All That Fall

When I picked up my ticket, I saw I was in the back row – the last time I was in the back row at Jermyn Street Theatre I hardly saw a thing; such are their sight lines. When I entered the auditorium (a bit of an exaggeration for a basement room with 70 seats) I sighed with relief when I saw they’d put in a stage. When I left I asked if it was permanent and was told ‘no’ – dreadful decision, JST!

Anyway, to the play….a Samuel Beckett radio play that’s never been staged, no doubt because of the notorious Beckett estate’s protection bordering on paranoia. The solution seems to be to turn the theatre into a radio studio with hanging microphones, cast on chairs at the sides, everyone with scripts. The one concession was a cut-out car door needed to properly illustrate the very large Mrs Rooney (played by the ever so slight Eileen Atkins) getting in and out of a car. It would be tempting to close your eyes, but to do so would miss the great Dame’s extraordinary range of facial acting.

She’s on a journey to meet her blind husband and encounters seven other characters on the way. This is such ‘event theatre’ that these bit parts are played by premiere league actors (apart from the boy, who will no doubt dine out on this experience for the rest of his life). I’m not sure I entirely understand it (or if I’m supposed to) but the journey is charming, poetic, funny, poignant and engrossing. Michael Gambon’s Mr Rooney switches emotional state on the turn of his head in a virtuoso display of acting. The Dame and the Knight do not disappoint; if anything, liberated of the need for much stage business they shine more.

I’d now like to hear it on the radio so that I can see if the staging adds or takes anything away. A gentle and satisfying 80 minutes. Has director Trevor the-longer-the-better Nunn ever done anything this short?