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Jack Bardoe as John and Rupert Everett as his father. Picture: Manuel Harlan A Voyage Round My Father Malvern Theatres **** The
relationships between fathers and their sons are complex, nuanced and
hugely influential. John Mortimer was a successful lawyer as well as a
writer; the play A
Voyage Round My Father,
which he wrote in the 1960s*. is an autobiographical exploration of his
own complicated relationship with his father – a brilliant but eccentric
barrister with a sharp tongue and trenchant wit. As we enter the theatre we are faced with a grand
scene depicting the garden where Mortimer’s father spent many of his
leisure hours, hunting earwigs among the dahlias apparently. The scene
has the freshness of greenery, trees, vegetation and a bright sky. We follow the young John’s story from childhood
through school, a legal career and eventually into authorship. It seems
a remote world from our own modernity: corporal punishment, boarding
school conventions, peaked school caps and shorts, misogyny etc. It is
briskly portrayed in witty more than nostalgic tones, yet through it
all, and despite his father’s deprecating manner towards him, John has a
fondness and admiration for his despotic, sharp-witted and eventually
blind forebear. The ensemble cast bring wonderful characters and
caricatures briefly to life in John’s experience. It is a varied and
talented team. The key characters are of course John Mortimer himself,
ably played by Jack Bardot, who captures the awkwardness of youth and
teenage very effectively, as well as the adult lawyer and writer.
Eleanor David is the steady, long suffering mother who manages the
irascible father with extraordinary grace, patience and skill. Allegra
Marland plays Elizabeth who marries John despite the father-in-law’s
discouragement. Rupert Everett takes the role of the father with
great charisma.. He communicates the brilliance of a man who is
ultimately frustrated, one feels, and struggling, not only with his
blindness, but also to find fulfilment in his life despite the success
in his career. The creative team have done an excellent job with
the striking but simple set, complemented by appropriate furniture and
props, lighting and sound, to depict the many varied scenes in John’s
life – home, garden, classroom, law court, film set etc. Richard Eyre
brings a hugely experienced and assured hand to the direction and
cohesion of the whole production. We visit another world – the upper
middle class of British society in the first half of the twentieth
century. It is nostalgic and humorous, yet tinged with some sadness. A Voyage Round My Father runs at Malvern
Theatres until Saturday 4th November. Tim Crow 31-10-23 *A Voyage Round My Father started life in 1963 as three half hour BBC radio sketches, those then became a television play and that was then adapted for the stage in 1971 with Alec Guinness as the father. |
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