainment. It can’t fail to be. The brilliantly crafted storyline, with its false trails, unexpected climaxes and cosy Hollywood conclusion, inevitably works its schmaltzy magic. The film’s popularity rests on the happy fact that the set-up — a good-natured sophisticate unjustly abandoned among hostile brutes — feels like a definition of life itself. The principals, Kevin Anderson and Reg E. Cathey, acquit themselves creditably as the saintly convicts Andy and Red. And there’s a wonderful trio of prison bullies, led by the terrifying Joe Hanley, who roam the jail like Eton prefects assaulting newcomers and punishing upstarts by buggering them senseless.

A much-praised touring production of Othello starring Lenny Henry has arrived at the Trafalgar Studios. In the programme notes Henry denies the charge of ‘celebrity slumming’ and informs us that Shakespeare’s ‘passionate energy’ merits comparison with EastEnders. He’s a plucky soul but his acting credits (all the way from New Faces to CBeebies) confirm that nothing in his career has prepared him for this. He looks horribly exposed in the part and he acts as if trying to convince himself he’s being convincing.