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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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A somewhat frosty first meeting between Myrtle Logue (Jane Ware), left, and HRH Princess Elizabeth (Katie Ho), interrupted by Lionel Logue (Mark Natrass) with HRH Prince Albert standing nervously by. Pictures: Emily White The King's Speech Highbury Theatre Centre ***** Prince Albert, the Duke of York, had no
expectation, much less desire to be king. He was happily in the
background drifting along in the shadow of his more o utward, some might
say, hedonistic elder brother David, who was to become Edward VIII on
the death of their father George V in 1936. Albert, or Bertie as his family knew him,
shunning public engagements and had a mortal dread of any public
speaking having suffered a debilitating stammer since childhood, which
is the starting point for David Seidler’s play based on his hit film. We open with The Duke of York’s speech at the closing of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium in 1925. It was a terrifying ordeal for him and perhaps an even bigger one for the crowds who had to endure the stuttering, disjointed, interminable delivery. Paint would dry faster and certainly be smoother. Bertie’s wife, the Princess Elizabeth, had tried various experts to find a cure for his speech affliction without success which had brought her, eventually and reluctantly, to the Harley Street consulting rooms of one Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist with no regard to the niceties of royal protocol. She called him doctor, although we were to discover he had no qualifications whatsoever but was a self-taught speech therapist, as well as an amateur actor who taught elocution – and still had ambitions of a career on the stage. Prince Albert was persuaded by his wife to attend a session with Logue, and it was a rocky start. We had not just a pillar but a figure atop a pillar of the establishment, and a royal to boot, bedecked with protocol, five foot distance, speak only when spoken to and all that, and, not even in touching distance of the pillars, an Aussie who saw Princes and royals in general as just other blokes, or, if not blokes, then one supposes, Sheilas.
Ron Parker as Cosmo Lang, left, with Rob Phillips as Winston Churchill and with Richard Constable as Prince Edward and Nicki White as Wallis Simpson in the background. Seidler’s play follows what was initially an uneasy, even tumultuous relationship through the troubled times of the 1930s leading to the abdication of Edward VIII with his proposed marriage to Mrs Simpson, and that meant the elevation of Bertie and his coronation as George VI and finally, at the end of the decade, the declaration of war in 1939. Phil Nooney is simply superb as Bertie. It isn’t easy to stammer convincingly as an affliction rather than j.j.j.just as a j.j.j.j.j.oke, but he carries it off making some of his speeches almost painful to listen to, while at times we see flashes of anger borne out of fear and frustration. Perhaps the best performance by Nooney I have seen. Mark Natrass is equal to him as Logue, wisely avoiding an Australian accent which could have created a distraction. He gives us the matter of fact, tell it as it is Aussie attitude, pressing the right buttons to force Bertie to confront his demons, and forming an entertaining double act as king and commoner become friends, or from Logue’s view, mates, sport. Katie Ho nails it as Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen Mother, aloof at first but slowly warming to the rough diamond Logue as her Bertie slowly finds his voice. She was to, eventually, become friends with Jayne Ware’s Myrtle, Logue’s long suffering wife. Her frustration shows when she reveals she had arrived in England as a holiday in the mother country, only to still be here with Logue setting up shop as a speech therapist. All she wanted to do was go home. Richard Delahaye has a regal moment as the rather stern George V before succumbing to the grim reaper - his leading physician, Lord Dawson of Penn, was to admit in his diaries that he had hastened his inevitable demise with morphine and cocaine to save further anguish for the family assembled around the deathbed and to ensure he died in time for it to be reported in the establishment The Times the following morning rather than the more populist and scandalous evening papers in the afternoon. For those unsure about reincarnation Delahaye was to reappear in Act II as a rather flustered Stanley Baldwin with abdications and threats of war to deal with.
Protocol Aussie style as the now King George VI and Lionel discuss the impending coronation Hovering in the background were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the wonderfully named Cosmo Lang, given a slightly pompous air by Ron Parker, while Rob Phillips, shunning comedy for once, gave us a statesmanlike Winston Churchill, who hovered around Government in the 1930s. Phillips managed to bring that slightly conspiratorial air of pre-war Churchill to the fore. Churchill opposed Edward’s abdication, for instance, and saw appeasement with Mussolini and then Hitler as nothing short of capitulation, warning of a coming war. His time was to come. Richard Constable is a hail fellow, well met sort of chap as Prince Edward, with a more playboy than protocol minded air about him, and a dangerous relationship with once divorced and still married American Wallis Simpson, who we see briefly in the shape of Nicki White. It was a relationship which was to explode into a constitutional crisis. There are brief appearances of Ken Agnew as a casting director at Logue’s unsuccessful, don’t give up the day job, attempts to become an actor, and Yvonne Lee pops up as Queen Mary, while Duncan McLaurie has his best BBC announcer’s voice to introduce the King’s radio broadcasts. Malcolm Robertshaw has created a multiple set affair, but more of that later, with a clever sliding wall with a door to separate Logue’s consulting room and reception, and cleverly hide the rear of the stage for scene changes, a blue curtain serving the same purpose while Tony Reynolds has created a montage of stills and videos projected on the rear screen to enhance scenes. Director Ken Agnew has kept everything focussed and kept up a commendable pace in the circumstances. A script problem, far from Highbury’s making, has left them with an abridged version of the original screenplay rather than the stage play script, copies of which neither the agents nor Highbury could source. Thus, the script, with film in mind, has more scenes than they would have liked which could have disjointed the flow far more than Agnew has allowed. Seidler, incidentally came across the story of Logue while battling his own stammer, and was writing and researching the story and working with Logue’s brain surgeon son Valentine, who loaned him his father’s notebooks. but he shelved the project in 1982 at the request of the Queen Mother, George VI’s widow, who asked him not to pursue it in her lifetime. The Oscar winning film appeared in 2010, eight years after her death. The story, set in a momentous time in history, is, at its heart, a very human story of friendship, a king without a voice who fears kingship and a down to earth Aussie happy to help a fellow bloke in trouble, and that growing and lifelong relationship comes over beautifully in this fine production. To 21-09-24 Roger Clarke |
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