Peter Viney's Blog

A Number

by Caryl Churchill
Directed by Polly Findlay

ser design by Lizzie Clachan

Bridge Theatre, London
Friday 21st February 2020, 19.30

Roger Allam – Salter, the father
Colin Morgan – all the sons (Bernard 1, Bernard 2, Michael Black)

An hour long? With a cast of two?  Phew! That was a bit expensive. Last night at the Old Vic with the short Endgame, they at least added another play. Nearly a pound each per minute here … it had better be good.

So it’s a 2002 story about a man who has cloned sons. I’m going to have to say that’s a totally brilliant theme for a drama.

It sounds familiar though … oh, yes, would that be Double Identity an English Language Teaching 65 minute comedy drama starring Steve Steen (as two clones) and Jim Sweeney,  published by Oxford University Press in 1999. It won the IVCA Silver Award. Who was that written by? Peter Viney & Karen Viney.  Oh! That’s us … and ours included the search for a lost Shakespeare play, The Falcon of Malta. And ours was funny and had great locations in Oxford which no film company except OUP could have accessed.

The Boys From Brazil was a 1976 novel by Ira Levin, and a 1978 film, and the clones in this are clones of Adolf Hitler. The cloning theme occurs again in Star Wars in 1977 when they mention “The Clone Wars” though it was many years before we discovered that the Stormtroopers were clones (which was supposed to excuse killing them in such large numbers, I guess). Then Jurassic Park relies on cloning – Michael Crichton’s novel was written in 1989 and sold to the movies before it was published.

The idea of billionaires freezing themselves (or just a lock of hair) so that future technology could clone them fascinates. So what if you were cloned? It wouldn’t be you with your consciousness and memory, it would be a different being who had the same DNA. Karen adds that if it was a different time of birth and date, the astrology would be different. It brings in the nature v nurture debate too. Would that clone be similar in outlook? It’s a fascinating subject with so much mileage.

What a pity this play didn’t explore much of it. It is a mediocre and quite dull radio play, no more. It doesn’t obey the first law of sci-fi, which is briefly explain your premise first, then just go for it. It is even vague on cloning. If I hadn’t read reviews I would have been wondering whether it was about cloning or sperm donation or just step-kids.  Does she even use the word clone? There is no explanation of whether we are in an era when cloning is general, as it seems to be set in the here and now, nor whether this was a one off event,  nor how this ordinary bloke commissioned the cloning. As one character is listed as 40 in the text, we are 40 years after the cloning was done. You should provide some sci-fi brief explanation. It takes 30 seconds to establish. Poor plotting. A radio play? Knock out the scene changes and you’d have been down to a radio perfect 55 minutes.

Roger Allam as the father, Colin Morgan as Bernard 2 (the one he has brought up). The first angle of theset.

A radio play? Yes.  It’s only two people talking, and there is zero significant physical activity on stage. There is no theatricality. You could do it with no set and two chairs. The only decent bit of drama was when the third clone reached out to touch his dad and he flinched. That was funny. The only laugh in an hour and that was direction, not writing.  My mind runs fast on the moral and individual questions of cloning but finds very little of interest here. We both read the play text afterwards. It didn’t get any better. I just got extremely annoyed with her typographical convention on interrupted lines of just using Caps or lower case for the initial letter of a phrase. The dotted leader …  does it more clearly.

Churchill comes down on nurture not nature. Dad tells different stories, but this seems to be the eventual one. The wife died, under a train in the first version, then suicide in the last version he tells. Dad looked after the original child (Bernard 1) but was out drinking and useless. So actually, the original is not a clone (though reviews mention the three clones).

Colin Morgan is now Bernard 1, the original so “uncloned” one

The oldest or original one is a murderous lad who was taken into care as a small child, whereupon dad had the plaintive one (Bernard 2)  he subsequently brought up cloned as a replacement, while the third, adopted by an Irish family (I guess) is happily married and not upset at all to find he is a clone. There may be more… nineteen is mentioned. In the text they are Bernard 2 who Dad brought up, then the original Bernard 1, then the Irish one, Michael. Dad is named as Salter in the text, but I don’t Recall hearing any of the names.

Colin Morgan is Michael, the Irish clone

I didn’t much like the generic estuary-lite accents. It reminded me of doing audio tapes with producers who thought sufficient direction was ‘just give me an off accent.’ That was never good enough for me. Clone 3 was the exception with the Irish accent.

The acting is very good indeed. That’s not the issue. To me it’s thin material. I’m amazed at the praise heaped on the play and the number of A Number productions there have been.

The star of the show, no the ONLY good thing in the entire hour was the brilliant though unnecessary set design by Lizzie Clachan. The versatile Bridge Theatre becomes an RSC style platform stage.  They had blackouts with loud music and in seconds, they managed to revolve the stage living room seating area through ninety degrees, and amazingly replace the back wall entirely. One back wall opened into a kitchen beyond. So we went through seeing four angles, all sides of the same 70s room.  There are five scenes, and so the fifth returns to our first view, facing the window.  These set changes are mystifyingly fast. I even counted the dots on the edge of the carpet to work out whether the seating area was square or rectangular, because that would affect the revolve. That’s how involved I was in the play. Counting the pattern of large carpet dots (14 x 14) was more fun than the dialogue.

An hour? For two in poor seats, £1.50 a minute? Out of the theatre for the evening at half past eight? A complete rip-off. What was this doing in a large major theatre? Yes, Ustinov Studio at Bath, The Studio at Poole, or The Salzburg at Salisbury was the level – small intimate space, small audience, modest production, no set. It did not warrant more and I might have rated it much more highly in such a space. The size of the place dwarfed the play, and overwhelmed it. Appalling value.

In the Sunday Times, Colin Morgan says:

“A lot of time was spent with the script as a catalyst for the imagination,” Churchill herself has been in the rehearsals – but like her plays she doesn’t provide any easy answers, ‘You might ask her something specific and she will literally say it could be that. Or it could be that. She is fantastic and liberating.
Colin Morgan interviewed by Sarah Crompton, Sunday Times 23 February 2020

As a scriptwriter, I was in attendance, rehearsing with the actors at nearly all but the last of my video series. If I’d answered an actor with ‘I dunno. Maybe,’ the producers would have questioned my travel expenses, hotel and food. Try working with American actors, who given a writer on set will quiz you at length on the backstory.

We thought Endgame the night before was merely two star. This was definitely not as good. This is a major note for us, after two days of very poor theatre in London at three to four times the price of productions of plays in Salisbury and Poole, or at least double the price of plays in Bath and Chichester. More than the RSC Stratford, which is invariably vastly superior. Add hotels, food, taxis. Though the best bit of tonight was The Ivy restaurant next door. Great pre-theatre three course for £21 each. Brilliant value for money..

I can see us withdrawing more and more from London theatre. Provincial theatre is easily as good or better. It’s so much cheaper in vastly more comfortable theatres.

Overall? Sorry- an Emperor’s New Clothes on the critics who rated it any higher. I’ve read the four star reviews. I’m genuinely perplexed. I saw nothing of the great drama they’re all talking about.   Two stars at most is generous.

**

THEATRE

Row A in Gallery One is worse than any West End Theatre seat I have ever experienced or even the dreadfully uncomfortable Wanamaker Playhouse. No leg room, legs bent back under you, sharp metal pressing into my knee. If I hadn’t had an end of row seat I would have to have left. Unacceptable seating. Weird, usually we have found The Bridge very good.

PROGRAMME

Ludicrous fan puff piece on Caryl Churchill, apparently Britain’s greatest female playwright. (What?) and she is also  the greatest female theatrical innovator? Not Joan Littlewood then. Four whole detailed pages on a play we are not seeing. Save it for the fan club newsletter.

Plus point – they sold the text at a reduced price. I can’t recall exactly but it was a couple of pounds off.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

4 star
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph ****
Arjun Neil Alim, The Independent, ****
Sarah Crompton, What’s On Stage ****
Matt Wolf, The i, ****
David Jays, The Sunday Times ****

I know I shouldn’t criticize other reviews, but David Jays really annoyed me. He gave three stars to The Upstart Crowe (my rating is 5 stars) dismissing it as ‘pantomime’ and four stars to this which he enthused about to excess. 

3 star
Aria Ackbar, The Guardian, ***
Susannah Clapp, Observer ***
Nick Curtis, Evening Standard ***
Natasha Tripney, The Stage ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

POLLY FINDLAY
Macbeth, RSC 2018
The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson, RSC 2016
As You Like It, National Theatre, 2015
The Merchant of Venice, RSC 2015
Arden of Faversham, RSC 2014

ROGER ALLAM
The Book Thief(film) Narrator / Death

COLIN MORGAN
Mojo, by Jez Butterworth, Harold Pinter Theatre, 2014
Testament of Youth (film)