★★★★

One writer, three plays, six actors and three directors: it’s a lot to take in on a single evening as I did on press night but it makes for pretty arresting rep season for which this young company, founded by talented LIPA graduates, have worked long and hard.

I have seen both No Help Sent and Wine in fully staged productions before and I attended a rehearsed reading of Revelation 1:18 so none of it was completely new to me but, of course, each piece has developed and become more polished over time and it’s interesting to see them all together because you notice things you otherwise might not.

For instance, each play is set in a living room so they can more or less share a set. I am struck afresh by the accomplished naturalness of Jack West’s dialogue too and the skilled use these actors make of dramatic silences. Slightly less positively I also spotted, for the first time, that West’s characters say “Seriously?” far too often and once you’ve noticed it becomes a bit of an irritant. That’s a minor gripe, though.

The enigmatic, academic title of the first play refers to a not very well known verse from the Bible which runs: “I am he that liveth and was dead; and, behold I am alive for evermore, Amen”. The play presents – with a lot of humour – a three man rock band who have just hit the big time. Cause for celebration and joy? Well, possibly but how do you hang on to fame for ever? Directed by Jack West, actors Oliver Buckner, Rob Hadden and Joshua Glenister work beautifully together with Buckner being especially watchable as they slowly bend to each other’s point of view. It will be a while before I forget Glenister’s quivering, terrified face at the end.

Directed by Scott Le Crass, Buckner is also outstanding in No Help Sent (NHS – get it?) in which he plays a testicular cancer sufferer in a profit-driven Britain which has just privatised its health service. There is no money for further treatment. Buckner finds vulnerability, anger, distress, resignation in the character and is charismatically compelling. His flat mates, played by Glenister, Hadden and Peter Lofsgaard try to help but are, actually, helpless in every sense. There are some interesting ideas in this play although, of the three pieces, I like it the least. At times it strays too close to becoming a clunky political polemic and the doctor kidnapping incident simply jars with implausibility – good as Tobi Falade (very expressive eyes) is in the role.

Wine is a fine two hander in which Harriet Clarke as Sam and Tobi Falade as Mark try to rekindle their relationship, which ended a year earlier, and gradually reveal the huge, controversial issue which scuppered it in the first place. Both actors listen actively and play off each other with the sort of skill which makes the situation very convincing. The body language is striking too as their initial awkwardness subsides to be replaced by real conversation, mutual attraction and, finally, the issue. There’s a great deal of anguish here and, directed by Harry Blumenau, the play is powerful in its understatement.

All these plays are worth seeing either separately or together. Lago Theatre have achieved a lot in a relatively short time and I’m interested to see what they do next. I hope, for example, that West will create a few more female roles soon.

★★★

Nick Lane’s adaptation and direction of Conan Doyle’s 1890 novel tells the story pretty fully and faithfully and showcases a talented cast of six, most of them accomplished actor-musicians.

The problem with adapting Conan Doyle (not, it has to be admitted my favourite author) is that the plots are so complicated that there is a danger of becoming wordy and this show suffers from too much exposition and not enough action in the first half. It hots up after the interval, though.

Commendably, Lane never lets us forget that the novels and stories are narrated by Watson. Joseph Derrington finds plenty of colour in the role and his coyness in courting Mary Morstan (Stephanie Rutherford) is nicely caught. From time to time the script takes him, for a few lines, into narration rather than dialogue which works quite well.

As Holmes, Luke Barton has a distinctive stage presence with the right balance between tiresome intelligence, serious diligence and ennui. He reminded me at times both of Kenneth Branagh and Alex Jennings as young actors.

There’s strong work from Rutherford in all the female roles, especially Mary Morstan whose presence is stepped up in this adaptation. She conveys a feisty character and when she finally succumbs to Watson’s wooing you know that this won’t be a very patriarchal marriage A very versatile performer, Rutherford also brings impressive accent work to various servant roles as well as playing trombone, violin and several other instruments in the music (written by Tristan Parkes) which provides atmosphere almost continuously.

Christopher Glover is especially good – and funny – as the policeman, Athelney Jones, Ru Hamilton does well as the effete, camp Thaddeus Sholto and Zach Lee, playing Jonathan Small, makes a cumbersomely long monologue at the end, work surprisingly well. All three play instruments and there’s much ensemble work in which other characters are played – sometimes a little confusingly.

Victoria Spearing’s ingenious set comprises narrow geometric, scaffolding-like shapes which loosely connote a timeless London skyline. Sometimes it is part-dismantled to create something else such as the boat for the river chase.

A good introduction to Conan Doyle, I think for the dozens of early teenagers who had been brought to this production (the EM Forster theatre is part of Tonbridge School) and seemed riveted by it.

★★★★

[Above: Clare Burt, Joanna Riding, Mark Meadows and members of the company as Dior models in FLOWERS FOR MRS HARRIS at Chichester Festival Theatre. Directed by Daniel Evans Designed by Lez Brotherston Lighting by Mark Henderson. Photo by Johan Persson]

Mrs Ada Harris (Clare Burt) is a char lady working hard and loyally for “my clients” in the austerity of 1947. She has kept herself modestly since her husband (Mark Meadows) died at Passchendaele although he lives on, and ages alongside her in her mind and on stage. Then, in this gentle story, based on a Paul Gallico story and written by Rachel Wagstaff, Mrs H sees a photograph of a Dior dress, saves up and, against considerable odds, travels to Paris to buy it.

This show opens with dialogue and only gradually segues into rather hesitant music led by Tom Brady whose conducting hands protrude from a hole in the floor at the downstage apex of the playing space. Most of Richard Taylor’s score is unassuming, in a lilting conversational way. Much of it works like naturalistic recitative and there are few songs in the conventional musical theatre sense. It takes a while to get used to this and, frankly at the interval, I had this marked down as rather plodding two star show with far too much pointless marching round CFT’s revolve. By the end of the incomparably better second half it had acquired a couple more stars.

The scene in which Mrs Harris finally sees a parade of Dior dresses sweeping on models down a central staircase is as theatrically effective as, say the masques in The Tempest or, in a different mood, the procession of kings in Macbeth. There is something mesmerizingly magical about it and we are as stunned as Mrs Harris is. What fun, designer Lez Brotherston must have had with this. Then there’s the ending which moved me to tears because this is actually a story about happiness, friendship, helping others and moving on. It’s marvellously upbeat without being remotely sentimental or cloying.

Burt catches Mrs Harris’s rueful sadness tempered with a lot of kindness and wisdom perfectly and her wistful singing voice works beautifully here. And when she smiles for Mrs Harris it’s like the sun coming out. Claire Machin is hilarious as Mrs Harris’s supportive, lumpy friend and neighbour and outstanding as a French cleaning lady with a splendid morose Gallic shrug. Meadows does well too as the kindly dead husband so often present to advise when Mrs Harris is on her own.

There is some impressive doubling here because there is a new set of characters in Paris. Louis Maskell, for example, is entertaining as the ill-at-ease Dior employee who conveys his unspoken passion for Laura Pitt-Pulford’s Natasha mostly with his knees. He and Pitt-Pulford (who is also good back in London as one of Mrs Harris’s more self-obsessed clients) work well together especially in French.

Daniel Evans, who directs this thoughtful show, first staged it in 2016 in his former role as Artistic Director at Sheffield. It’s a rather lovely thing for him to have revived at Chichester and adds a different mood to this year’s pleasingly varied season after Me and My Girl, Copenhagen and other delights.

[Below: Luke Latchman (Wireless Commentator) and Gary Wilmot (Major) in FLOWERS FOR MRS HARRIS at Chichester Festival Theatre. Directed by Daniel Evans Designed by Lez Brotherston Lighting by Mark Henderson. Photo by Johan Persson]

★★★

Above: Eleanor Wyld (Eliza Prentice), Susan Tracy (Leonora Carrington – older) – Photo: Robert Workman

Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) was a surrealist artist and a rebel. Famously, she had a three-year relationship with fellow artist Max Ernst in the 1930s.

Alice Allemano’s neatly structured, four-hander, debut play presents Leo (Susan Tracy) in old age being visited by an uninvited young journalist (Eleanor Wyld) who wants to talk about the older woman’s life. Carrington lived for many years in Mexico City where these scenes are set. The love affair with Ernst (Nigel Whitmey) took place in France which we see as flashback scenes with Phoebe Pryce as the younger Carrington.

At the heart of this thoughtfully directed (Michael Oakley) piece is an outstanding performance from Susan Tracy who combines physical frailty with mischievous feistiness and vulnerability with lucid determination. Tracy makes Carrington’s hands and eyes tellingly expressive. She works beautifully with Eleanor Wyld too whose character is nervous but trying to be grown up. Their dialogue together is delightfully naturalistic.

The 1930s scenes are less compelling although Pryce finds appropriate flashing passion in her role and Whitmey is reasonably arresting as Ernst – attractive enough, at least, to persuade a woman half his age to turn her back on her family and move in with a married man.

Less successful are the visions, preceded by blackouts (although they’re done slickly enough) in which Carrington is haunted by images from Ernst’s paintings with animal masks. They are meant, I think, along with her obsession with horses, to connote her state of mind. In fact – like the use of radio broadcasts to remind us that this is 1939 and war is being declared – they feel a bit clumsy and awkward.

There’s a fundamental flaw in what the play is trying to say too. It’s called About Leo but that’s misleading. If it’s intended, as it claims, to bring her own life and considerable personal achievements into the public eye then it shouldn’t be almost entirely focused on her time with Ernst. In defining her by her relationship with a man it does little to redeem Carrington from being a mere footnote in the history of art.

Below: Phoebe Pryce (Leonora Carrington – younger), Susan Tracy (Leonora Carrington – older) – Photo: Robert Workman