CONFESSIONS OF A THEATRE ADDICT

Rosie Cunningham

Icaught the joyous production of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel when it was in Bath, which is now on tour before landing in the West End later this year. If you loved the films, you are going to enjoy this entertaining and uplifting performance of Deborah Moggach’s novel. Starring Hayley Mills, Rula Lenska and Paul Nicholas, who I have to say I didn’t recognise, the cast is full of veterans who know their stuff and the audience got swept along by the story of new beginnings and second chances. The set design was possibly over-busy with the frequent moving of chairs and tables which seemed to get in the way of the action however the dance scene was beautifully choreographed, and only lacked a few overenthusiastic audience members leaping up on the stage to join in. Passing through Cardiff in March and Southampton in May, it’s a light-hearted piece of theatre which is guaranteed to lift the spirits.

Best of Enemies is on at the Noel Coward theatre in London until 18th February. You might not think that a two-and-a-half-hour play about politics is of interest, but this is a really mesmerising play about powerful rhetoric and the power of television. David Harewood, who just received an OBE in the New Year Honours list for services to mental health, plays conservative William Buckley and Zachary Quinto, in his debut on the London stage, plays liberal Gore Vidal. Quinto has captured Vidal’s patrician and self-congratulatory manner perfectly, and is a joy to watch. The network channel ABC is failing in its ratings against the other giant news channels and conceive a new format of face-to-face confrontation, which pits these two opposing political figures in a series of nightly battles of will, in a desperate attempt to change their fortunes. The year is 1968 and America is suffering mass protests in the run-up to the next presidential election, which Nixon eventually wins. Buckley and Vidal’s debates on the morality of a warring nation electrify a fractured country and cement this style of political face-off forevermore. Both men want to gain the upper hand over their opponent in their TV debates, however the audience is also party to all of the background anxieties from the support teams and the controlling ABC ratings-driven manipulations. Written by the young English playwright James Graham, who also gave us one of my favourite plays This House which was recently voted Play of the Decade, and directed by Jeremy Herrin, with an innovative set design by Bunny Christie in the shape of an old TV screen, Best of Enemies is an absolute triumph.

By the way, I was recently asked why I never review anything at the Salisbury Playhouse which is a well-loved local theatre, so I promise to make amends and hope to see the Alan Ayckbourn play How the Other Half Loves in February or The Beekeeper of Aleppo in March.

marigoldshow.com delfontmackintosh.co.uk wiltshirecreative.co.uk

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