OH, WHISTLE... To 6 February.

London/Tour.

OH, WHISTLE…
by M R James

Baron’s Court Theatre The Curtain’s Up Pub 28a Comeragh Road W14 9HR To 4 January 2009.
29-30 Dec, 2-4 Jan 8pm.
Runs 1hr 35min One interval.

TICKETS: 020 8932 4747.
www.falseimpressions.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 28 December.

Two strong tales well told.
A couple of years ago Robert Lloyd Parry performed two M R James’ ghost stories, Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook and The Mezzotint as ‘A Pleasing Terror’ at Hampstead’s New End Theatre.

Now he’s taken his armchair, candles, decanter and Edwardian accoutrements to Baron’s Court Theatre for a couple more of James’ ghostly narrations. This snug basement venue, lit only by flickering candlelight, provides them with a fittingly intimate environment.

What’s more, this time Lloyd Parry’s recountings find James at home in East Anglia; he was a Cambridge University medievalist and, for 13 years early in the last century, Provost of King’s College.

But these two stories speak of the Victorian world, where science and university reason coexist with the dark shadows that surround late-night candles and flaring gas, where warmth and company provide a safe environment for the chill adventures of lone people who have trusted too much to their reason.

‘The Ash Tree’, with its story of a witch’s revenge against generations of the family who denounced her, specifically links a rational later age to a time of superstition. It’s effective enough, though I’m unsure if the high-pitched voice and fussy vocal manner adopted have any historical basis in James’ original readings to his College companions (whereas Lloyd Parry has memorised the stories).

It scarcely matters, especially when we reach what might be James’ masterpiece, ‘Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad’. Here there’s no simple explanation for events. Lloyd Parry captures every careful step of the story’s voyage. From the soup-consuming opening in College, to the golf holiday on the East Anglian coast. Then, through the night-time landscape, the sightings that we know must be sinister because it’s a ghost story – but which, if we are honest, we too would have shrugged off in life.

This is the more theatrical telling, as sudden sounds, a handkerchief transforming and similar effects adding to the mounting fear. The performance matches James in holding back the manifestation of horror, and in the intensity of feeling that eventually grows from the dry tones of rationality. A fine, and very individual evening.

Performer: R M Lloyd Parry.

2008-12-29 01:49:22