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Nicholas de Jongh's rating
, Walliams dazzles in No Man's Land
By
Nicholas de Jongh
8 Oct 2008
I have never seen a Pinter play so possessed by deathly foreboding, menace and covert gay desire. Almost every pore of Rupert Goold’s revelatory production, with its ominous flutters of sound and music, is permeated by these emotions and athletic flights of black comedy.
Goold, a director who inspired shudders of revulsion and surprise with his radical Macbeth and Six Characters In Search Of An Author, works a similar magic for No Man’s Land. Yet he remains entirely faithful to Pinter’s visionary comic fantasia, in which two old men, Hirst and Spooner, strike up a conversation one summer night on Hampstead Heath and return to Hirst’s grand home.
What comes across with chilling power is Pinter’s nightmarish idea of the no man’s land of senility and death. Hirst, his wandering mind pickled in alcohol and menaced by a dream of drowning, may drift towards the no man’s land of senility and death. Yet what a terrific, comic show Michael Gambon’s flamboyantly grand Hirst puts on before he goes, conjuring up fanciful reminiscences of early life as an homme fatale.
The key to the power of Goold’s illuminating revival lies in its revelation of the play’s gay ambience. Previous directors ran a bit scared of it.
The scene is set in a grand north London drawing room, which Giles Cadle designs to resemble some sepulchral private museum. A vast, antique cabinet stuffed with about 59 varieties of alcohol is its show-piece.
Gambon’s florid gentleman of letters, eyes roving the room in blank impassivity, may have picked up David Bradley’s effete Spooner but sex is not in the air since both men appear past anything but heavy fantasising about themselves.
Spooner, a weird, long-haired fellow in dilapidated clothes, whose ornate lingo makes him sound an Edwardian relic, claims the status of poet. With a mouth fixed in a smirk of ingratiation and a face that looks as if it’s been left out too often overnight in the rain, this Spooner hardly seems a candidate for anyone’s instant charity. Bradley, once a definitive tramp in Pinter’s Caretaker, makes fine, high comedy out of this gentleman tramp in search of a secure berth.
True to traditional Pinter, a battle over territory begins with Hirst’s servants, Foster and Briggs, resentful of Spooner’s appearance. Goold makes it suitably appear as if these two male house-keepers are lovers. Nick Dunning’s splendid, thuggish Briggs sports spooky brown -leather gloves and a surly stare, while David Walliams, all preening, lip-sticked, henna-haired attitude, makes a dazzlingly assured straight-stage debut as the sinister Foster.
Hirst himself, as Gambon plays him with precious grandeur, seems hardly less gay.
So when Hirst in wildly amusing sequences of supposed reminiscence identifies Spooner as his vintage friend who fought with him over no end of girls, and Spooner colludes in the idea, it feels as if both are playing at being heterosexual family men to conceal the emptiness of loveless existences. This is chilling, thrilling Pinter in dream-land, relieved by flashes of sardonic amusement.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Reader views (4)
Went to see this at the weekend. Bradley and Gambon were absolutely outstanding, but as others have pointed out on here, Walliams was like a plank of wood. He didn't ruin the play for me, as the rest of the actors were fantastic; Bradley's speech in which he asked Gambon's character to employ him as his secretary blew me away. However, I was not impressed by Walliams' puerile sniggering during the curtain call.
- Anon, London, UK., 21/10/2008 12:17
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I did feel really embarrassed for David, but I now regret leaving after the first half. I didn't leave because the play was bad, you can't get a bad Pinter, it's just that David was spoiling it and making things all a bit transparent and 'acted'. Another writer who also attended said the second half was side splitting. I saw Charles Dance outside at half time, maybe he could take over from David. Not meaning to be cheeky.
I don't think there's anything wrong with comics playing Pinter, Lee Evans gave an excellent performance in The Dumb Waiter. Poor David I think was just really nervous and overcome by the whole thing. Then again, Evans was playing the comical side kick in that play. Maybe comics should stay away from trying to play menace- Well David should. Sorry David, I'm sure you're a really nice person.
- Writer, London, 08/10/2008 16:55
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Having had the opportunity to attend on press night and the opportunity to see Harold Pinter in the flesh, as he walked from his black car, to the theatre entrance with the air of a master, I found the nights entertainment to be a real prize. I was not able to, and this may be a fault of my own, envisage David Walliams on stage, as anything but a comical character from Little Britain. It was however only the first night and I'm sure he'll get better. For me, he didn't seem to be able to summon up the menace or gravitas that the other three actors pulled off with aplomb. I think David's saving grace was that, you can't really mess up a Pinter, the text itself will save you- even if delivered, not as well as it could be.
An excellent play in which I hope the 'rooky eventually makes good'.
- Writer, London, 08/10/2008 13:30
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What a surprise! Nick de Jongh revelling in the homo-erotic qualities of a play and it's actors (imagined in his feverish brain or otherwise) instead of judging objectively the spectacle presented before him. David Walliams is so out of his depth in this production that my friends and I were gripping the seats in embarrassment every time he spoke. It doesn't help that his first appearance comes twenty minutes after two of our greatest living stage actors (Gambon and Bradley) have strutted their stuff, with Gambon's drunk acting a masterclass in understated physical comedy, but frankly, even if he was coming on after the Krankies I don't think Walliams could have got it more wrong. Pinter's genius is his ability to imply menace and unease through language. You don't need to do anything. The moment an actor starts to play the menace, the character loses the quality set up by the writing and the play goes out of the window. Walliams just didn't get it. Careful with his words, acting all the time. I asked ten actors (it was Press Night) what they thought and all were of the same opinion. That comedy stars should avoid the stage until they know what they're doing. Thank God for the second half, when Walliams was mostly absent and Gambon and Bradley could refresh us, especially in the hilarious scene in which they feign a history of shared girlfriends, wives and college days. To watch Gambon skip his huge frame mincingly across the stage is almost worth the entrance fee. Almost.
- Jennifer Jones, London UK, 08/10/2008 12:40
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