The Hudsucker Proxy Liverpool Playhouse 5th June 2015

Is Norville Barnes really gonna jelly-up the sidewalk?

You could spot audience members who knew Joel & Ethan Coen's film because they were the ones chortling to themselves a split second ahead of the delivery of the gags. Other than a neat theatrical framing using the prologue, Simon Dormandy has remained reverently faithful to much of the screen text and narrative in his adaptation for the stage, making a very theatrical piece of cinema into a very cinematic piece of theatre.

However, taking it as theatre in its own right, this new adaptation co-produced by Liverpool Everyman Playhouse and Nuffield Southampton (where it premiered last month) stands as legitimately on the stage as though it has been born there, and those who have not seen the original neednt feel they have to revise beforehand.

In a nutshell, and with as few spoilers as possible, when company president Waring Hudsucker takes a dive from the 44th floor of the Hudsucker building (45th if you count the mezzanine) the board replace him with the seemingly witless mailroom assistant Norville Barnes in order to depress the stock. When he comes up with a stroke of genius that foils their plans, they have to resort to desperate measures to achieve their goal.

Not only has Simon Dormandy written the adaptation and co-directed with Toby Sedgewick, but he has also had to step into the shoes of Clive Wood, who was to have played Vice President Sidney Mussberger before having to step down following an incident in rehearsals. If the play gets the continued life it deserves beyond its current run we may yet get to find out what Clive Wood made of the role but, as it is, its hard to imagine a better fit for the part than Dormandy. For the same reason Tim Lewis, whose lead character is the lift-operator Buzz, adeptly takes a role originally rehearsed by Liverpool's own Nathan McMullen.

There are some excellent characterisations from a cast who all play multiple parts, and its hard to pick highlights, but watch out for Rob Castell's astonishingly malleable face, Tamsin Griffin's platinum blonde, Nick Cavaliere's swagger, David Webber's all knowing clock man Moses, and Sinead Matthews' wily but affecting Amy Archer.

Holding it all together is a magnetic central performance by Joseph Timms as Norville Barnes, whose fortunes rise and fall faster than the elevator. He is brilliantly cast in the part and fills the role with naive optimism and tremendous energy.

The production is made in association with Complicite, whose trademark physicality is visible in so many scenes, and the inventiveness of movement and the deft use of props and performance space keeps the piece rattling along with as much precision and clockwork as the great timepiece at the top of the Hudsucker building.

The look of the play is every bit as stylish as the acting is slick with Dick Bird's complex set, in which physical scenery blends with mapped video projection from Tim Bird. This allows for some brilliant cinematic touches, such as the rolling of the presses as a news item hits the front page. It also means that scene changes are as seamless as if they were on the screen. The whole look and feel captures the era perfectly.

Apply the final gloss of lighting and sound design from Paul Keogan and Gareth Fry and what you get is almost 2 hours of fast-paced theatre that delivers a morality tale with its tongue firmly in its cheek and is a joy to watch.

The Hudsucker Proxy continues at Liverpool Playhouse until 27th June.

Joseph Timms - Photo © Clare Park

Death of a Salesman - RSC at the Noel Coward Theatre - 2/6/2015

You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit! 

Death of a salesman is often considered Arthur Miller's finest achievement and, a piece inspired so very heavily by experience of the issues of his own family, it stands as a work of incisive realism. When Gregory Doran chose to commemorate Miller's centenary in the new RSC season, he could hardly have chosen a more appropriately personal work.

An actor recently said that there is an age at which one should play Lear, and I’d be inclined to suggest that the same could be said of the character of Willy Loman. Antony Sher appears to be at that age. He has announced his forthcoming appearance as Lear in 2016, also under Gregory Doran’s direction, and in juxtaposing it with his performance as Loman in this production he and Doran assert the significance and stature of Miller’s work.

Arthur Miller is famously explicit in his stage directions and, while some productions kick against this, Gregory Doran and his designer Stephen Brimson Lewis have remained faithful to the author. What is on the page comes vividly to life in their multi-level set, on which past and present can coexist and blend seamlessly from scene to scene.

Antony Sher exudes world-weariness from every pore in the opening scenes, drawling out the lines as though every word were an effort and when stepping back to earlier times, sparring with his sons, we see the toll that time and circumstance have taken on him. Harriet Walter is spectacular as his long-suffering wife Linda, the burden of watching the disintegration and shame of the love of her life almost visible in her carriage, and palpable in every line. Alex Hassell and Sam Marks give strong performances as brothers Biff and Happy, as do Joshua Richards and Guy Paul as Charley and the spectral Uncle Ben.

Gregory Doran’s  thoughtful and well paced production seems to focus on Miller's idea that the play has “more pity and less judgement”, and it leaves us feeling for Willy Loman in his desperate search for where everything went wrong.

Death of a Salesman has a performance time of 2½ hours including one interval and it continues at the Noel Coward Theatre until 18th July.

Alex Hassell, Harriet Walter, Antony Sher and Sam Marks - photo (c) Ellie Kurttz