Even before the return of lockdown restrictions, Bridge Theatre’s Talking Heads season felt like a defiant green shoot in Britain’s decimated cultural landscape. Now, as the prospect of lockdown returns, this revival of Alan Bennett’s one-person plays feels more precious than ever. Not only because there is so little live theatre around.
The evening is already miraculous for the way in which Nicholas Hytner’s venue nimbly bobs and weaves against the pandemic’s every attempt to snuff out live performance. Social distancing? No problem, we’ll just rip out seats. No ordering at the bar? Fine, order on your phone and drinks are delivered to your seat with reassuring cool professionalism and instructions that face masks must still be worn between sips.
On top of all this there is the miracle of Imelda Staunton. Directed by Jonathan Kent she plays letter-writing busybody Irene, a curtain-twitcher who fills her vacant hours by writing letters of complaint to whomever she feels is ultimately responsible for her displeasure.
The crematorium’s reply was both courteous and prompt. Now members of staff who are seen smoking inappropriately will be dealt with in no uncertain terms, she informs us with deep satisfaction. And who better to write to about the dog mess outside the gates of Buckingham Palace than the Queen herself? However, it is difficult, Irene admits, to know whom to send her Platinum pen-written missives to about the young couple who have moved in over the road, and her fear that their child is being neglected or worse.
As always with Bennett the monologue amounts to a beautifully observed portrait. And Staunton is in total command of the light and dark repercussions of Irene’s compulsive need to intervene. Comic timing climaxes as she recounts the scepticism with which she receives a visit from the local vicar. Unconvinced that his crucifix is any proof of identity, she is finally convinced by the cycle clips. Yet what sustains and elevates these plays is the plot that emerges after the portraits are established.
This is equally true of the evening’s companion piece in which Lucian Msamati plays charming park keeper Wilfred. His is a blameless life of sweeping leaves and tending to the park he used to visit as a child.
Back then, a band played in the bandstand and people kept off the grass. Keen observers might recognise emerging facts about Wilfred — the sweets he buys, his boss’s inability to find his employment history — as clues to a hidden past.
When it emerges, many actors might have chosen to inject a sinister note. But under Jeremy Herrin’s direction, Msamati — who was the RSC’s first black Iago opposite Hugh Quarshie’s Othello and will also long be remembered as the bitter Salieri in the National’s revival of Amadeus — does a much more chilling thing by making Wilfred likeable throughout.
And as for Staunton, if every theatre in the land were able to put on a show, it is doubtful that any of them could boast a better performance than her Irene.
