Feature: Ecstasy at Hampstead Theatre from March 10-April
Published: 10 March, 2011
by JOSH LOEB
A HOMECOMING of sorts was toasted at Hampstead Theatre this week at the culmination of Ed Hall’s first season in charge as artistic director of the venue.
The celebrations marked the opening of Mike Leigh’s play Ecstasy, which premièred at the venue in 1979 and has been revived with the acclaimed writer and director at the helm.
It is the first time Leigh, who lives in Museum Street, Bloomsbury, has revisited one of his plays and the original cast – including Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Stephen Rea and Ron Cook – will be attending to watch from the stalls.
Also returning to the venue – where Leigh’s Abigail’s Party was staged – is designer Alison Chitty. She worked with Leigh on the original Ecstasy and has kitted out the new cast in flares and retro shirts.
A trip down memory lane for all concerned, then – except that members of the new cast, including Downton Abbey actor Allen Leech, 29, were as yet unborn in 1979 and so had to immerse themselves in the minute details of daily life in the year Thatcher took office.
“In relation to character development, you go into every aspect of where your character came from,” says Leech. “With Mike, you go into it in so much more detail than you would with any other director.”
This is hard work from actor's point of view.
“You have to build up a back story,” he says. “A background, history, biography and timeline. Mike encourages you to think about your character’s culture and daily routine. He said to me, ‘Well, what would you do after work?’ My character is an Irish builder, and I said, ‘To be honest, I’d probably go to the pub’. He said, ‘What time?’, and I said ‘Probably about half four’. To which he replied ‘No you wouldn’t. The pubs don’t reopen until half five.’ In the old days pubs would close for several hours in the middle of the day and reopen later.”
The characters in Ecstasy are no stranger to a tipple. The play concerns three old friends who meet in a Kilburn bed-sit and drink themselves into incoherence. It combines Leigh’s fashion for observational comedy with a poignant emotional edge.
Ecstasy is at Hampstead Theatre from March 10-April. 020 7722 9301.
www.hampsteadtheatre.com