A VOYAGE ROUND MY FATHER. To 16 December.
London
A VOYAGE ROUND MY FATHER
by John Mortimer.
Wyndhams Theatre To 16 December 2006.
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm.
Runs 2hr 30min One interval.
TICKETS: 0870 950 0925 (24 hrs).
www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk (£1.50 per ticket for ‘phone/online bookings).
Review: Timothy Ramsden 21 September.
As ideally-produced a portrait of an unideal husband and father as is likely to be found.
Upsized from the Donmar to Wyndhams, where it fits most snugly, Thea Sharrock’s beautifully-judged John Mortimer revival opens while Watford Palace shows D H Lawrence’s The Daughter-in-Law. Lawrence grimly shows a forceful mother crippling her sons’ emotional relations with other women. Mortimer’s comically autobiographical delve shows a barrister Father emotionally disabling his Son.
Dad, says Dominic Rowan’s grown-up offspring, now married and branching out from performing in the divorce-courts to writing for the theatre, is an advocate. Ever the performer (he would intimidate witnesses by an opening silence, during which he counted to 43), ever out to win, he had no principled position. Blinded in middle-age, he permitted no reference to his infliction, carrying on his law practice as ever, sightlessly tending his garden with heroic obstinacy.
Avoiding neighbours, curmudgeonly and inconsiderate, it’s doubtful any real-life original could have quite the irascible charm with which Mortimer and Derek Jacobi imbue him. Keeping him from acknowledging his sightlessness involved sacrifice from his wife (Joanna David, a model of smiling patience). And it’s the scenes at home which most evidently carry sadness beneath the laughter.
When the Son, as boy and man, voyages away, there’s generally simpler humour. Christopher Benjamin’s Headmaster roars prep-school traditions into young heads and explains sex by vehemently condemning offers of cake. Rowan’s Son tries to avoid his father’s career, then turns up to work in a film-studio with raincoat and briefcase as if for a day in chambers, before beginning a career in court with pale imitations of his dad’s methods.
It’s in the film-world he meets, then marries Elizabeth, his positive angel. At their first meeting she faces Father with his condition, and later makes his Son accept how much he lives within a paternal shadow. It requires an assertive sweetness which Natasha Little hits perfectly. Her sourest moments of silent distaste with this old man come from awareness of the values to which he’s blind.
Rowan grows convincingly from embarrassment to frankness, while Jacobi embodies the indomitable, opinionated man through to the final, gaping days of senescence, crowning a comic performance with pity and terror.
Father: Derek Jacobi.
Son: Dominic Rowan.
Mother: Joanna David.
Iris/1st ATS: Katie Warren.
Son as Child/Daniel: Lewis Aaltonen/Edward Jackson Keen/Ben Williams.
Ringer/Mr Thong/Director/Mr Morrow: Neil Boorman.
Japhet/1st Judge/Sparks/2nd Judge: Jamie de Courcey.
Matron/Miss Cox/2nd ATS/Miss Ferguson: Lily Bevan.
Ham/Boustead/Arthur/George/Doctor: Osmund Bullock.
Mrs Noah/Mrs Reigate/Miss Baker/Doris/Witness: Sadie Shimmin.
Headmaster: Christopher Benjamin.
Reigate/Jonathan: Alexander Barnett/Sonny Muharrem/Louis Williams.
Elizabeth: Natasha Little.
Director: Thea Sharrock.
Designer: Robert Jones.
Lighting: Peter Mumford.
Sound: Gregory Clarke.
Choreographer: Jane Gibson.
Dialect coach: Kate Godfrey.
Assistant director: Hanna Berrigan.
Associate designer: Bec Chippendale.
Associate lighting: David Plater.
2006-09-22 01:45:15