Theatre

When the National Theatre’s autumn season was announced, the journalistic pack instantly seized on one event: the prospect of seeing Simon Russell Beale and Alex Jennings partnered for the first time in ‘The Alchemist’ directed by Nicholas Hytner. Given that both actors are such firm favourites at the National, both of them festooned with awards, it’s astonishing that they have not stepped out together before. Feature continues

Jennings, a discriminating actor with a big voice, unruly curls and a massive range, takes on Subtle, one of the three con artists in Ben Jonson’s comedy, while Beale plays Face, and Lesley Manville, who is no slouch herself, is Doll. Steeped in the Jacobean slang of the time, ‘The Alchemist’ is notoriously difficult to read. But on stage it emerges as a furiously-paced farce, as celebrated past productions by Sam Mendes, Trevor Nunn and Tyrone Guthrie have testified. Comedies often date faster than tragedies, but the fiery Jonson’s hasn’t, surely because of its tight structure and the twists and turns of the story, and because the city will always attract those eager to relieve the innocent of their purses. ‘The Alchemist’ describes how Face stays in London to look after his master’s house while the latter is in the country to escape the plague. Doll and Subtle move in and lure a long line of gullibles to the house. It begins with a massive blow-up between Face and Subtle, with the latter declaring ‘I fart at thee’ (changed to ‘I spit’ in my own ancient copy).

When Jennings arrives for the interview in a break in rehearsals, he’s still clutching his script, a sign that the lines are hard to learn because, he says, ‘the construction of the language is slightly perverse.’ It was his partner and friends who told him he would be mad not to do it. ‘I couldn’t see it at first. It’s hard to read but then the more you read it, the more it comes alive. I haven’t done any Jonson before and it’s so different from Shakespeare. Jonson’s plays are mostly urban and also it’s harder to impose a subtext and an interior life.’

He’s once again working with his mentor and friend Nicholas Hytner, who first discerned his talent at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1985. As usual with Hytner’s classic productions, ‘The Alchemist’ has been updated. ‘At first,’ says Jennings, ‘I was looking forward to recreating the steaming sewers of Jacobean London. But I’m always happy to wear jeans in old plays and “The Alchemist” is absolutely about stuff that goes on now. There’s one character who comes in and wants his shop redesigned, which is absolutely about feng shui. But you’ve then got to be very specific about the contemporary versions of the disguises that Face and Subtle put on in the play and you arrive, for instance, at the Californian guru.’