Skip over navigation
Never So Good
-
-
National Theatre, Lyttelton, South Bank, London, SE1 9PX
-
Rating:
-
© Catherine Ashmore
-
- Being foreign secretary was, according to Harold Macmillan, like being ‘forever poised between a cliché and an indiscretion’. It’s a judgment that could also be applied to Howard Brenton’s respectful re-evaluation of Macmillan’s life and times. ‘Never So Good’ reconstructs Macmillan’s career from 1914 (as a 20-year-old in the trenches) to 1963 (when he resigned as PM over the Profumo affair).
Brenton organises his four decades of material around a dialogue between Macmillan’s older and younger selves (sensitively played by Jeremy Irons and Pip Carter respectively). It’s an insightful way to re-inject personal conflict into the many iconic scenes of British history through which Macmillan lived. And Vicki Mortimer’s wide-open stage (with tall vertical filing cabinets occasionally wheeled out of the wings like official memories) is a good frame for Macmillan’s most memorable tableaux: going over the top; plotting with Churchill at the Ritz; then stage-managing Anthony Eden’s collapse during the Suez crisis. But the perspective of the staging is too draughty and flat to focus the personal dramas with Macmillan’s adulterous wife and his politicking rivals.
And Brenton’s play steers a disappointingly middling course between historical cliché and tell-all surmise. The bon mots, prime ministerial sketches, and Churchillian cigars are all nicely achieved in Howard Davies’ absorbing production. But Macmillan fades into the foreground, despite Irons’ subtle, stiff-kneed, moist-mouthed characterisation of him. His central conflict (about the lengths he’s prepared to go in pursuit of ‘it’) falls just short of engagement. And Brenton’s inconclusive investigations of Macmillan’s survivor’s guilt, or inclinations to popery and buggery, lack sufficient conviction to prise open his mild, decent soul.
Explosions and gunshots cannot supply the lack of discernible drama and argument. But Davies’ considerable directorial ability to harmonise nuanced character acting pays off in the straighter bits of political documentary. And this play stands as a dignified, intelligent corrective to Peter Cook’s crassly funny send-up of Macmillan in ‘Beyond the Fringe’.
- Bookmark
-
-
-
-
-
- |
- Send to a friend
-
Details
-
National Theatre, Lyttelton, South Bank, London, SE1 9PX
- 020 7452 3000
- Category: West End
- Times: Mon-Wed (captioned perf Wed) 7.30pm, Tue Mat 2.15pm
- Price: £10-£41. In rep
- Tube: Waterloo
- Rail: rail
Other shows on tonight
-
Hairspray, Shaftesbury Theatre
-
Brief Encounter, Cinema on the Haymarket
-
Jersey Boys, Prince Edward Theatre
-
Never So Good, National Theatre, Lyttelton
-
Into the Hoods, Novello Theatre
-
King Lear, Shakespeare's Globe
-
Pygmalion, Old Vic
-
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare's Globe
-
The Revenger's Tragedy, National Theatre, Olivier
-
The Chalk Garden, Donmar Warehouse
-
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's Globe
-
Pygmalion, Old Vic
-
Black Watch, Barbican Theatre
-
The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare's Globe
-
The Revenger's Tragedy, National Theatre, Olivier
-
Torn, Arcola Theatre
-
The Frontline, Shakespeare's Globe
-
Zorro, Garrick Theatre
-
Hangover Square, Finborough Theatre
-
All shows on tonight
1 comment
If your idea of a good night at the theatre is to watch some fine British actors perform scenes from a school history assignment then this is for you. However, if you want to see a sophisticated historical thesis, or the rendering of inner life, or ideology taken seriously or even a fresh take on well known historical figures, then you will be dissapointed. As a play, 'Never so Good' has the wooden scripting of the worst kind of BBC docu-drama. Competent acting and imaginative staging could not save a horribly superficial script.