LARKIN WITH WOMEN. To 2 July.
Manchester
LARKIN WITH WOMEN
by Ben Brown
Library Theatre To 2 July 2005
Mon-Thu 7.30pm Fri-Sat 8pm Mat 29 June, 2 July 3pm
Audio-described 29 June 7.30pm 2 July 3pm
Captioned 30 June
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
TICKETS: 0161 236 7110
www.librarytheatre.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 July
A poet to the life - simultaneously sympathetic and offputting.Sexual intercourse began, poet Philip Larkin famously wrote, in 1963. Rather late for him, born in 1922. 63 was the age at which his father had died and when, according to his presentiment, he too died. But Larkin's furtive sexual intercourse had been going on some time.
He came near the end of an age when male assumptions still held secure in a world where largely subservient females paid tribute to them. Larkin glowed in the approval of other white male critics and colleagues who largely shared his views. And the fifties to eighties (covered in Ben Brown's play) saw the end of privacy. Today, there'd be no waiting for the post-mortem publication of letters to blow the gaff on literary respectability.
A horde of commentators would have been questioning the ground on which Larkin stood confident as king of a literary castle. And there'd have been more than a compliant secretary telling him to keep his hands off the female staff before clambering into bed with him herself. Kiss and tell articles would have abounded.
Only the long-term relationship with academic Monica would be sanctioned today; for the rest, he'd have been out on his ear, Oleanna-style. Which would have destroyed him; respectability was essential, as a friend's vice-squad prank exemplifies.
Moving from a rented flat to home-owning was traumatic. Everything disgusted Larkin, not just kids and Christmas. And there was the ever-present fear of death Larkin sceptical on love opens the play and 3 women separately round his hospital bed close it with a sense of disconnection. Chris Honer's production emphasises this death-sense. Fragmentary scenes, their slow changes infused by the traditional jazz the poet loved, give a feel of life's tedium. Sex devoid of commitment is a waiting for death.
Cameron Stewart's too large-framed for Larkin, giving the mordant comments a flavour of deliberate downbeat witticisms, rather than the sense of an utter worm-in-the-bud life-view. The usually fine Cate Hamer struggles with Monica's aging, expressed through effortful external acting, though Meriel Schofield's prim, yet vulnerable secretary and Sherry Baines' acolyte turned eventual rebel are both good.
Larkin: Cameron Stewart
Monica: Cate Hamer
Betty: Meriel Schofield
Maeve: Sherry Baines
Director: Chris Honer
Designer: Sue Plummer
Lighting: James Farncombe
Sound: Paul Gregory
2005-06-28 11:25:14