Peter Viney's Blog

The Argument
By William Boyd

Directed by Christopher Luscombe
Designed by Simon Higlett

Theatre Royal Bath
Saturday 9th August 2019, 14.30

CAST
Felicity Kendal – Chloe, Meredith’s mother
Rupert Vansittart – Frank, Meredith’s dad.
Alice Orr-Ewing – Meredith
Simon Harrison – Pip, Meredith’s husband
Esh Alladi – Tony, Pip’s friend
Sarah Earnshaw – Jane, Meredith’s friend

We chose this from the advance programme purely on the director, Christopher Luscombe. It’s announced as ’75 minutes long. No interval’ which mildly pisses me off before we even get there. £43 each for a one act play plus parking and fuel and a two hour drive each way? When Terence Rattigan did plays at this length, he rightly put them on as double bills. 75 minutes is around a normal first half.

So we’re going in thinking this has to be REALLY amazing to justify the price versus the timing.  It hasn’t even got a large cast, just the six. We did a matinee, but it’s not going to be much of an evening out when you’re done by 8.45. I’d say it started at 2.33 or 2.34 (lots of messing about with walkie talkies and closed doors before the start) and ended at 3.42. 70 minutes, not the 75 online or the 80 in the programme. I wanted to ask as we left, ‘So when does Act 2 begin?’

In so many ways it resembles the play 8 Hotels which we saw just two days before: it consists of about eight very short scenes, nearly all of them are two part dialogue, infidelity is the major theme. So we’re wondering why 8 Hotels worked, and this didn’t.

One major fault is selling the production so heavily on Felicity Kendal. Even the tickets say “Starring Felicity Kendal’.

Of the six roles, in terms of stage time and lines, I’d place her as fourth at the most. The leads are Meredith and Pip. Jack, as her husband, is a way more important role. Any award she is nominated for this would be “Best supporting actress.” No, she’s not the star. Yes, her name gets bums on seats. Yes, it’s dishonest. When she appears as Chloe, Meredith’s mum, as ever her comic timing and phrasing is immaculate. She is a great actress and a national treasure, and outstanding whenever she appears,  but this play isn’t about her character.

The first scene: Meredith (aLice Orr-Ewing) and Pip (Simon Harrison)

Briefly. The central figures are Meredith (Alice Orr-Ewing) and Pip (Simon Harrison). She is an Oxford graduate museum curator, he’s a sharp business guy earning four times as much as her. Argument one starts by discussing a film they’ve seen and ends up with the realization that another woman is phoning him. They argue.

Chloe (Felicity Kendal) and Meredith (Alice Orr-Ewing) – this is a later scee

We move to Meredith and her mum, Chloe (Felicity Kendal), discussing her leaving Pip because he’s screwing a colleague, Mandy. They argue.

Then we have Meredith and her pal Jane (Sarah Earnshaw)  getting pissed and discussing Pip. Meredith realizes that Jane always fancied Pip. They argue.

Meredith (Alice Orr-Ewing) and Jane (Sarah Earnshaw()

Next up, Pip and his pal Tony (Eash Alladi) discussing Meredith in Pip’s awful Tooting Bec rented flat. Yes, it’s all two way dialogue scenes. They argue.

We have Chloe and husband Jack (Rupert Vansittart), discussing Pip … never liked him. They argue.

Tony (Esh Alladi) in Pip’s Tooting Bec flat

Then there’s the scene in Tony’s bachelor pad where Pips’s pal Tony and Meredith’s pal Jane try to discuss getting them back together. They argue.

Chloe and Jack … well, they argue.

Jack and Meredith … then (in the funniest scene by a mile) the dad Jack and the eventually forgiven hubby Pip. What! They really, really argue.

Then we actually get FOUR ACTORS ON THE STAGE TOGETHER, BUT VERY BRIEFLY!

Finally, Meredith and Pip are back together and a wholly predictable clichéd ending which had been telegraphed wildly for half an hour. They don’t argue. But we know they will …

Chloe (Felicity Kendal) and Jack (Rupert Vansittart)

Everyone in the play is unlikeable. There’s a massive class thing running through. The whole of Meredith’s family are unpleasant snobs. Meredith parades her superior Oxford education. Chloe is a superior snotty cow. Jack, the dad, (Rupert Vansittart, in far and away the best performance of the show) is an orthopaedic surgeon. I’ve spent much time with these medical professionals this year, and the younger group I met were not sclerotic, red-faced, alcoholic, upper class shits like Jack. None of them!  He is a daughter-centred daddy. He loathes Pip’s accent (which to me is about normal RP rather than Advanced RP). He considers it to be “barrow boy” and demonstrates a costermonger selling ripe bananas. He suggests to Pip that his father must have been in the building trade, a manual worker and is shocked to hear he’s a chartered accountant. He confuses ‘builder’ with ‘manual worker.’ Around here, builders are developers and drive Bentleys. Tooting Bec is apparently ‘non-U’ so funny. The name always was funny-sounding, but why the place?

The only time there are more than two people on stage, and then very briefly

Another classist scene is Tony (Pip’s mate) and Jane (Meredith’s pal). When we first met Jane with Meredith she seemed about normal and mild northern in accent. Then when she has the row with Tony, she suddenly becomes highly inarticulate “I’m like, you know, like, sorta, like …” kind of thing. Then Cambridge-educated Tony decides to attack her viciously for her “HRT” – high rising intonation …at the end of sentences … variously known as Australian “Neighbours” intonation, California Valley Girl intonation, upspeak, uptalk, upward inflection. Or how so many girls have chosen to speak for the last 25 years. Or how they spoke in rural Norfolk for centuries. Tony becomes hugely aggressive about her intonation so much so that I begin to think writer William Boyd is expressing a major personal prejudice against it. Weird to focus so heavily on it, as it has zero connection to the play … unless he wants to show what a load of snobs most of the characters are. I think he really doesn’t like the language pattern and shoehorned his prejudice in.

Snottiness on language runs through, at one point, Meredith (or possibly Chloe) says, ‘That is so …’ and self-corrects apologetically to ‘That is simply …’. In fact, if Boyd wanted to pin language viruses, starting speeches with So + full stop is the current one.

Also, sorry, William Boyd writes the inarticulate Jane bits very badly indeed, Either that, or Sarah Earnshaw can’t handle the inarticulate bits … like, you know, kind of like babble.  Boyd makes a major point in the programme notes on letting actors amend text in rehearsal (absolutely right) but someone got this bit so badly wrong. To me, I think I’d have to let the actor improvise it entirely. You can’t expect someone to follow a script on “how to be inarticulate.” This is from an EFL article I wrote:

So an authentic speech act might be: “Well. I’m like … Urgh? Yuk! …  and so he’s like … ‘Right!’ … then it’s just … you know, kinda SO random, cos he is like … No way! Why are you askin’ me? … and  so I’m kinda like, ‘You what? I dunno if… I mean, like … so, anyhow, what kinda crap you’re … “
Authentic. Yeah, right. Useful? Kinda not.
We cannot and should not teach learners to be inarticulate. Our model language demands clarity, and communication. There is no reason for a learner to emulate an inarticulate native speaker. Given enough exposure, they might acquire the ability to be as inarticulate, and sound as dumb, as a native speaker. But they don’t have to do that.

I was interested when Jack (the dad) describes his family. Meredith has an older brother, Ben and a younger brother, Josh. We never see them. Boy-girl-boy. The same as our three children. I was also wearing red trousers and a bright blue jacket and am of a similar build  … Hmm.

But … really nice sets with fast transitions

Where this play wins over  8 Hotels (and the only place it wins)  is Simon Higlett’s set design which enables them to switch so fast between rooms: Meredith & Pip’s pleasant apartment; then Chloe and Jack’s concrete and glass modern mansion, then the Tooting Bec (Ha ha?) flat with peeling wallpaper that Pip ends up in, and his pal Tony’s black and brown cool bachelor flat dominated by a live  TV. While the sets are superb, I realized that no one actually uses them. You could do it with a two chairs and minimal location suggestion in a studio theatre … and that’s this play’s natural habitat. On the main stage at Bath, it’s production overkill.

We named our daughter Chloe in 1980. None of her teachers could spell it. You couldn’t buy name mugs or labels. Twenty years later it was the most popular girls name in the UK. But seriously, no one of Felicity Kendal’s age (born 1946) was called Chloe. No way. They should have called Jane Chloe, and Chloe Jane. Was the switch an in-joke? Neither of us ever met anyone of our generation called Chloe. Also, her 36 years of marriage suggest she had Meredith in her very late thirties. That happens a lot now, but more rarely 35 years ago. She is really about ten years too old for the part, not that she looks it. It would be so easy to change 36 to 46 years of marriage.

My rating? Two stars. It’s by no means “really good.”  It lacks the intriguing storyline of  8 Hotels. It’s a cliché ridden, predictable series of dialogue rows portraying “sophisticated” (in their own terms) nastily classist people. To be fair, the two funniest lines in the play are Jane’s robust final response to Tony’s goading, and Pip’s even more robust response to his father-in-law’s goading. The two biggest laughs too. I always think, if you are going to use the C-word in a play, use it sparingly as here, for maximum impact. So maybe we are supposed to identify with Jane and Pip against the language snobs. I hope so.

**

I’m very tempted to take one of those stars off for appalling value for money. But one star is unwatchable. This is watchable.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
I reviewed and rated before press night, which always makes the reviews more interesting for me. Did I get the rating in line with the consensus? Not that I worry if I didn’t. But this time, I did.
3 star
Michael Billington, The Guardian ***

… shrewdly observant and intermittently funny but it lacks any striking image and, at 75 minutes, seems far more suited to an intimate space like Hampstead’s Downstairs theatre, where it started, than to a main-house stage.

2 star
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph **

Despite its brevity, the whole thing feels like a colossal waste of time, talent and effort. … it rolls lumpenly along like a mis-bowled daisy-cutter. We don’t finally care who these people are, or what they’re saying. Maybe, just possibly, it’s worth seeing Kendal in a collector’s item sort of way, but this is a summer stinker really, one to avoid.

Sam Marlow, The Times **

William Boyd is well known for his novels and screenwriting; this play feels like an idle afterthought. It’s a scrap of a thing, lasting barely more than an hour and slighter than an overstretched sitcom. Still, if you actually enjoy listening in on other people’s tedious squabbles, you’re in for a treat.

Fiona Mountford, Sunday Times **

The tone of Christopher Luscombe’s production is tiresome, as everyone riles everyone else in wearying succession … Dime store philosophy is the order of the day from all six dislikeable chracters.

CHRISTOPHER LUSCOMBE (director)
The Nightingales, Chichester 2018
Travels With My Aunt, Chichester 2016
Twelfth Night, RSC 2017
Love’s Labour’s Lost– RSC 2014
Love’s Labour’s Won RSC 2014
Love’s Labour’s Lost, RSC / Chichester 2016
Much Ado About Nothing, RSC / Chichester 2016
While The Sun Shines,  by Terence Rattigan, Bath 2016
Nell Gwynne, Globe 2015

FELICITY KENDAL
Hay Fever, Noel Coward, Bath Theatre Royal 2014

ALICE ORR-EWING
Don Juan in Soho, 2017
An Enemy of The People by Henrik Ibsen, adapted Christopher Hampton, Chichester Festival Theatre
Hay Fever by Noel Coward, Bath Theatre Royal 2014

SIMON HARRISON
The Changeling, Wanamaker Playhouse 2015
The Comedy of Errors – Globe, 2014
Henry VI parts I-III, Globe on tour
As You Like It, Globe 2015

SARAH EARNSHAW
Travels With My Aunt, Chichester 2016
The Nightingales, Chichester 2018

ESH ALLADI
Absolute Hell, National Theatre, 2018
Twelfth Night, RSC 2017