Albion (Almeida Theatre)
Mike Bartlett’s state of the nation Brexit play has that kinda Chekovian feel. Not just because of the upper middle class London family at the centre of it, or the matriarch obsessing over a bit of old garden, but kinda because everything’s so loaded, so meaningful. I suppose it’s artful in how much is crammed in and yet still left unspoken, but I do kinda wish the whole thing had been batted back to Bartlett for another round of revisions. Everyone’s in such a hurry to be relevant, to TACKLE BREXIT, they’re just rushing, The whole thing felt like a wonky metaphor that had been taken too far.
I mean, credit where credit’s due. Acting is hard and these ones are grafters. Even if it is the kind of naturalism that works better on the telly, they’re all putting a proper shift in. Susannah Clapp had a wonderful line in her Observer review. Of Victoria Hamilton’s central performance she says: ‘She is ramrod tight but quivering with fervour. It is hard to know whether the shine in her eyes is the glint of steel or the glimmer of tears.’
Which is true. That’s exactly what she’s like. It is, no doubt, a brilliant role which I’m sure everyone in the rehearsal room hoped would become a new Hedda — one of those roles that actors get all worked up about. (Obviously she’s a woman so we have to compare her to Hedda rather than Hamlet — them’s the rules, drama fans.) It’s telling that I can’t actually remember the character’s name though. Whatever it is, she’s certainly complicated enough to warrant multiple readings, endless essay-writing, but it doesn’t really feel like this is gonna be one of those plays that’s remembered. I mean, at the end of the day it’s just a rich family being sad, all stuffed into some kind of political metaphor that doesn’t stand up because politics right now is so fucked. You can’t write a state of the nation play if no-one knows what state the fucking nation’s in. And all that naturalism, all those fucking flower beds, it just feels mouldy.
On twitter this week I kept seeing a David Edgar tweet going round and round. He was getting all worked up about the Saturday Review reviewers, who apparently didn’t recognise Bartlett’s genius in telling eleven — ELEVEN — stories ‘so beautifully’. Edgar my friend, my little turtle-headed friend, perhaps the difficulties with this play might just lie in the fact that eleven stories is TOO MANY STORIES. Max 2 stories per hour, that’s what I say. Albion was 3 hours so that leaves room for 6. Any leftovers should be kept in a drawer for another time, maybe they join together to make another play in a few years, like in Simon Stephens’ Wastwater.
