★★★★

This revival of David Hare’s 1978 play, under Kate Hewitt’s direction, yearns and compels. And if it seems a tiny bit drawn out in places, it’s a minor gripe.

Hare examines the long term after effects of being parachuted into France in the 1940s as part of Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE). Many of these men and women, acting as secret agents and couriers, died terribly but some, like Hare’s fictional Susan Traherne, survived.

As Susan, Rachael Stirling is treading in illustrious footsteps. Most of the actors who have played Traherne in the past – Kate Nelligan, Cate Blanchett, Hattie Morahan, Rachel Weisz and Meryl Streep (in the 1985 film) for instance – have won plaudits, accolades and awards. Stirling probably will too. It’s a terrific role in which she shifts mercurially from hauteur to anguish and from manic fury to desperate dispirited sadness. And her speaking voice, pitch, register and range is as varied as a coloratura soprano. It’s an outstanding, beautifully judged depiction of a woman – across 20 years of her life with lots of time shifts backwards and forwards – whose mental health is brittle at best. Occasionally Stirling is agonisingly funny too.

The support cast is strong. Yolanda Kettle convincingly develops Alice, Susan’s friend, over twenty years from a tearaway young spirit, painting a naked girl as an oak tree for a fancy dress party, to someone who teaches a bit and runs a charity for unmarried mothers. Rory Keenan is good as Susan’s long suffering diplomat husband, Brock, especially in Act 2 when he finally lets rip and we see the suffering his marriage has really led to. Anthony Calf as Darwin, Brock’s boss, is outrageous, larger than life and chilling, especially during the Suez Crisis.

An ensemble cast of ten between them play all the minor roles and, rather neatly and engagingly, act as stage hands whizzing scenery and props on and off. That, along with Giles Thomas’s powerful music and sound and Georgia Lowe’s rather fabulous set give the whole piece an evocative edge. I loved, for example, the huge upstage, very fluid ribbon curtain which doubles as a projection screen for lots of evocative black and white images and through which items of furniture are pushed. And the whole playing area is floored in glass quasi-rostra so that it shines and reflects – a metaphor, perhaps, for Traherne’s troubled, self-aware life.

Philippe Edwards, Rachael Stirling & Nick Sampson in PLENTY at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo: The Other Richard

★★★

Lucy Shaw’s multi-layered take on Oscar Wilde’s novel about vanity, art and beauty uses an ensemble cast of four with actors rotating roles, gender fluidly between performances. At the performance I saw, Dorian Gray was played by Helen Reuben although the official photos do show Stanton Wright in the role.

Gray, famously, has a portrait painted when he (she) is young and beautiful in an attempt to retain youthfulness. The painting ages while its subject does not until everything changes – which in this case involves an Ophelia-like dip in an onstage pond.

It’s an interpretation, directed by Tom Littler, which presents the piece as a verbal ballet with much echoing of words by any character not directly involved in the action which, I’m afraid, sometimes has the feel of an experimental drama class exercise. It’s not intended to be realistic and that sense of otherworldliness is underpinned by Matt Eaton’s faintly menacing sound design. William Reynold’s set consisting of two badly foxed mirrors angled over flat boxes, one of which contains water, and lots of star-like pendant lights adds to the surreal atmosphere too.

Reuben finds a sardonic attractiveness in Gray, punctuated with nicely managed brittle smiles and moments of anguish. Richard Keightley (Wotton in this performance) is suitably bossy and delivers lots of Wildean aphorisms with panache. As Sibyl Vane, the actress for whom Gray falls, Augustina Seymour is plausible and Stanton Wright gives us a convincing Basil Hallward, the portrait painter.

There are some interesting ideas in this production although overall I found it off-puttingly self-conscious and oddly unmoving.

Pictures of Dorian Gray – Jermyn Street Theatre – Augustina Seymour (Sibyl Vane), Helen Reuben (Basil Hallward), Stanton Wright (Dorian Gray) & Richard Keightley (Henry Wotton). Photo: S R Taylor Photography

★★★★

This immersive, interactive project provides one of the most interesting evenings of theatre I’ve enjoyed for some time. We gathered first – 48 of us – in the bar at the Assembly Hall where we were assigned to one of four juries and then led by a robed usher into the courtroom inside the Police Station next door – an inspired idea.

Ferdinand von Schirach’s play (translated by David Tushingham) tells the story of, and asks questions about, an incident in which a passenger plane was hijacked by terrorists who planned to dive bomb a football stadium where 70,000 people would have been killed. It didn’t happen because Major Lars Koch (Chris Casey) shot it down against orders from his superiors, thereby killing all 164 passengers and crew. Koch is now on trial for murder.

At the performance I saw three out of the four juries found him guilty. No doubt the verdict sometimes goes the other way. The arguments about whether or not it is morally right to sacrifice one human life to save hundreds of others or whether by finding a man like Koch guilty you support the original terrorist act are complex, complicated and difficult – I changed my mind twice at the jury discussion stage.

There is some fine naturalistic acting from some very skilled actors in this play. Robert Rowe is totally believable as the benign, intelligent judge. Elinor Lawless gives a fine performance as the very persuasive prosecution counsel and, once she gets going, Kirsten Hazel Smith is a convincing defence counsel. I also admired very much Adam Wittek’s moving portrayal of a nurse whose husband was lost on the aircraft although his testimony, good drama as it is, is arguably irrevelant to the main thrust of the piece.

It is pretty challenging to hold an audience in a piece which is entirely word-based. There is no action – apart from barristers walking round the court as they speak – and no props or lighting although the uniforms and other costumes are good. So we’re entirely dependent on the acting ability of the cast to make us believe and feel involved. John Martin is an fine director who has assembled a strong cast and I can report that Terror works. Catch it if you can.

This sparkling production of a vintage, evergreen Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber piece brings us some of the finest choral singing I have ever heard in a community show; beautifully pointed, architectural choreography (David Mallabone) and splendid playing from Paul Garner’s over stage band especially from Roger Chinery/Fallon Howe on trumpet and flugel.

Then of course there are some impressively strong principals including Emily Pratt who plays Eva with magnificent passion and terrific musical control: top notes and a full belt to die for. It’s a bravura performance by any standard. I also admired the insouciance and deceptively casual musicality of Jonathan Padley as Che, the quasi narrator who comments on the story, interrogates the characters and their decisions, drives the action forward and occasionally drops into minor roles. The cast, moreover, includes four children who sing short solos followed by a very attractive quartet all delivered with panache and fine intonation. One way and another this production coheres nicely, sends you home with melodies in your head and plenty of political issues to reflect on.

The show works – and always did right back to the original 1979 Harold Prince production – because the rags to riches story packs such a powerful, warm hearted punch. Charismatic Eva Peron, whose humble origins were in inverse proportion to her ambition, famously rose to be the wife of Argentine President Juan Peron in 1945. Commendable good works were arguably offset by her excesses but she had became a saint-like figure before her early death at age 33. Seeing Evita today, 40 years after its debut and 22 years after her death I’m forcibly struck by some of the parallels with Diana, Prince of Wales which may be another reason why the piece stands the test of time so brightly.

Photo: Tim Winn