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The Theatreguide.London Review
In March 2020 the covid-19 epidemic
forced the closure of all British theatres. Some companies adapted
by putting archive recordings of past productions online, others
by streaming new shows, and various online archives preserve still
more vintage productions. Even as things return to normal we
continue to review the experience of watching live theatre
onscreen.
Barnes'
People
Original
Theatre Online February- March 2024
Along
with
his stage plays and film adaptations, playwright Peter Barnes
(1931-2004) wrote several series of radio monologues between 1981 and
1990. Original Theatre filmed four of them in 2021 and now makes this
compilation available online.
The
format of having the speaker address the camera directly resembles Alan
Bennett's Talking Heads, though Barnes generally avoids the bizarre or
macabre revelations or plot twists Bennett favoured.
His
characters tell us what they set out to tell us, with only subtle hints
of there being something more or other to their stories.
In
'A True-Born Englishman' Adrian Scarborough plays a senior page at
Buckingham Palace, a man whose job consists largely of opening doors at
just the right moment so the Royals don't ever have to touch them.
What
seems at first a mildly comic pride in his small role turns a little
darker as he betrays an unwarranted snobbishness – 'I like wearing a
uniform. It sets you apart from all those dirty people' – which fits
uneasily with an instinctive knowing-his-place servility.
In
'Rosa' Jemma Redgrave is a doctor specializing in the care of the
elderly whose career has been driven by a rage against a care home
system that seems content to warehouse the old, hoping they will die
quickly and inexpensively. It is when she realizes that she has run out
of the ability to hate that it is time to retire.
A
character who does discover something about himself as he speaks is the
doctor played by Matthew Kelly in 'Losing Myself'. The man has retired
after years of admired and charitable service and now sits in a
graveyard chatting to his favourite tombstone.
But
as he talks of lives saved or bettered, a wife and child gone and
honours awarded, he realises that he never really connected with any of
them as individuals and has been as alone in life as the Victorian
stranger he's addressing is in death.
Weakest
of the four monologues is 'Billy And Me,' because it has the most
difficulty avoiding cliché. Jon Culshaw plays a ventriloquist, and as in
every other play and film about ventriloquists ever, his dolls come
alive and start arguing with him.
To
be fair to Barnes, they don't turn sinister or try to take control of
him, but just challenge him to justify what he does.
The
monologue is too short and undeveloped for his answer, which involves
the suggestion that venting might be a useful treatment for mental
illness, to be satisfying.
All
four actors succeed in the instant characterisations required by the
genre and, at no more than 30 minutes each, none of the four are
extended too long to sustain the reality or outstay their welcome –
indeed, the Redgrave and Culshaw monologues might have benefited by
being longer.
The opportunity to watch four skilled and personable performers at work and the small insights offered in Barnes' writing make this just-over-90-minute video worth your attention.
Gerald
Berkowitz
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