Trevor Nunn is one of our most celebrated living directors. It was a
sizeable coup for the Menier Chocolate Factory to secure a brace of his
productions this year; the first,
Love
In Idleness, has just moved on into the West End as the second,
Lettice And Lovage, opens. Lately,
though, Sir Trev hasn’t always been serving his dishes all that hot.
He’s big on allowing events onstage to unfold at a natural pace, even
when there aren’t that many events and could do with the occasional
shot in the arm.
The odd thing here is that Peter Shaffer’s 1987 play is exactly that
sort of piece – talky rather than event-y – and yet you don’t feel that
the two lead actors would be better off getting them away from Nunnery.
There are two reasons for this. The first is that Shaffer knew he was
writing a duel of performances onstage. Lettice, a historical guide who
never lets the truth get in the way of a good story and a florid old
theatre dame with greasepaint running through her veins, was written
for Maggie Smith; Lotte Schoen, the personnel head who begins by firing
Lettice for her serial embellishments then forges a firm if spiky
friendship with her, was originally Margaret Tyzack. And this time...
this time they are respectively Felicity Kendal and Maureen Lipman.
La Kendal: yes, yes, national treasure (and, indeed, herself brought up
in the same kind of theatrical rep company as Lettice), but I’m afraid
I’ve never been a confirmed devotee. Here, though, she can really
stretch out, and revels in Lettice’s astounding historical tales both
true and, as she would put it, “enlarged”. Even in a dingy basement
flat, Lettice positively holds court. And Lipman stops the contest from
being a Lettice walkover; her Lotte makes it at least an evenly matched
affair. Although no slouch herself at broad acting (she pulls out some
fine double-take and strong-drink moments here), Lipman is also at home
with detail and not-quite-underplaying. She gives Lotte a slight
accent, tacitly ascribed to her one German parent, then strengthens it
throughout the central drink-fuelled bonding scene in Act Two until it
becomes barely noticeable.
As for the play’s deeper themes, who cares? Not Shaffer, not
particularly. The women forge an alliance in their hostility towards
what Lettice describes as the “mere” in all walks of life, but it only
becomes palpable in the final few minutes for the sake of a strong
ending; and the blinding condemnation of modern architecture was
already
vieux chapeau when
the play premièred three years after Prince Charles’ “monstrous
carbuncle” speech. But oh, it is nice to hear such sentiments being
voiced in the very shadow of the Shard...
Written for The Lady.