DVD/150: TWENTY THOUSAND STREETS UNDER THE SKY (Simon Curtis, 2005, tv)

A perfect adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's trio of novels, published between 1929 and 1934, by the late playwright Kevin Elyot and directed by Simon Curtis.

In the early 1930s, Bob and Ella are co-workers in The Midnight Bell pub in Euston. Their easy friendship hides Ella's unrequited love for him, made worse by them being in adjacent rooms above the pub.

One night Bob starts chatting to young prostitute Jenny in the bar; when she goes to leave to work for her rent money, he gives her the cash if she promises to meet the next day.

Jenny doesn't appear but Bob later tracks her down in Soho; she acts contrite and soon they start an unbalanced relationship with Bob giving her cash from his diminishing savings and Jenny occasionally showing up, sometimes loving, sometimes dismissive.

Meanwhile Ella finds herself pursued by pub customer Ernest Eccles, a patronising bore.

Shelf or charity shop?  A definite keeper thanks to the spot-on 1930s design - although the sepia, drained-colour cinematography makes you pine for just one single primary colour - Kevin Elyot's marvellous adaptation, Simon Curtis' nuanced direction, and the painfully sad performances of Bryan Dick as Bob, Sally Hawkins as Ella and Zoe Tapper as Jenny.  The wonderfully chosen supporting cast, lead by Phil Davis as the emotional bully Ernest Eccles, include Marcia Warren, Doreen Mantle, Tony Haygarth, Susan Wooldridge, Ruth Sheen, Neil Stuke and Geoffrey Streatfeild.  All the more special too when I remember that it was filmed outside Flashbacks, the shop I used to work in, one weekend!

COMING CLEAN at the King's Head Theatre - 35 years later, Kevin Elyot's debut play...

So, to paraphrase the ad-line for AMERICAN GRAFFITI,  where were you in '82?

I started 1982 as an avid film fan who looked at the theatre as something of a planetarium - a place to stare at stars - I ended it as an obsessed theatre-lover thanks to Ian Charleson.  First there was the joy of seeing him and Vanessa Redgrave in two Sunday afternoon benefits for the SWP Youth Training Centres and finally, after months of trying, seeing him, Julie Covington, Julia Mckenzie and Bob Hoskins in GUYS AND DOLLS.  Film just couldn't offer as exciting as that.

It was a big theatre year for Kevin Elyot too.  Elyot had been an actor with the Gay Sweatshop theatre company and had played the Bush and King's Head Theatres with them.  In 1981 he submitted his first play called COSY to the Bush where it opened the following year with the title changed to COMING CLEAN and it went on to win the first Samuel Beckett Award for excellence.

This year, three years after his death, we have seen the odd symmetry of his first and last plays being revived: Park Theatre gave us the slight TWILIGHT SONG written at the end of his life and now we have the King's Head - where he acted all those years ago - staging that first play as part of a short season of productions to mark the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalization of homosexuality - but how well does it stand up?  See, Elyot isn't the only one to deal in innuendo!

It was fascinating to see small beginnings in this debut play of themes which would be developed in his later plays, most importantly, the secrets that can fester in friendships and love affairs.  One can confidently say that none of Elyot's main characters would know all the words to "Sing If You're Glad To Be Gay" and his jaundiced view of them rarely leaves room for sympathetic writing.  But that is one reason why I like his writing: there was no pandering to his obvious audience, especially as the years when he was most active saw a more celebratory feel to gay writing, albeit in the shadow of the HIV virus.

Set over the summer months of 1982, COMING CLEAN is set in the cramped living room of Greg and Tony, two 30-somethings who live in the Elyot stamping ground of central North London.  New Yorker Greg is the couple's breadwinner as a University lecturer which allows Tony to concentrate on his writing.  Much to the hilarity of Tony's old friend William - who hangs around the flat chatting about his latest sexual shenanigans and eating pastry - the couple have hired a cleaner, a young out-of-work actor called Robert.

Tony and Greg have been together for five years and have agreed that they can have partners on the side but only as one-night stands: twice would be betrayal.  So it's no surprise that Tony is shocked to discover after four months that Greg and Robert have been having an affair behind his back. It's an interesting play, the bitchy gay comedy that starts the play settles you into thinking that you know how the play will go but especially in the second act the mood changes to one of genuine pain as Tony confronts Greg with his infidelity which has now shattered their agreement. 

The scene that follows brings the play to an uneasy conclusion - Greg has left for New York - the holiday they were supposed to take together - and Tony has picked up a German leather queen in a disco.  Their love-making is awkward and stilted but when they stop trying to communicate, Tony can finally relax.  Maybe after University lecturer Greg, Tony can forget the importance of words...

The stage was dominated by a large red leather couch which was in keeping with the era but was resolutely ugly and the design seemed particularly crashingly odd - Greg and Tony don't need a cleaner, they need an interior designer.  Adam Spreadbury-Maher did a good job at directing the slowly darkening atmosphere of the play and there was a stand-out supporting performance from Elliot Hadley as the outrageous best friend William although his popping up as Jurgen the German in the last scene was a distraction.

I also grew to like Lee Knight's jittery Tony, his playing of the confrontation scene was nicely layered, but the production was let down by Tom Lambert's two-dimensional performance as the calculating Robert and the shockingly one-note performance of Jason Nwoga as Greg: a charmless performance which did nothing to explain or develop his character.

I am glad I got to see the production as it was interesting to see the springboard for Kevin Elyot's writing which found it's true peak with the shattering MY NIGHT WITH REG, but now someone has to revive his three post-REG plays: THE DAY I STOOD STILL and MOUTH TO MOUTH in which he exploits the playing with time he successfully managed in REG and his family drama FORTY WINKS.  It's good to see where a writer started and ended but we must also celebrate the career peaks too.

The King's Head poster design is also alarmingly misleading...  there is no sloppy milk-drinking in the production, let alone buff lads.

TWILIGHT SONG at Park Theatre - Echoes of a Summer's night...

After the recent reading of Martin Sherman's BENT at the Lyttelton, there was a Q&A with Sherman and director Stephen Daldry and a member of the audience asked them if any gay play in the 38 years since BENT's first production had made a big impression on them. I was surprised that they both shined the question on; Daldry took the opportunity to promote a new two-part play that he is directing next year at the Young Vic and Sherman said there were too many.

I had hoped that Kevin Elyot's sublime MY NIGHT WITH REG would be mentioned, particularly as Elyot, when an actor, had appeared in Martin Sherman's play about Isadora Duncan WHEN SHE DANCED at the Globe Theatre, while Daldry was Artistic Director at the Royal Court when the play was produced.  In passing, not to mention ANGELS IN AMERICA was surprising too as they were sitting on the set for it's current revival!

MY NIGHT WITH REG was revived in a wonderful production three years ago at the Donmar but tragically Kevin Elyot died two months before it's opening and now his final play TWILIGHT SONG is being presented at north London's Park Theatre.  As in his plays REG, THE DAY I STOOD STILL and MOUTH TO MOUTH, Elyot again plays with the concept of time, moving forward and back over months and years to disclose the quiet desperation and gnawing secrets that his mostly-reserved characters are trying to live with.

TWILIGHT SONG takes place in prime Elyot territory: a ground floor living room in a large North London house which belongs to Barry Gough and his mother Isabella who seem locked in a strange, resentful existence.  In his 50s, Barry has taken early retirement to mooch about the house that is sinking into disrepair.  He has invited estate agent Skinner to look around it as he is thinking of downsizing.  After revealing that Skinner grew up in Australia with his father who moved there from England the conversation takes an unexpected turn that, although married, he occasionally fucks for money, men or women.  Barry hesitatingly asks if he would do it to him and after some brutal negotiating Skinner agrees...

The action then moves back to the same room in the summer of 1960, where Isabella and her husband Basil are entertaining two older friends, Uncle Charles and his army friend Harry before going out to La Caprice while outside the garden is being laid.  While alone Charles attempts to kiss Harry who brusquely rebuffs him. Charles is unhappy that they no longer have a secretive sex life but Harry refuses to acknowledge it, he is a father now and a successful solicitor.

Seven years later, a pregnant Isabella and Basil are again going out to dinner with Charles but much has changed; Isabella is bored with Basil and confesses to Charles that the father of her unborn child is a working-class man she once had an affair with while Charles reveals his secret sorrow that he refused to financially help Harry who turned to him for help because he was being blackmailed by a younger man.  Faced with personal disgrace Harry killed himself...

We ricochet back to the night of Barry's meeting with Skinner when an aged and drunken Isabella returns from her weekly visit to a spiritualist.  She is desperately trying to find out what happened to her younger son, the one she was pregnant with by the secret lover, who vanished while still a toddler from the house. Although bickering, it is obvious that Barry still yearns for the maternal love that was lavished on his missing brother.

One last time Elyot takes us back in time, to the same night when Basil, Isabella, Charles and Harry were off to La Caprice... the gardener working outside walks in and catches Isabella alone and their conversation turns to flirtation - just like the scene between Barry and Skinner - and he roughly kisses her.  They are interrupted by Harry and it transpires that the gardener knows Harry as well, he is the blackmailer...

Director Anthony Banks certainly keeps the 75 minute production running along nicely, maintaining the thread of inner sorrow that runs through the characters' lives taut while James Cotterill's simple stage design was effective.  Sadly the play itself seemed to be just off the beat; Elyot was obviously struggling with it's plotting and both the obvious and hidden connections seem finally to be too forced, there were so many crossed lines going on between the relatively few main characters that I missed the one Owen spotted - that Skinner is probably Barry's lost brother.  I am sure Elyot could have given it a re-write had there been time allowed him.

There were particularly fine performances from Hugh Ross as Uncle Charles, saddled with his secret sorrow, and Adam Garcia was great fun as the ever-surprising Skinner but as the catalyst character of the gardener he revealed the fact that Elyot has him there just to link the secrets, there is no real humanity there.  Paul Higgins was effective as the emotionally-stunted Barry but again he revealed the character of Basil to be merely a cypher.  Sadly Bryony Hannah was one-note as Isabella and was totally at sea when she had to age up to being 75 years-old.

There was enough within TWILIGHT SONG to maintain interest and a minor Kevin Elyot play is still worth one's time but what I was ultimately left with is the sadness that there will be no more plays from him now...

MY NIGHT WITH REG - revisited at the Apollo Theatre

Last year the best production I saw on stage was Robert Hastie's revelatory revival of Kevin Elyot's MY NIGHT WITH REG, a play that had languished in memories for nearly 20 years.  The National should hang their head in shame for leaving Elyot's key work on the shelf.  But then we probably would not have had this revival with this particular cast.  My original blog is here

I was lucky enough to see it at the Donmar twice but now it has transferred for a limited season to the Apollo Theatre - ceiling staying up nicely - and it was great to see it again.  It was interesting to see it on the bigger proscenium stage and to see how the cast were adapting their performances to a bigger auditorium.

I am happy to report that apart from a slight broadening of a couple of performances, Hastie's production is still a marvel, funny and profound by turn with the cast of six working seamlessly together to keep the action ricocheting between them while beneath lies caverns of subtext.

 

Kevin Elyot always plays with the concepts of time, consequences and memory and what struck me seeing REG again was how skillfully he does this, how something significant at the start of the play is dismissed as a half-remembered memory by the end, how things important to one person are forgotten by the other, how when someone dies what remains are half-remembered moments in time.

Geoffrey Streatfeild as art-dealer Daniel, Julian Ovendon as the rootless John, Jonathan Broadbent as lonely Guy, Richard Cant as the terminally dull Bernie, Matt Bardock as the ever-randy Benny and Lewis Reeves as the plain-speaking younger lad Eric are giving memorable, heartbreaking performances that deserve all the plaudits they have received - do yourself a favour and get to see this once-in-a-lifetime production.

What I am now wondering is if I can make it a four-in-a-lifetime production...  Click on the banner to book.

Here the cast give you an introduction to the play:

*My* Night With Reg

Scary but true.  It's been three years since I have been to the Donmar Warehouse.

I have seen two Donmar productions in the past year but I have not visited the theatre!  By way of explanation, I saw CORIOLANUS at the NT Live showing at the Ritzy Cinema (an experience I am still trying to get my head around) and I also saw THE WEIR when it transferred to the Wyndhams Theatre but nope, no actual visit since seeing Jude Law and Ruth Wilson in ANNA CHRISTIE.

It's not that I haven't wanted to see recent productions there but the Donmar is now one of the theatres that usually sell out by the time of the first preview so as you can't beat them, you have to join 'em!  So back on the mailing list and back in the front row of the circle...

And what a production to come back to, a timely revival of Kevin Elyot's quietly devastating 1994 play MY NIGHT WITH REG.  It has taken 20 years to get a London revival - the sadness is that Elyot died less than two months ago during the pre-production for this production.  He was such a fine writer, perceptive but with a deadly cutting wit, and it's a shame that he leaves only a handful of plays alongside his other writing credits for television, namely his Agatha Christie adaptations which included the last David Suchet Poirot episode and my personal favourite, his BBC adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's TWENTY THOUSAND STREETS UNDER THE SKY.

MY NIGHT WITH REG opened at the Royal Court in 1994 and was such a success that it transferred to the Criterion and then the Playhouse Theatres, later being filmed for the BBC with the original cast of Anthony Calf (John), David Bamber (Guy), Joe Duttine (Eric), John Sessions (Daniel), Roger Frost (Bernie) and the late Kenneth MacDonald (Benny)

With that great cast I had doubts if I could really enjoy this revival but the combination of Elyot's timeless writing, Robert Hastie's insightful direction and a cast that is truly an ensemble made for a wonderful experience.

The play has been compared to US plays that dealt with the AIDS crisis - THE NORMAL HEART, AS IS etc. - but, like Tony Kushner's ANGELS IN AMERICA, Elyot was already looking back to the 1980s when writing his play so with hindsight, he could view the crisis with less hysteria than the Americans.  Unlike these other plays REG has a profundity and a universality that leaves the American plays thin and trite.  I remember seeing the film version of Terrence McNally's LOVE! VALOR! COMPASSION, also written in 1994 and also based around a group of gay men and almost ran from the cinema at the sheer banal cutesiness of it all compared to what Elyot had written.

Shy and lonely Guy is throwing a housewarming party in his new ground floor flat and has invited his old University friend John who he has silently adored for years although they hardly see each other.  John, oblivious to Guy's unrequited love, confides in him about his sex life and, after another University friend Daniel stops by briefly between air flights, John tortures Guy further by telling him he slept with Daniel's partner Reg the night before. Exasperated by his friends' teasing about his non-existent sex life, Guy blurts out that on a recent trip to Lanzarote he had unprotected sex with a man who got him drunk.  Also at the party is Eric, a young chap who is helping to paint Guy's conservatory and who acts oblivious to the passes made at him by John and Geoffrey.

Imperceptibly the scene jumps ahead in time to the get-together after Reg's funeral and the same group are joined by Guy's friends Bernie and Benny, a couple who separately also confess to the hapless Guy that they too slept with Reg.  Guy, who also has to listen to his beloved John's pain over losing his sometime lover Reg, is encouraged by the others to make a pass at Eric.  he clumsily attempts to but is equally clumsily rebuffed.  It's only after another time shift and another funeral that some truths are revealed and some lies are maintained.

As in Chekhov, Elyot puts the audience through the exquisite pain of watching his characters desperately trying to find love but being unwittingly rebuffed or misunderstood while also making them multi-faceted and surprising at every turn, six excellent characters that the exceptional cast mine for every inch of surface wit and sub-textual pain.

Excellent performances abound from Julian Ovenden as John, the golden boy who doesn't have to try too hard for whatever he wants; Geoffrey Streatfeild as the flamboyantly outrageous art dealer Geoffrey; Lewis Reeves as the tantalisingly young but surprisingly moral Eric and the double act of Richard Cant and Matt Bardock as the couple Bernie and Benny, whose every conversation ends in a skirmish.

If I don't include Jonathan Broadbent as the lovelorn Guy in that line-up it's because he was the one who ultimately failed to erase memories of the original cast member but then again, David Bamber was unforgettable.  Broadbent slightly overdoes a Harry Potter-ish schtick which fails to match Bamber who played the role with no concessions to audience sympathy but won it nevertheless.  Broadbent was certainly effective in his scenes of desperation as his unattainable object of desire confided in him of his own sex life.

Robert Hastie's excellently subtle direction draws you slowly into the devastating fall-out of the friends' lives and judges the pace beautifully, almost situation-comedy moments suddenly giving way to moments of aching pathos and unwitting cruelty.

Peter McKintosh's design and the always-admirable Paul Pyant's lighting give the production a solid unity that supports the play well.

I had forgotten how skilfully Kevin Elyot plays with time through the course of REG and seeing it again made me want to experience the memory plays that he wrote after it: THE DAY I STOOD STILL (1998) and MOUTH TO MOUTH (2001).

Robert Hastie's Donmar production of MY NIGHT WITH REG is a fitting tribute to this under-rated and sadly-missed writer.

H A P P Y * N E W * Y E A R

Well start as you mean to go on... so, Constant Reader, the first posting of 2006 is to tell you I have FINALLY been to the theatre this year: it took me long enuff!

Tonight Owen and I went to see AND THEN THERE WERE NONE at the Gielgud Theatre - and what a fun night it is! I was worried it would be a standard Agatha Christie stage transfer with the attendant whiff of the warhorse but luckily the book had been given a bit of a buff-up by the excellent Kevin Elyot - whose own plays tend to be about the past haunting the present - and it now cracks along at a brisk pace tinged with a mordant wit.

You know the deal... eight guests are tricked into attending a gathering on an island off the south coast by an unknown person claiming to be a friend of a friend only to find no host just two servants hired for the night. After dinner a record is played and a voice informs them they have been gathered together as the ten all share one thing in common.. they were all implicated in the death of someone in the past but have never been actually accused of the crime. Then one by one they start being murdered...

Christie's rattling good yarn is delivered intact with no happy ending as has been the case in film adaptations, surprisingly what it doesn't have is any real sense of suspense... one sits and waits to see which one will be killed, usually offstage.  But it makes for a fun night out helped by Elyot's script and some fine performances from Gemma Jones as the rigidly moralistic Miss Brent, David Ross' bluff ex-CID policeman, Graham Crowden's world-weary General and the always dependable John Ramm as Rogers, the butler who after the death of his wife still feels the need to almost apologise for the need to move to one of the guest rooms, the smallest of course. Surprisingly the show has not found an audience and is closing next week after a run of nearly three months. 

Hey-ho.