The Years assessment: An entire lot of girl, writes PATRICK MARMION

The Years (Almeida Theatre, London)

Verdict: A whole lot of woman

Rating:

There was drama on stage and off this week at Islington’s boutique Almeida Theatre when their latest show, The Years, was briefly stopped after a number of men began feeling unwell.

According to reports, they became faint and woozy during a vivid abortion scene halfway through an adaptation of the feminist memoir by the 83-year-old Nobel Prize-winning French writer Annie Ernaux starring Romola Garai, Gina McKee and Deborah Findlay.

I therefore went along in some trepidation, armed with a bottle of Bach’s Rescue Remedy, just in case. And yes, the scene detailing an illegal abortion in 1963 is a harrowing episode in Ernaux’s life story.

Recounting it, Garai also reduces the normally unshockable Almeida to mute silence — thanks in part to liberally deployed ketchup, but also because of unsparing descriptions recalling a ‘baby doll on an umbilical cord’.

If, however, you have a strong enough stomach for such things — as well as the ability to suspend moral judgements — it is just one (admittedly grim) part of a fascinating, funny and moving history of the late 20th century, seen through the eyes of a very candid French woman growing up, and growing old.

We meet her as a toddler, recalling the liberation of Paris in 1944 before the end of World War II.

There is the comedy of her randy adolescence in a convent school, and later, miserable sexual realities at a ski resort.

Memories of the abortion follow, as well as recollections of political activism, the student uprising in Paris of 1968, and the seismic arrival of the contraceptive pill.

A sketchily drawn marriage and family life ends in divorce in 1980, before the rekindling of teenage dreams in mid-life affairs, the dread of approaching menopause and the strange spectre of retirement in the Nineties and beyond.

From a man’s point of view, it’s a fascinating insight into the uncensored inner life of women as they — or Ernaux at any rate — see themselves. And the women at the show I saw this week were also very clearly loving it.

They were delighted by the occasionally shocking, but mostly playful portrait of a life — and by Ernaux’s secrets.

Her story follows a well-trodden historical path, but that only makes it more accessible — as do the five actors representing Ernaux’s different ages. Each refers to themselves as ‘we’, indicating that this is about us all.

Adapted by Norwegian-Dutch director Eline Arbo, Ernaux’s story is skilfully staged, starting each episode by re-creating an old photograph in front of a white sheet which is then used as a tablecloth, becoming stained with wine, blood and other matter, before being hung at the back of the circular stage as a kind of memento mori.

Harmony Rose-Bremner takes the younger incarnations of Ernaux as a gawky child, and also supplies moments of song, including the yodelling in Pink Floyd’s The Great Gig In The Sky from the 1970s.

Anjli Mohindra cavorts joyfully while inventing an athletic Kama Sutra of solo-pleasuring as an adolescent, before handing the baton to Garai for her disturbing turn.

McKee brings levity to carefree yet melancholy middle age, realigned with sexual freedoms, before Findlay rounds things off in rueful retirement.

Between them, the five women create a frank, unsettling and thoughtful performance that might best be described as a game of cherchez la femme.

The Grapes Of Wrath (Lyttelton, National Theatre, London)

 Verditc: Labour of Love

Rating:

John Steinbeck’s mighty American novel The Grapes Of Wrath has always been a labour of love. It requires the same appetite for toil that we see in the Joad family — displaced from their Oklahoma farm and hoping to find a land of milk and honey in California in the 1930s Great Depression.

For the Joads, in Frank Galati’s seminal adaptation of the book, that means a 2,000-mile trek with 13 passengers including grandparents, Ma, Pa, pregnant daughter, and a jailbird son who’s picked up a former preacher on the road. Packed into a creaking old banger, they endure a trial by hunger, humiliation, disappointment and violence.

Carrie Cracknell’s impressive production reduces the show’s forecast three hours and 20 minutes to a mere two hours and 45 (including interval). For this mercy we must be grateful — although it is still repetitive, thanks to recurring myths about California, the legend of the jailbird son’s conviction and the sometimes comically hokey chit-chat.

Cracknell’s cast apply themselves with the same never-say-die spirit as the characters (who intermittently drop dead) in the never-ending purgatory of Alex Eales’s greyed-out set design, reminiscent of John Ford’s 1940 film.

Particularly inspiring is Harry Treadaway as hair-trigger son Tom, who is out on parole. Cherry Jones, too, is exemplary as Ma Joad — a fountain of stoical proverbs — while Natey Jones is charismatic as the preacher who’s lost his faith in all but humanity.

There are desperately sad moments; much is made of the topicality of migrant camps; and the famous ending is as queasily uncomfortable as ever.Between scenes a country quartet lays on American folk songs and provides some light relief with a joyful hoedown.

No one will come to this in search of a good time. But if you have the necessary Protestant work ethic, you won’t be disappointed.

The Promise (Minerva Theatre, Chichester)

Verdict: Unpromising

Rating:

Pau Unwin’s last play, The Enfield Haunting, ran dismally in the West End at the tail end of last year: the ghost of Christmas past.

His new one, The Promise, commemorates Labour’s post-war, 146 super-majority which empowered the party to tackle social inequity by nationalising the coal, steel and railway industries, as well as reforming education and creating the NHS.

Following Michael Sheen’s crusading portrait of Nye Bevan at the National Theatre, and Keeley Hawe’s trail-blazing post-War GP-turned-MP at the Donmar Warehouse earlier this year, Unwin focuses on Clare Burt as the auburn-haired firebrand Labour MP for Jarrow, Ellen Wilkinson.

A Manchester born Methodist, passionate about fighting the afflictions of the working classes, Wilkinson was also a wheezing asthmatic and smoker. Her life and early death could have been the backbone of Unwin’s play, but her tragic trajectory is lost in a melee of Westminster dead-beats.

Andrew Woodall’s PM Clement Attlee is the stuffed-shirt of legend, Foreign Secretary Ernie Bevin (Clive Wood) is a sentimental West Country boy, Chancellor Hugh Dalton (Miles Richardson) is a fuming stiff, and Health Minister Nye Bevan (Richard Harrington) is a priggish Welsh Dalek.

As Minister of Education, Burt’s Ellen urges them all to be courageous, while fending off the amorous attentions of Deputy PM, Herbert Morrison (Reece Dinsdale).

Otherwise, Unwin allows her legacy to dwindle into alcoholic babbling and a spell in hospital before an early death at 55 (thanks to an accidental overdose of amphetamines).

Nor does Jonathan Kent’s production do her any favours. There was an unfortunate technical glitch on press night, but before (and after) that we were treated to the dispiriting sound of furniture being humped about off stage.

Joanna Parker’s clunky set design features bizarrely motorised wooden islands transporting actors and furniture — including an entire Cabinet table and chairs with wonky legs.

In a baffling denouement, Martyn Ellis is wheeled out as Winston Churchill, scoffing at Red (soon to be dead) Ellen, who lies wheezing her last at the centre of the stage in a customised pool of rose petals.

What does it all mean? There’s little evidence of anyone having asked that question.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theatre In The Forest, Sutton Hoo, Suffolk)

Verdict: Tree-mendous

Rating:

My dream was for a summer’s night, a balmy one, not rain-sodden, and by some fairy magic we got it for this enchanting, imaginative open-air production at Sutton Hoo, burial place of an Anglo-Saxon king 1,500 years ago, in the Suffolk countryside.

This ‘haunted grove’ was real, the stage laid out and Shakespeare’s much-loved comedy played out beneath a magnificent, towering sweet chestnut tree. ‘I know a bank where the wild thyme grows,’ sings Oberon, and we were there.

The setting couldn’t be more perfect — nor the cast: seven, multi-tasking, multi-talented actors throwing themselves into all 20 parts, appearing and re-appearing in different guises without missing a beat, a feat of energy and invention n itself.

Vincent Moisy is a brilliant Bottom (plus Demetrius and Mustardseed), Ailis Duff a standout Peter Quince (Helena, Peaseblossom). Spectacular giant puppets made for unforgettable fairies.

No matter that in Midsummer Night’s Dream, there is an underlying theme of the cruelty and fickleness (the ‘sweet vexations’) of mortal love — ‘Cupid is a knavish lad’. Because what predominates is the farce and fun.

Joanna Carrick is a talented director who respects the verse while not afraid to nurse the story along with her own idiosyncratic additions. There were perhaps a tad too many asides, ad-libs and panto sing-alongs for my taste, but I bow to the audience, who joined in and roared out their approval.

I’m guessing Elvis’s You Were Always On My Mind and Zorba’s Dance (well, the play is set in Greece) were not in Shakespeare’s original text but I think, always eager to please, he would have approved.

This is the Red Rose Chain’s 25th annual summer production near its Ipswich base; a splendid achievement for a community theatre run on a shoestring. Long may it continue.

REVIEWED BY TONY RENNELL 

The Gondoliers & The Pirates Of Penzance (Buxton Opera House) 

Verdict: Two national treasures brought to treasurable life

Rating:

Is the Gondoliers Arthur Sullivan’s masterpiece? It contains more music than any of his other collaborations with W.S. Gilbert, the Act 1 finale is terrific, and the score piles melody upon melody.

There are a challenging nine leading roles, but the gauntlet is triumphantly snatched up by the National G&S Opera Company, who field some exceptional young singers as well as veterans. Simon Butteriss’s production at the G&S Festival in Buxton should be seen by those responsible for the recent over-the-top Merry Widow at Glyndebourne: though full of witty touches, it never swamps the real message.

Butteriss himself plays the Duke of Plaza-Toro, Gaynor Keeble is his Duchess, while Kelli-Ann Masterson as their daughter Casilda and Sam Marston as drummer Luiz are one of the three pairs of lovers. Tenor David Webb and baritone Charles Rice are outstanding as gondoliers Marco and Giuseppe, paired off enticingly with soprano Ellie Neate as Gianetta and mezzo-soprano Meriel Cunningham as Tessa. The Grand Inquisitor, Don Alhambra, is portrayed by Toby Stafford-Allen with relish.

Butteriss’s production of The Pirates Of Penzance for the Festival is refreshing, and his doddery Major General is impeccable in patter and pathos. David Webb is an affecting Frederic, and Rebecca Bottone as Mabel hits an enviable array of high notes in ‘Poor Wand’ring One’. Charles Rice is a likeable Pirate King, even though the part lies a bit low for him.

The Festival runs until August 10 but these operas, plus HMS Pinafore and Trial By Jury, will be at Malvern Theatres, September 5-7.

REVIEWED BY TULLY POTTER