However here we are, 40 years beyond Chayevsky's ideas on the state of television and the vision seems all too real - the race-to-the-bottom of tv planners chasing an ever dwindling audience, reality shows of every description and, in particular, the movement from straight news to 'opinion news'. The pin-up boy of high-concept, director theatre Ivo van Hove now brings us his take on it - and a fairly maddening experience it is.
Okay let's get the most annoying thing out of the way first, what's a bloody restaurant doing onstage? Van Hove and his partner-cum-designer Jan Versweyveld have taken over all of the massive Lyttelton stage and turned it into a vast television studio with a glass production booth, mirrored make-up desks glimpsed at the back, the now-standard shiny mirrored studio floor and dwarfing all else, a huge video screen to get you up close and personal to the characters thanks to the prowling stedicam operators.
All well and good I guess, all within the world of the piece... so why make one third of the stage into an onstage restaurant with punters having a three-course meal within the running time of the show? Van Hove would no doubt say because there are a few bar/restaurant scenes.. but there are also about the same amount set in Max's apartment so why not have that there instead? It was profoundly irritating to be distracted from the play by kitchen porters wandering at the back or waiters walking around dispensing drinks. NETWORK runs 2 hours with no interval - is it just a cunning ploy to make up for what they lose in the bars between acts? If they were so keen to make it an immersive experience within the world of the play, why not have the Gogglebox alumni sat at the side of the stage commenting on Howard Beale's onscreen rants? Oh and don't get me started on the four dj blokes sitting like Kraftwerk high above the large screen...
Oh and another thing Mr van Hove... was all the filmed footage projected onto the large screen meant to be about 2 seconds delayed so the close-ups didn't match what was being said? Profoundly annoying and unnecessary.
Apart from all the distractions there was an actual play going on, but what on screen worked as a concerted satirical pummelling of the television world, scaled down to human form onstage it all just seemed a little obvious, a little forced, and definitely preaching to the converted about the heartless bastards who run television networks.
Howard Beale has been a tv news anchorman for many years but his audience is dwindling and he is eventually told by his old friend Max Schumacher that he is to be replaced, which Howard appears to be resigned to. However when he announces this on the air the following evening, he also says that he will blow his brains out on his last day on-air. The network bosses go ballistic but Max manages to persuade them to let Howard atone for his outburst but when next-on-air Howard again goes into a meltdown resulting in a huge jump in the viewing figures.
This arouses the attention of Diana Christensen, a TV producer who is in charge of programming, who offers to take the news department under her wing, and make "The Howard Beale Show" an even bigger audience favourite with shock-opinion reporting and Howard as it's centre-piece. The execs override Max's protests of dumbing-down the news and replace him with Diana; despite this they start an extra-marital affair. Howard does not disappoint and becomes a ratings smash with such direct appeals to his audience to open their windows and scream "I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore".
However Howard oversteps the mark when he urges his viewers to write to the White House to stop a secret take-over of the network by an Arab conglomerate. Despite the huge reaction, the head of the network reveals to Howard that without the Arab's cash the network will go under and that he views television as just a commodity to channel the views of politicians and capitalism.
Howard tries to preach this to his audience but his new message alienates the viewers and he faces rating disaster. Diana also realizes that she needs a new controversy to kick-start the show's ratings - and to get interest in her new tv show: a reality programme 'starring' a terrorist organization...
Ok I will admit that I was never bored during NETWORK but mostly that was down to the charismatic performance by Bryan Cranston as Howard Beale. Unlike Peter Finch's scenery-chewing in the film, Cranston played the character as a man who dares to say what he feels and what he sees in the mad world around him, his Howard knows all too well what he is saying and what the desired effect will be; which makes him a truly tragic figure at the end of the piece when he gets lost in the machinations of the powers that he once tried to put an end to.
Cranston's magnetic, seductive performance was not matched by the surprisingly dour performances from Douglas Henshall as Max and Michelle Dockery as Diana. Lee Hall's adaptation seems to pull it's punches in making his Diana the icy villainess that won Faye Dunaway her Best Actress Academy Award so the role seems to have no inner conviction nor does Henshall who is possibly too young for the role. For you van Hove fans, Dochery does get to fly into a rage and throw papers around for no better reason that Ruth Wilson did it in HEDDA GABLER.
The supporting performances are all fairly one-note; NETWORK famously won Beatrice Straight a Supporting Actress Academy Award even though she only appeared on screen for just over 5 minutes. However those 5 minutes are magnificent as she reacts with shock, anger, hysteria then a rueful knowingness when William Holden's Max tells her he is leaving her for Diana (you can see the whole scene on YouTube). The role was played here by Caroline Faber on a very low-light.
I will briefly mention Tunji Kasim who, as the venal network boss Frank Hackett, gave such a laughably 2-dimensional 'baddie' performance I expected every new appearance to be accompanied by a swirling cape and a twirled moustache.
The amusing thing was to see the audience being used as much as Howard Beale's unseen tv audience - during the scenes involving his crass news show the audience are exhorted to shout out three times "I'm Mad As Hell And I'm Not Going To Take It Anymore" and clap wildly, and at the end of the show, in an outrageous moment of preaching to the converted Pavlovian dogs, van Hove has video footage played on the big screen of the US presidential inaugerations from Gerald Ford to this day... cue mad cheering in the audience when Barrack Obama appeared, cue mad booing when Donald Trump appeared...
Thanks to Bryan Cranston, NETWORK is sold out for it's entire run but the National Theatre always has a number of seats sold on the day as well as it's Friday Rush for tickets on sale for the following weeks performances, see the website for more details.
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