Post by Steve on Nov 23, 2017 15:49:25 GMT
Dramatic, funny and revealing show about fake news, utilises the Sam Wanamaker Theatre's corpulent darkness and candles to wonderful effect.
Some spoilers follow. . .
If Brecht were alive today, and wanted to warn his audience about the dangers of "fake news," the story of Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's Machiavellian spymaster, is the story he would have told. Walsingham was so state-security minded that if he perceived a threat, he would create that threat himself by false flag operations and by spreading fake news, just so he could set about tackling it before it ever really happened. He eliminated potential threats more ruthlessly than Tom Cruise in "Minority Report!" The scope of Walsingham's operation was so big that everybody was his target and his victim, including monarchs.
Aidan McArdle underplays Walsingham, as a non-descript, decent apparatchik, rather than a gloating Moriarty-type genius, which works, since, like Macavity the Mystery Cat or Kaiser Sose, the greatest trick he pulls is convincing everyone else that he's not there.
Where Walsingham is played small, Tara Fitzgerald plays Queen Elizabeth large, the way the part is written. Lustgarten refreshingly tosses away the decency playbook, for writing female monarchs, which dictates that a Queen is always running a feminist gauntlet, and is always intrinsically well-meaning. This Queen Elizabeth is a straight up return to Miranda Richardson's Queenie, from the best season of Blackadder (season 2) in which Queen Elisabeth is depicted as a shallow, lustful, capricious, greedy, overreaching, dangerous and murderous monster. Obviously, if you are going to write a character this way, you skirt into comedic territory, but I never found that the drama of the piece was diluted by the comedy of this characterisation. Fitzgerald's white painted face and purposeful greedy gait reminded me not only of Queenie, but also of a bemasked face-painted Star Wars villain, so fierce does she become. Maybe this is where George Lucas got his ideas lol.
This play perfectly suits the Sam Wanamaker, resembling the Jacobean plays that have been staged there, with scheming characters, copious candles, bursts of darkness, and the kind of bloodletting (in Act 2) that deserves a full cover-your-eyes-Peggs warning.
Supporting performances are top notch, especially Abraham Popoola's terrifying matter-of-fact torturer, and Ian Redford's sneaky and sage guru, who tutored Walsingham in spycraft. I regretted, however, that Edmund Kingsley's spy, Robert Pooley, had so little to do, as the actor had the charisma of a James Bond.
If the real secret of this theatre is where to find a comfortable seat, "The Secret Theatre," of Britain's history of fake news, while occasionally a little on the nose, hits home topically, dramatically and comedically, and is thoroughly entertaining and worthwhile.
4 stars.
NB: Running Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.
Some spoilers follow. . .
If Brecht were alive today, and wanted to warn his audience about the dangers of "fake news," the story of Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's Machiavellian spymaster, is the story he would have told. Walsingham was so state-security minded that if he perceived a threat, he would create that threat himself by false flag operations and by spreading fake news, just so he could set about tackling it before it ever really happened. He eliminated potential threats more ruthlessly than Tom Cruise in "Minority Report!" The scope of Walsingham's operation was so big that everybody was his target and his victim, including monarchs.
Aidan McArdle underplays Walsingham, as a non-descript, decent apparatchik, rather than a gloating Moriarty-type genius, which works, since, like Macavity the Mystery Cat or Kaiser Sose, the greatest trick he pulls is convincing everyone else that he's not there.
Where Walsingham is played small, Tara Fitzgerald plays Queen Elizabeth large, the way the part is written. Lustgarten refreshingly tosses away the decency playbook, for writing female monarchs, which dictates that a Queen is always running a feminist gauntlet, and is always intrinsically well-meaning. This Queen Elizabeth is a straight up return to Miranda Richardson's Queenie, from the best season of Blackadder (season 2) in which Queen Elisabeth is depicted as a shallow, lustful, capricious, greedy, overreaching, dangerous and murderous monster. Obviously, if you are going to write a character this way, you skirt into comedic territory, but I never found that the drama of the piece was diluted by the comedy of this characterisation. Fitzgerald's white painted face and purposeful greedy gait reminded me not only of Queenie, but also of a bemasked face-painted Star Wars villain, so fierce does she become. Maybe this is where George Lucas got his ideas lol.
This play perfectly suits the Sam Wanamaker, resembling the Jacobean plays that have been staged there, with scheming characters, copious candles, bursts of darkness, and the kind of bloodletting (in Act 2) that deserves a full cover-your-eyes-Peggs warning.
Supporting performances are top notch, especially Abraham Popoola's terrifying matter-of-fact torturer, and Ian Redford's sneaky and sage guru, who tutored Walsingham in spycraft. I regretted, however, that Edmund Kingsley's spy, Robert Pooley, had so little to do, as the actor had the charisma of a James Bond.
If the real secret of this theatre is where to find a comfortable seat, "The Secret Theatre," of Britain's history of fake news, while occasionally a little on the nose, hits home topically, dramatically and comedically, and is thoroughly entertaining and worthwhile.
4 stars.
NB: Running Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.
