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Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing
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Ian McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignant
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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,
Henry Hitchings's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Nicholas Hytner.
Cast: Stephen Wright, Elliot Levey, John Hefferman, Danny Burns, Philip Childs, Alex Jennings, Adrian Scarborough, Martin Chamberlain, Richard Griffiths, Barbara Kirby, Frances De La Tour
Description: A comedy-drama by Alan Bennett, exploring the relationship between Benjamin Britten and WH Auden, reflecting on creativity, inspiration and growing old.
Times: Feb 8-11, 17-20, 25-27, Mar 1 & 2, 31, Apr 1, 3, 5 & 6, 19-21, 23 & 24, 29 & 30, May 1, 4-8, 14 & 15, 17-19, 7.30pm, Apr 22, 7pm, mats Feb 11, 20, 27, Mar 2, Apr 1, 3, 6, 24, May 1, 5, 8, 15, 19, 2.15pm, Feb 21, 28, May 2, 9, 16, 3pm, booking to May 19
Price: £10-£42.50, phone for availability
Trains: Tube/BR: Waterloo 
Phone: 0207452 3000
Website: www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
Delight: Frances de la Tour as the stage manager comforts Richard Griffiths as Fitz, the crabby actor playing Auden in a backstage scene from Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art
A new Alan Bennett play is an event. This is especially true since 2004’s The History Boys, one of the most commercially successful achievements of the National Theatre — a delicious fusion of politics, philosophy and comedy, with a healthy dash of melodrama.
The Habit of Art is less straightforwardly rewarding. It’s funny, and sometimes brilliantly so, but strangely uninvolving. Although Bennett savours his material, he doesn’t make it sing.
His centrepiece is a neatly crafted encounter between composer Benjamin Britten and poet WH Auden in 1972. Britten’s work on his new opera Death in Venice has stalled; Auden may be able to help. The pair, creative collaborators in the Thirties, had almost nothing to do with each other after the late Forties, but the idea of their meeting is pregnant with possibilities.
Bennett frames the incident theatrically: we are backstage during rehearsals for a drama that deals with the two men’s reunion. So, Richard Griffiths is crabby Fitz, an actor playing Auden. Alex Jennings with beautiful precision incarnates Britten through the actor who plays him, as well as playing an Oxford college servant unsettled by Auden’s personal habits, which include a taste for rent boys and an enthusiasm for pissing in the sink.
The squalor of Auden’s habitat is perfectly conveyed by Bob Crowley’s set, which could be straight off How Clean Is Your House? Meanwhile our perspective on proceedings is shaped by Humphrey Carpenter (Adrian Scarborough, underused), who will go on to write biographies of both men.
Bennett continues his concern with the relationship between homosexuality and creativity. Sexual misunderstandings provide moments of ripe humour. The words “But I’m with the BBC” can never have seemed so risible. Yet opulent expectations mean comedy is found in places where in truth it is sparse.
Arguably more important here is the elaborate process by which theatre is brought to life.
Frances de la Tour delights as the tenacious stage manager, supervising the company as it unpacks its baggage (both literally and metaphorically) and chaperoning a crowd of talking props.
Fundamentally, though, this is a cerebral and self-referential play. Bennett proffers some wonderful lines. The performances are proficient, and Nicholas Hytner’s direction is fluid. However, lurking awkwardly inside this rather contrived creation is a different, more emotionally resonant play. It’s a shame that it’s been submerged.
Until 24 January. For information, call 020 7452 3000.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Seems that coming out as gay may have been good for Bennett personally but bad for him artistically. I actually thought that "The History Boys" was overrated too.
- Mary, London, UK
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. As the reviewer says, some of it is very funny but there are real flaws. The play within a play concept is confusing and does not add much except the opportunity for some jokes about acting and writing and some real "in" lines about the National. The performances are good, but it is all very static and the whole is less than the sum of the parts. One for massive Bennett fans, no doubt, but I think a lot of people seeing exaggerated praise of this elsewhere will go and see the play if they can get tickets and will be surprised and disappointed by its lack of a real story or journey. The ending especially doesn't work and left me and many of the people sitting around me thinking "Is that it?"
- Rob Dennis, London
