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Wtritten
by
Alan Bennett
Director
Stephen Unwin
Set
Designer
John Gunter
Hilary
Timothy West
Bron
Jean Marsh
Eric
Tim Delap
Olga
Rebecca Charles
Veronica
Susan Tracy
Duff
Simon Williams
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Trafalgar
Studios
13 March - 16 May 2006 |
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The
Old Country
received its world premiere
in 1977 in an era when the
spectre of Russian menace
still lowered over Europe.
On both sides of the Atlantic
the Cold War cast long shadows
- perceived as a clear and
present danger to individual
freedom in the minds of men.
Alan Bennett's play is no
longer topical: yet nor is
it appreciably history. Lying
in a sort of literary limbo,
its revival so early in the
twenty first century is probably
premature. Contemporaneity
aside, it is a perfectly satisfying
and well-wrought work on the
subject of exile. One of a
trilogy of plays which deal
with spying, The Old Country
examines the rehabilitation
of a traitor - a prodigal's
banishment and ultimate return.
The hero (or anti-hero) Hilary,
in Bennett's own words, "cannot
bear the thought of change
in the country they have left".
Expatriated east of eden,
the homeland that he longs
for must be preserved in aspic
or it ceases to be a refuge,
even an imagined one. Here,
the Burgess-like Hilary has
defected to the Soviet Union,
just in time to save his treacherous
skin. The crux of the sorry
saga is that Bennett "can
imagine him living on and
coming back home in old age
to be received with open arms".
A future which promises appearances
on Parkinson and Desert Island
discs beckons; for, "In England
you only have to be able to
eat a boiled egg at ninety
and they think you deserve
the Nobel Prize."
By turns mordant and nostalgic,
a splendidly cantakerous Timothy
West was born to play the
Elgar-loving Hilary. His character's
ersatz erudition, an infuriating
stream-of-consciousness monologue,
has a touched Tourette's quality
to it. Cultivating an air
of eccentricity, he brandishes
a loaded gun when the mood
takes him. Full of sound and
fury, this is a man in denial,
pining for Gentleman's Relish
and Bath Olivers while the
enormity of his crime and
the lives lost on account
of him are swept under the
carpet with genteel disregard.
When his newly face-lifted
sister Veronica (Susan Tracy),
arrives, it comes as no surprise
to learn that their unhinged
father, bereft of his estate,
lives out his remaining years
in a 'bin'. Hilary has not
only betrayed his country,
he has also betrayed his class.
A plucky Jean Marsh plays
Bron, with pursed lips and
moral ambiguity. "Being his
widow, so much more rewarding
than being his wife", she
opines when considering the
future. She sins by omission
- it is nigh-on impossible
to find sympathy in our hearts
for her traitor's wife, however
put-upon.
Veronica and her newly knighted
husband Duff arrive and declare
themselves delighted by the
clapboard 'wendy house' of
a dasha in which their in-laws
summer - a lucent pale-green
set bestrewn with books and
bric-a-brac. Simon Williams'
dashing, red-socked Duff should
have been pitch perfect; seemingly
ideal in the ambivalent role
of Forster pundit and heaven-born
civil servant, buttoned up
by Chatham House rules. Instead
Williams overplays a part
already done disservice by
his voice, hoarse from expostulating.
Puzzlingly gowned in a 'Fifties
prom-dress, his wife's delivery
is similarly on the actorly
side. Bearing cross-words,
novels and gossip they descend
on the exiled couple, proffering
barbed niceties as only well-bred
guests can. Needless to say,
all is not as it seems: Duff
is on a mission to exchange
Hilary with a soviet double-agent,
a plan entirely endorsed by
the inhospitable Russians.
Whether he likes it or not,
the spy must flee this flawed
haven to face the music -
be careful what you wish for?
Talk of garlic crushers, Dutch
Elm disease and Watership
Down place the play literally
in the early 1970's; but it
is Bennett's allusions to
Proust which hint at the universal
issues raised here. Whether
by way of Guermantes or Combray,
Hilary chose his path in life
and must face the consequences.
Timothy West is excellent
at portraying this complex,
unappealing man and illiciting
the schadenfreude we must
all shareŻon his generation's
behalf.
Caroline Kellett Fraysse |
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