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When: 12th November, 2022 (Matinee)

Where: Harold Pinter Theatre, London

Writer: C.P. Taylor

Director: Dominic Cooke


This play was a really interesting one. Intially I felt quite confused about what I felt about it, I think this is a good production, but for multiple reasons not one that I would shout from the rooftops about.

Like many other plays in the West End at the moment one of the biggest draws for many people to see this play is the casting of David Tennant and to be honest this annoys me. I think David Tennant was brilliant for this role, but sadly by placing him in the West End and putting his name on all the posters, a completely wrong audience has been brought in. The piece is uncomfortable and raw, it's not a light piece of entertainment and from what I could tell the audience were not prepared for that. The majority of the audience were middle aged women, who were in big groups drinking Rose even at a matinee peformance. For me this is so frustrating, overhearing conversations afterwards it was clear people were expecting much more of a 'specatcle' like the one you might expect from a musical, which this wasn't and was never billed to be, and therefore were complaining it was slow and boring. I also think it's disrespectful to Tennant himself, it must feel so disheartening to put so much work and effort into a performance, for the entire audience to be there just because the media have built you a reputation of being an 'attractive celebrity'. I understand this is a big issue with the media and could have possibly been expected, but clearly Tennant was trying to show people his range and skill and that seems to have been completely missed by the audience. I know that putting big names in shows attracts more people to see a performance and the money that it brings in is sorely needed in the industry at the moment, but almost all plays being announced at the moment have a big name in them, and it has made me weary about which performances I am choosing to go to in order to avoid the stereotypical audiences that these people are unintentionally attracting.

Despite this I felt that the performances in this production were brilliant. All three performers clearly understood their character(s) in depth, and the humanity and characterisation that they presented was impressive. Tennant played his character beautifully. This character has so much depth, and whilst I found some aspects of the storyline particularly surround this character a little difficult to follow, I felt that this was not down to Tennants performance. He manages to capture the nuiances of a character who appears to be on the side of the Nazi Party and whilst not fully agreeing with everything, feels that it is his duty to do what they say. I do think that his performance was quite subtle, and whilst this fit the storyline and atmosphere of the piece, perhaps emphasising the internal dilemma that he feels could have helped the story to pick up at points. For me it was Sharon Small who was the highlight of the production, her performance was beautifully subtle, and yet she managed to show 3 different characters. It was an extraordinary example of multiroling, shifting between characters using minor changes in accent or posture. 

I found the story a little difficult to follow, and at many points was unsure what was really happening. I definitely found the second half much easier to follow, and im not really sure how much of the first half was that neccessary. The first half felt quite jumbled and i often struggled to identify how each scene linked together. Once again i also felt the interval was unneccessary, I think it could have been more successful if it was cut down to a 1hr and a half production and the interval was cut, rather than 2hrs.  

Finally I could not talk about this production without mentioning the musical ensemble at the end. This was a really poignant moment in the piece and it definitely helped the story to pick up and create the variation that it had been missing, but they only came in right at the very end. I would have loved them to have been brought in sooner and acknowledged more throughout the piece. 

Overall I felt the performances were incredible, but for me the story didn't resonate with me as much as I felt it should have. For a topic clouded in judgement, I felt it should have picked up at moments, it felt a little too one note until the very end. 



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