Enter Anthony McCarten’s intelligent, neatly crafted play based on his 2019 book The Pope. First staged at Royal and Derngate, Northampton in 2019, this is its first London run.

Anton Lesser as Benedict is sardonic, authoritative and oozing white robed charisma. That’s why the informal scene when, more or less in mufti, he visits his friend Sister Brigitta (Lynsey Beauchamp)  for supper and TV drama works so well – the incongruous contrast  means that we meet a wholly rounded character. And she is the first person to whom he confides his thoughts about possible resignation.

Nicholas Woodeson gives us a powerful contrast in Bergoglio: “I’m an Argentinian. Tango and football are compulsory.” At 75, he too wants to retire and travels to Rome to discuss it with the Pope – thus allowing McCarten to make long scenes between the two men the backbone of his play. They disagree about almost everything: gay rights, abortion, birth control and, most serious of all, the condoning of abuse by Catholic priests. Equally, as two old men who worship the same god they have much in common too. And both are from backgrounds they would have done well to distance themselves from much earlier: the Pope from Nazi Germany and Bergoglio from the Junta in Argentina.

Dramatically, none of this is heavy or static and there are a surprising number of laughs in the play which manages to be moving, funny and thoughtful all at the same time.  McCarten’s dialogue is as sharp as a razor blade and Lesser and Woodeson – both actors at the top of their game – know exactly how to spin off each other to spellbinding effect.  And I liked Duncan McLean’s video projections which use images on a huge proscenium frame atmospherically to evoke various rooms in the Vatican – and at one point, noisy colourful Argentina.

There’s a nice performance from Leaphia Darko as the sister who assists Bergoglio and questions him in Argentina but Malcolm James and Angela Jones, billed as “ensemble” are oddly underused

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  All photos: Manuel Harlan

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