Thus demeaned Wilson hardly bothers to seem menacing or obsessed by
Thus demeaned, Wilson hardly bothers to seem menacing or obsessed by Peter He’s merely on automatic pilot, acting crotchety. Only David Bamber is worth catching as his sidekick: an endearingly camp, scarf-knitting Pirate Smee. Susannah York is left aimlessly drifting around, with a weak glazed smile. One suspects the whole company would like the ground to do a crocodile, open wide and swallow them up.By comparison, Ben-Hur is winning fun, mainly because it’s a thumping great epic merrily performed by a star-free cast who don’t have two gold coins to rub together, let alone any gilded chariots. This adaptation by Tom Morris and director Carl Heap (co-founder of the wonderful, sadly missed Medieval Players) quite cleverly avoids competing with the lavish Charlton Heston movie. By way of a narrative frame, we find ourselves in the long dining room of a London mansion in 1902 (with spectators ranked on either side). We learn that the master and mistress have swanned off to Drury Lane to see Ben-Hur on stage: a true spectacular that involved eight galloping horses and a whirling sand storm.While they’re away the servants play out their own version of General Lew Wallace’s toga saga about a Jewish lad who – though he rescues and is adopted by a rich Roman – vows to beat his imperial oppressors in revenge for other wrongs.This isn’t on a par with the exuberant family shows previously directed at BAC by Phil Willmott.
It’s not all that Christmassy, even if Ben-Hur’s life interconnects with Christ’s and he converts near the end. There are speeches that sound, in these internationally tense times, provocatively militaristic. More generally, the dialogue can be ponderous while the acting is underpowered – including Will Adamsdale whose eponymous hero is a rather anodyne boy. Some subplots feel scrappy and Heap can’t decide whether to be comical or serious or develop the show into a musical (inserting four songs).Still, the resourceful inventiveness of our below-stairs troupe is sometimes a delightful hoot Centurions march about in cricket pads and bodices.
The mighty naval battle is played out in miniature, with silver sugar bowls proudly sailing down the dining table, leading fleets of candles. And the chariot race, with stampeding scullery maids and with Ben-Hur and his foe clattering around on chairs, is climactically boisterous Parlour games gone wild. k.bassett independent.co.uk ‘Peter Pan’: Royal Festival Hall, London SE1, .uk, (020 7960 4242), to 11 January; ‘Ben-Hur’: BAC, London SW11, .uk (020 7223 2223), to 18 January. Royal Ballet/Nutcracker
When Monica Mason, the Royal Ballet’s new boss, spoke to a surprised audience at Covent Garden the other day, slipping modestly through the front curtain just as the show was about to start, everyone thought she was just saying hello.
That alone would have been a public relations touch whose efficacy had evaded her predecessor. But what Mason went on to say marked a real sea change in the management style of this lofty establishment.
The occasion was the opening of the company’s Nutcracker, and three of the four advertised principals – including Darcey Bussell – weren’t dancing Normally a curt line on the cast sheet is deemed sufficient. But Mason thought fit to make personal apology and detail the reasons (flu, a back injury, an eye infection) why subs had to be brought on. “I know how frustrating it must be,” she said, “to book months in advance and pay a lot of money to see a particular dancer…” At a stroke, several hundred people felt much better.In my view Sugar Plum isn’t Darcey’s best role anyway, and the encephalitic wig she sports in this production would have Trinny and Susannah in hysterics.