The show that got me to the box office in 2011? The Lion in Winter. Its film adaptation would be one of my "desert island videos", and though I was aware it was based on a stage play, I'd never had
a chance to see it live. The Theatre Royal Haymarket indulged me, and all other fans of cutting wit and verbal repartee, with a revival anchored by Robert Lindsay and Joanna Lumley.
This is the ultimate dysfunctional family story; a very modern exploration of damaged relationships set in a distant past. It's 1183. Henry II gathers his family for Christmas. He's cobbled together the greatest empire since Charlemagne, but he's troubled by who will follow and the legacy he'll leave. Joining him is his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, once his great love match but now a political enemy held prisoner for a decade because she backed a rebellion against him. They each have different ideas
about who should take the throne next. Eleanor supporting the eldest, Richard, Henry backs baby John and nobody supports clever middle son Geoffrey. A parental division which, of course, puts all the sons at each others' throats while making them distrust their parents. Joining this tense gathering is the young king of France, who's elder half-sister has grown up in the English court, betrothed to Richard since she was seven but who is now Henry's mistress. In one intense, 24-hour period plans rise and fall, alliances change, secrets are revealed and relationships falter.
What makes The Lion in Winter so special to me is the sparkling writing. This could have been a straightforward, tense, dark, drama. But it's a glitteringly clever comedy, too, with all those moments of sharp passion cut by wry one-liners. (Eleanor, after a particularly bitter confrontation during which all the relationships have imploded painfully, shrugging her shoulders and saying "oh well, all families have their ups and downs.")
It's brave actors who even consider following in the footsteps of Richard Harris and Katherine Hepburn in the film version. Though not quite as good as their mighty predecessors, Lindsay and Lumley have the talent to carve their own identity on the roles. I've been a Lumley fan since her Ab Fab days and have an enormous respect for the travel programmes and political campaigns she appears in as herself. But I'd never had the chance to see her on stage. She was a more flirtatious Eleanor than Hepburn, who was all iron. Lumley's portrayal offered more of the feminine wiles that covered the master politician. Lindsay, on the other hand, I'd seen in a great version of Richard III in 1999, when I first discovered his tremendous range. (He's known more as a comic TV actor here, but his dramatic heft is impressive.) They each capture the sense of ageing without grace that's so essential to the characters, and make the love/hate relationship between them entirely credible.
It was only after seeing the play that I read the reviews, which are universally poor. Crit
icisms of facial expressions and costuming I can't agree or disagree with; we were in the balcony. But from there, everything looked fine. All of the reviewers bashed the play itself, and several used its likeness to Blackadder as a criticism. And there's the difference. It's precisely because this is Blackadder turned serious drama that I love it. So I'll leave you to make your own decision from there. If you're a fan of historical drama, wit and clever banter, it's on 'til 28 January.
Just around the corner at the National Portrait Gallery is another theatrical treat. The First Actresses: Nell Gwynn to Sarah Siddons gathers together the depictions ... many of them quite famous ... of the actresses that rose to prominence on the London stage from the first legalisation of female acting in the Restoration through the Regency period. As ever with the NPG, while portraits are the visual fodder, the exhibition explanations and catalog help you to understand life stories, and through them, the times themselves.
Acting was a scandalous profession, something no fine lady would consider, and yet the stories revealed here make it clear it was packed with vivacious, intelligent, powerful wo
men. Women who channeled their exceptional charisma into acting then, but might have easily been politicians or corporate executives as much as media stars today. Though they may not have been considered "good" society, most had fascinating lives, and they certainly didn't all have bad ends.
We start with Nell Gwynn, who ended up a popular mistress of Charles II and, through him, matriarch of two English aristocratic families. (They're still around. I once spent an evening knocking back port in a cellar with one of them.) Another aristocratic line comes from the union of William IV and Dorothy Jordan, whose three dramatic portraits here leave you no doubt that she was gorgeous and interesting. While her royal children did well she ended sad and strapped for cash; she'd stayed faithful to her lover, but when he became king he was forced to put her aside, after more than a decade, and marry. Mary Robinson (pictured here in Hoppner's famous work), was also known as "Perdita" from one of her more famous roles, did slightly better after briefly being the mistress of William's brother George IV when he was a prince. She went on to be a poet, playwright and respected authority on the Georgian arts scene.
In fact, most of the women in this exhibition did fairly well for themselves. Some married into the industry and retired to management (Elizabeth Ann Linley, who married the playwright Sheridan). Some were so alluring they got the full marital prize from their admirers. Lavinia Fenton became the Duchess of Bolton, Elizabeth Farren the Countess of Derby. Sarah Siddons, after locking her reputation as the finest tragic actress on the London stage, went on to become tutor to George IIIs daughters. Her full length portrait here is as dignified and stately as any Jane Austen heroine. Of course, there are the tragic young deaths, a few addictions and plenty of sexual impropriety on display as well. A fascinating preview of our modern age, as is the cabinet of little statuettes of the actresses in some of their leading roles, and the display of first editions of their memoirs. Clearly, the cult of celebrity is nothing new.
The show spreads over just four galleries and, like most NPG shows, isn't very crowded. There are exhibition catalogs scattered on benches throughout, allowing you to linger, read the stories of the various women, look into their engaging faces and speculate on what they were really like. This show is a lot less known, but a heck of a lot easier to get into, than the far more famous exhibit around the corner. That's coming next.
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