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Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing
Precious
Theatre
Ian McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignant
Waiting for Godot
Theatre
Slight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding high
Enron
Utterly, utterly brilliant. You really are in for a treat
Though 'Trilogy' has won rave reviews, I personally found myself exasperated after about an hour
We went on a quiet sunday evening and the food was excellent, but the experience let down by the service and ambiance
London,
Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Matthew Warchus.
Cast: Kevin Spacey, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Michelle Kelly
Description: Clever modern drama by David Mamet, a cautionary tale about greed, power and seduction, starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum.
Trains: Tube/BR: Waterloo 
Phone: 0870060 6628
Website: www.oldvictheatre.com
Extra info: Food, Pub
Firepower: Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum square up as thrusting filmmakers
On form: The pair with co-star Laura Michelle Kelly
What a rare, theatrical triumph Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum achieve with their virtuoso double act in Speed-the-Plow.
By sheer acting firepower they help disguise the fact that David Mamet's famous assault on the philistine materialism of the Hollywood movie industry, its immoralists, hustlers and dim-wits, packs a pretty soft punch.
Mamet lands plenty of clever, verbal blows with the butch, sprawling swagger of his movie producers' diction, yet the plot, with its broad anti-Hollywood satire, morality narrative and angry critique of American capitalism, makes two thrusting movie producers, a seductive film studio secretary and two opposing film projects seem clichéd, caricatured instruments in the play's contrived design. So thank heavens, therefore, for Spacey and Goldblum who make the evening fun.
Spacey has long been a master of full-frontal menace and vituperation, but he surpasses himself in the climactic act of Speed-the-Plow as Charlie Fox the freelance film producer.
Fox is forced to realise that his multi-million dream of glory, which comes in the shape of a silly new blockbuster about male rape in prisons, may come to nothing.
For Goldblum's elegantly vacuous studio head or air-head, Bobby Gould, has fallen for a temporary secretary, Laura Michelle Kelly's well-upholstered but pallid Karen, and her own hippie choice of film script.
Gould, to whom the hyper-tall, rake-thin, imposing Goldblum lends an air of dream-struck serenity, has had his head and small, truculent mind turned so far that he unbelievably prepares to commit professional suicide, by proposing to back Karen's choice for a movie - a book about radiation sent by God to change the world.
Spacey then turns upon the senior partner in an outburst of contempt and physical violence. Snarling, sweating and shouting, hands gesticulating in gestures of dismissal, Spacey's Fox, always the pushy confident hustler, lets physical rip as he lands blow upon blow on the bloodied Gould, who cowers upon the floor, his minuscule supply of natural dignity lost.
Fox, as Spacey plays him here, is clearly a man fuelled by self-loathing rather than self-confidence. Fox subsequently plays an all-too-easily flashed sexual trump card, thereby dissuading Gould from proceeding with the Radiation project.
And Mamet manages to bring Speed-the-Plow to a bitter-sweet ending, the two producers reconciled and returned to their original project.
Matthew Warchus's dynamically choreographed production encourages Spacey and Goldblum to maintain terrific physical momentum. They pace and circle Rob Howell's film office set as if charged with over-forties, testosterone energy, excited by the pleasures of wheeler-dealing in Hollywood as they deliver their chafing, needling repartee to each other.
Laura Michelle Kelly, a notable leading lady in musicals, makes an odd choice for the role of Karen, whose sexual power and eagerness to spellbind Bobby with post flower-power mysticism she does not convey in a sometimes inaudible performance.
There's finally something misogynistic about Mamet's depiction and treatment of Karen, who emerges as an intense sexual opportunist who is allowed to win no sympathy, while the men are let off lightly. Even so the Spacey/Goldblum combination proves a winning one.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Honestly, hugely disappointed. The third and final act was probably the only one bearable, I was falling asleep during the first two. The acting was good (not excellent as you would except given the cast), the script probably one of the worst ever written in history. Make yourself a favour and give it a miss.
- Nick Arzenton, London, UK
Quite simply, this is the most stunning, electrifying performance and the finest stage acting I have witnessed in 51 years. Sir Ian McKellan's Lear was something else and this is something else again. Wow!
- Stewart Selkirk, Northumberland, UK
