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Russell Tovey, David Haig and Jem Wall – all at Sea in this production |
Bond comes a cropper
at sea
THE SEA
Haymarket Theatre Royal
EDWARD Bond has disturbed and divided theatrical opinion for 50 years. In Saved, a baby is stoned to death in a London park, while in Early Morning, Queen Victoria has a lesbian relationship. Cannibalism is also, so to speak, thrown into the pot.
The Sea opened at the Royal Court in 1973 with the inimitable Coral Brown and Alan Webb, but this is Bond’s first West End production. Jonathan Kent, formerly of the Almeida, is its director and guiding light. He commends Bond and The Sea to us as “combining high and mysterious dark poetry”.
Set in an Edwardian coastal town, it opens with a spectacular storm in which a young man drowns while his cries for help are callously ignored by a gang of locals.
The small town is dominated by a haughty lady of the manor, Mrs Rafi (Dame Eileen Atkins), who intimidates the local draper, Hatch (David Haig).
He, after an obsequious session with Mrs Rafi, reveals his crazed belief that things from outer space are taking over.
To him, the unfortunate drowned young man was proof of this extraterrestrial invasion.
Then there is an old and wise man who lives in a beach hut – his purpose to urge us to love one another.
It left me cold. Why does every established West End actress want to ape Edith Evans’s definitive Lady Bracknell?
I was deeply embarrassed for her, even when she threw the ashes of the dead youth over the now obviously demented Hatch, the draper. She is, alas, not a natural comedienne.
David Haig has the manic quality of John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty and is eventually led away to a safe place.
His frenetic stabbing of a corpse on the beach stilled the “canned laughter” which marked his every appearance from an enthusiastic audience.
If this revival is intended to challenge our prevailing moral values, reluctantly I conclude it failed for me.
And if the eccentricity and class-ridden claustrophobic life in the pre-1914 town is “high comedy and deep dark poetry”, it left me in a low and confused state of mind because I still believe Edward Bond to be a significant but neglected playwright.
Until April 19
CNJ Booking line 0870 040 0070 |
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