TARTUFFE: THE IMPOSTER at the Lyttelton, National Theatre - Sing Out, Tartuffe!!

355 years after first appearing on stages, Molière's wily Tartuffe seems to be more popular now than ever: Molière's idea of a rich family almost being dismantled by a holy man who has been invited into their home only for him to be exposed as a fraud, seems to fit any number of rewrites and emphasis: the gullible rich who adopt new spiritual fads to cover their shallowness, or the Holy Fool who is punished for daring to break through society's glass ceiling.

First performed in 1664, the play was immediately banned by Louis XIV, not because he was personally offended, but because of outrage by the Catholic church in France over the idea that someone who purports to be a holy man is in fact a lecherous charlatan - the very idea!  A few years later, Molière rewrote it but that too was banned so he tinkered around with it again and when finally performed in 1669 the play was a success.

John Donnelly has pitched his version right into the London of today - his Tartuffe could easily have wandered off from Waterloo Bridge's climate change protesters - and in his final denouncement of the rich fools he has infiltrated, Tartuffe made some very topical jabs at their eternal hatred of the other, the imposter, the foreigner.  In a huge North London living room, overshadowed by a gold full-size replica of Michelangelo's 'David', former politico Orgon has turned his family upside down by inviting into their home a scruffy, soap-dodger called Tartuffe who claims to be the leader of a new religion that can lead believers to the New Dawn.

This modern-day Rasputin has totally won over both Orgon and his mother Pernelle but Orgon's trophy wife Elmire and his spoilt children Damis and Marianne are less convinced and suspect Tartuffe to be leaching off them.  Soon Tartuffe's equally squalid supporters are making a nest for themselves in the living room and Orgon has in a moment of spiritual weakness, given Tartuffe incriminating evidence that he committed crimes against the state "in the last ill-advised war".

When Elmire finally convinces Orgon that Tartuffe has been wanting to have sex with her all along, Orgon orders him out of his house.  But Tartuffe returns with a bailiff called Loyal who instead hands the shocked Orgon a writ informing him that it's the family who must leave because Orgon gave Tartuffe the deeds to the house.  Tartuffe is triumphant... but is he?

Blanche McIntyre's production played more like a farce with people popping out of hiding places and flying over the furniture so the darker elements of the characters was lost; in Donnelly's script they all had the depth of a Comic Strip special - sexy wife, yuppy daughter, rich fool, wily imposter - but it was only in the last moments that Molière's savage satire made itself really known which over-tipped the play.  However there were more than enough laugh-out-loud lines and the main principals took you along with the freewheeling antics.

The really annoying thing I found about the production was a bad case of inaudibility among quite a few of the supporting members of the cast who could not throw their lines out into the auditorium - it might be more realistic to speak your lines directly to whoever you are in the scene with but it made for a lot of the mumbled lines as they were not also including the audience in - now a new breed of actors from smaller venues are appearing on the large National stages, they really need to be told how to play to the bigger houses.

No such problems with the central pairing: Broadway veteran Denis O'Hare was hugely charismatic as the imposter Tartuffe although the idea to have his character speak in a bizarre mash-up of Brazilian and/or French strangled some laugh lines unnecessarily; we know he is 'other' to Orgon's family there was really no need to do it, better he just played it in his natural US accent.  He was very well-partnered by Kevin Doyle's Orgon, a man hoist by his ostentatious petard thanks to his own gullibility.

Susan Engel was at her imperious best as Pernelle and Olivia Williams was a shrewish Elmire, driven to screeching distraction at her husband's blind stupidity.  Kitty Archer was good fun as the whiny, entitled Marianne and her lover, the Socialist Marxist poet Valere was played well by Geoffrey Lumb.  I also wanted to highlight Matthew Duckett as the wide-boy Loyal who made an impression in a relatively small scene.

Robert Jones' huge elaborate set made me want to explore the rest of Orgon's house to see it it was as ghastly as that room and Toby Park gets a shout-out for his physical comedy routines.

I am glad I have finally seen TARTUFFE onstage - as I said it's done often so it was only a matter of time before seeing it - and while I enjoyed a lot of it and the performances, I suspect a less comedy-driven production might show why it has remained such a mainstay of our stages.

RICHARD III at the Almeida - a very fine Fiennes

My last Shakespeare play was the naff Irish stew version of TAMING OF THE SHREW so I was slightly worried what the Almeida's RICHARD III would offer up.  The Almeida is too keen on re-imaginings for it's own good but I really need not have worried, Rupert Goold has a firm grasp on the play and where he has strayed into the dangerous marshes of Director Theatre it at least is valid and frames the play in an interesting way.

Goold's production starts (and ends) with the excavation in the Leicester car park which reveals the skull of Richard III, his sword and finally his mis-shapen spine to a curious crowd of onlookers, the light fades out on this scene and slowly come up again, revealing Ralph Fiennes at the back of the stage, the skeleton made flesh.  I thought it actually worked, it ties in those recent events to a seemingly long-ago tale of political corruption and murder.

At over 3 hours, the production should feel long but it really doesn't as Goold keeps the action moving ever-forward.  I have seen previous productions which seemed to hit the buffers whenever Richard was not on stage but here nothing is allowed to get in the way of Shakespeare's thundering plot.

The modern-dress production has a simple set from Hildegard Bechtler - a semi-circular set of steps, sweeping curtains made of chains and a see-through stage over Richard's ignoble resting-place - which is a perfect setting for Goold's spare, stripped-down production; a spooky addition being spotlit silver skulls which appear on the back wall for every murder Richard sanctions.

Ralph Fiennes was magnificent as Richard, inhabiting the role with a slippery ease, turning on a groat from charming someone to do his bidding to cold-blooded sociopath.  He is such a skillful actor he didn't just play Richard as a monster but as someone who almost was cast in the role of villain from birth, the scene where his mother pours venom on him sees Fiennes slumped in a chair avoiding her gaze, you suspect he's heard it all before from her.  It was a performance of quicksilver cunning and intelligence, even when he was feigning piety to secure backing for his claim to be King, his mask slipped noticeably when Buckingham called him effeminate.

It's a world where people are only aware of Richard's murderous intent just as they are about to be (literally) stabbed in the back but there is only one person who knows how evil Richard is and that's the haunted and haunting Queen Margaret, the last living member of the deposed Royal family.  Here the ravaged Margaret of Anjou is played wonderfully by Vanessa Redgrave and Goold casting her in this role really lifts the character from being just a mere supporting character.  Although in only two scenes, Margaret haunts the play and the other characters.

In her first scene she curses all present that they know the depths of Richard's evil and one by one, as they suddenly face their destiny, Margaret's words come back to haunt them.  Vanessa's Margaret is dressed in dishevelled fatigues suggesting she has not changed since the Battle of Tewkesbury where her son was killed, and carries a damaged baby doll that Richard at one point smothers to her horror.  In a nice touch, when Margaret reappears to reproach the grieving Queen Elizabeth after the murder of her own children, Margaret leaves her battered baby doll with her, it's Elizabeth who must mourn a dead son.  As always, Vanessa was never less than thrilling.

They are complemented by other fine performances: Finbar Lynch was excellent as Buckingham, Richard's 'fixer' whose political double-dealing made the play all the more topical in these post-Brexit times, Scott Handy was very good as Clarence and made his speech of drowning all too real, James Garnon's Hastings was the very model of a careerist politician, always checking his Twitter account until it's too late, and Tom Canton was a suitably virile presence as Richard's nemesis Richmond.

Aislín McGuckin's Queen Elizabeth was suitably tigerish until she too is broken by Richard - Goold has him rape her in their final confrontation where he demands her daughter as his new wife.  This was the only directorial choice that I am unsure about although it certainly fits in with Elizabeth's sudden capitulation towards the end of the scene.  Susan Engel was exquisite as Richard's mother, The Duchess of York - her denunciation of him towards the end of the play was played with a marvellous delivery of fire and ice.  Interestingly Engel had played Queen Elizabeth in the famous RSC cycle of the War Of The Roses plays in 1963.

On 21st July RICHARD III will be the first Almeida Theatre production to be screened live in cinemas (although some filming will take place in performances before that) - I recommend it highly as the production is sold out for all performances at the theatre.