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Director
Perter Hall
Designer
Alison Chitty
Music
Score
Mick Sands
Florence
Lancaster
Felicity
Kendal
Nicky
Lancaster
Dan Stevens
Tom
Veryan
Daniel Pirrie
Bunty
Mainwaring
Cressida
Trew
Helen
Saville
Phoebe Nicholls
David
Lancaster
Paul Ridley
Clara
Hibbet
Annette Badland
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Apollo
Theatre
20 Feb - 7 June 2008 |
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Narrowly
avoiding a ban from an affronted
Lord Chamberlain as 'frivolous
and degenerate', on its 1924
debut, The
Vortex
was an instant hit, and in
the words of George Bernard
Shaw, simultaneously 'wonderful
- damnable'. A witness to
that first night's standing
ovation, novelist Stella Gibbons,
percipientally noted that
Noel Coward, thence was to
'incarnate the myth of the
twenties (gaiety, courage,
pain concealed, amusing malice)...'.
Such instant and critical
notoriety, was something of
a poisoned chalice to its
author and leading man; as,
much to his amused disdain
- and despite subsequently
handing over the role to a
young understudy, John Gielgud
- he was mistakenly conjoined
with feckless anti-hero Nicky
in popular imagination.
Couched in deliberately anti-Victorian,
un-orotund terms (short, sharp,
society slang, then revolutionary)
this seminal period piece
gave vent to Coward's modern
new voice - dialogue which
has weathered the years surprisingly
well, in spite of the shallow
souffle of characters which
give it utterance. Still resonant,
the play's Oedipal melodrama
addresses bisexuality, the
allure of the 'toyboy' and
a predilection for narcotics;
a story-line calculated to
arouse frissons of schadenfreude
in the most blase of audiences.
Alas, the author was no Greek
tragedian, and for The
Vortex
to be truly moving, its two
leads must contrive a parity
in excellence. As fading society
beauty, Florence Lancaster
(growing old disgracefully
and accompanied by a procession
of lovers whom she flaunts
before an emasculated husband)
the jolie-laide Felicity Kendal
gives it her best shot. Salad-days
outgrown, she still looks
divine. Trim and perky in
lavender silk and snow-white
furs, one is in no doubt as
to her vestigial, hypnotic
charm. There are so many sides
to my character' she opines
defiantly, whilst gazing into
the hellish crystal ball which
reflects her inevitable diminution
and descent into old age.
Trailing cigarette smoke like
punctuation marks, her languid
voice running the gamut of
theatrical emotion from passion
to despair, we wish her happiness
- however brittle and evanescent.
Less affectingly, Dan Stevens
assays Florence's decadent
son, Nicky. Stevens' televisual
charisma (not to mention his
ambivalent physical attraction)
were more than evident in
the T.V dramatisation of The
Line of Beauty,
but puzzlingly fail to translate
on to the stage. His exposition
of this self-absorbed, drug-addled
and feckless young man is
not persuasive. He bumbles
about the stage articulating
his half-hearted 'pain' with
little shrugs and rather pathetic
smiles, failing (miserably)
to convey dissolution, let
alone damnation. To my irritation,
he had not bothered to have
a hair-cut, relying on brilliantine
to smooth over-long locks
into some semblance of the
era's Gatsby crew-cut. Such
laziness indicates a lack
of application, and does everyone
a disservice.
Mick Sands' musical score
is all blues and atmosphere,
hitting just the right note.
Unfortunately, each of the
three acts have uniformly
dreary sets. Glamour is decidedly
wanting in the furniture and
props which adorn the Lancasters'
town and country houses -
a strange omission when one
considers their supposed wealth
and good connections. Nor,
under the circumstances, are
the maudlin pair's supporting
cast particularly luminous,
and this further curtails
the range of Peter Hall's
low-wattage production. The
normally excellent Phoebe
Nicholls, cannot cut it as
the heroine's side-kick. Nursing
an unrequited and unlikely
'pash' for her best friend,
Nicholls is far too downtroden
and dowdy to have moved in
similar circles. Similarly,
an anonymous-looking David
Lancaster, in the person of
Paul Ridley, is too bland.
The misalliance of prospective
daughter-in-law, hearty Bunty
(Cressica Trew) and mother-lover,
smoothie Tom (shockingly the
same age as Nicky) is one
of the more convincing relationships.
Against this dopey vipers'
nest of mediocrity, Kendal
is the best antidote.
Caroline Kellett Fraysse |
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