Lloyd Evans

The Vortex Apollo Plague Over England Finborough Major Barbara Olivier Like a footballer’s wife on a shopping binge at Harrods. That’s how Felicity Kendal lashes into the fabulous role of Florence Lancaster in The Vortex. Every fold, every tassle, every rippling golden pleat of this part is sifted and ransacked for its emotional possibilities. Florence is an unstable fading beauty whose young lovers collide jealously with her adoring son, Nicky. Noël Coward’s breakthrough play evokes the ache of despair beneath the hedonist glitz of the 1920s, and this near-flawless production, directed by Peter Hall, is marred only by its rather schematic sets.

Perhaps it’s greed. Or is it greed laced with betrayal? Certainly it’s unseemly. As their careers draw to a close, British authors have developed a habit of stuffing their collected notebooks into a rucksack, hopping to America on Virgin and flogging their life’s jottings to the highest bidder. In 2006 Salman Rushdie accepted an undisclosed sum from Emory University in Atlanta for a collection of papers said to include two unpublished novels and the ‘Fatwa Diaries’ written during his decade on the run from Islamic executioners. The same university handed over $600,000 for a collection of Ted Hughes’s papers in 2003. The University of Texas has done deals with Arnold Wesker and Julian Barnes, the latter reportedly for $200,000.

Amnesia? Forget about it. That’s my advice to dramatists considering handling this theme on stage because it always generates the same problem. Memory equals personality so a character without a memory isn’t a character. He’s some clothes. The central figure in The Living Unknown Soldier is a French major suffering from total memory loss after being wounded in the trenches. Early on, the script seems to recognise that its main character is a dud and focuses instead on the search for his family. Adverts are posted and hordes of bumbling French families turn up at the clinic all claiming Major Breakdown as their long-lost son.

Brief Encounter The Cinema Haymarket The Homecoming Almeida Under the Eagle White Bear Bit of a spoiled brat, the Cinema Haymarket. Can’t decide what it wants. Originally built as a theatre, it defected to the movies for many years but having tired of hosting popcorn blockbusters it’s now receiving plays again. Lovely auditorium, though. Wide comfy seats arranged with such a steep rake that you can see perfectly even if the chap in front of you is Lennox Lewis in a top hat. This new phase of its life begins with an update of Brief Encounter. Like the venue, the show isn’t certain quite what it wants to be. The classic storyline is supplemented with heaps of visual effects, snatches of music-hall pastiche and enough Noël Coward songs to qualify as a tribute show.

  Strange fish, Peter Handke. His 1992 play The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other is wordless and consists of semi-amusing visual skits. In James Macdonald’s production these mime acts are played out in an unnamed city that looks as if it’s been moulded from dough by a chimpanzee. It’s like an early rehearsal for a hit-and-miss silent comedy. Tons of mad ideas and a failure rate of 98 per cent. I found myself drifting pleasantly towards sleep and I became vaguely aware of people around me coughing. How would the actors respond? Spectators don’t cough because they’ve got a cough. They cough because they’re dissatisfied. It’s booing without the bad manners.

Purgatorio Arcola Happy Now? Cottesloe The Lover/The Collection Comedy Purgatorio. Hardly a seductive title and I confess it was curiosity rather than enthusiasm that dragged me to the Arcola in Hackney to see how Ariel Dorfman (best known for his 1992 play Death and the Maiden) had handled the Medea myth. His update transplants the characters to a therapy unit and the play opens with Medea under analysis describing in lacerating detail how she killed her children. Confusingly, her cell is furnished with a kitchen knife which she occasionally brandishes in the analyst’s face. More confusingly, he shrugs the threat aside as if she were waving a lollipop at him. Then the roles are reversed.

The President’s Holiday Hampstead The Sea Haymarket The Vertical Hour Royal Court There’s no such thing as a great script idea. Ideas are equally good or bad, what counts is how they’re treated. Take the 1991 coup against Gorbachev. Pretty dramatic, momentous and gripping, I’d say. And here’s Penny Gold to dramatise it. She may well be a Russian analyst, an expert on the intricacies of revolutionary politics and a brilliant diviner of the male psyche but she’s decided to give those specialities a rest. Shunting the whole nasty business of the coup to one side, she focuses on the Gorbachev family cooped up in their Crimean dacha surrounded by KGB plotters.

Lloyd Evans believes that Wilde’s comedy is the best play ever written. The Importance of Being Earnest with Penelope Keith is at the Vaudeville Theatre from 22 January. My favourite play is on its way to the West End and I fully expect to be disappointed. It’s not that Peter Gill’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest hasn’t been widely praised. It has. But I prefer to see the play done by amateurs because with the sheen of professionalism stripped away the brilliance of the script becomes all the more evident. The Importance has been called the best comedy ever written. I’d say it’s the best play ever written. Its structure is flawless.

Much Ado About Nothing Olivier The Masque of the Red Death Battersea Arts Centre The Winter’s Tale Courtyard Theatre Simon Russell Beale is working through the complete works of Shakespeare like a Regency beau touring Italy. It’s mid-winter and he’s alighted in Messina to peruse the role of Benedick. With Russell Beale the question is not how well he’ll interpret a new role but how well the character suits his strengths — his warmth and intelligence, his sly donnish humour. Benedick is a good fit. Not perfect, perhaps. The dash and romantic energy aren’t quite there because Russell Beale is, shall we say, a little more settled in his ways than the part requires.

Doubt: A Parable is a small intriguing play set in a New York Catholic school. When a 12-year-old boy is caught getting smashed on altar wine, the fanatical head teacher, Sister Aloysius, starts to investigate. She’s convinced that the lad has been corrupted by a charismatic and handsome young priest Fr Flynn. Outraged, Fr Flynn claims that his closeness to the boy is innocent and that her groundless accusations have torn their friendship to pieces. This is a highly unusual play. Tedious and slow to start with, it consists of nothing but seated characters talking to each other.

Happy Christmas, New End The Seagull; King Lear, New London A blast of seasonal cheer at the New End Theatre. Paul Birtill’s bitter and hilarious family satire, Happy Christmas, starts like a subversive salute to The Homecoming. Upwardly mobile John introduces his posh fiancée Mary to his dysfunctional all-male family. The script is crammed with offbeat gags. ‘Strange taxi-driver,’ giggles Mary as she enters; ‘do you really think his granddad was on the Titanic?’ She refuses to be cowed by John’s ghastly brothers. Kenny is a workshy alcoholic — ‘There’s an art to being on the dole’ — who immediately bums a tenner off her and later rifles through her purse.