I am devoting
more attention to Front of House details and for visually impaired people. This includes the box office on the phone, in
person, an audio CD and a greeting at the event itself. The National Theatre ticks all these boxes
and a performance is stress free.
On a cold
November lunchtime, some early arrivals were let into the box office area as
the NT staff were going through the details of the performance back up for
visually impaired visitors. My companion
counted 2 dogs and about 6 canes in the audience and I had a chance to speak to
a few visitors who are regular theatregoers with and without audio description. In any live performance for visually impaired
audiences there are really 2 live performances and the research by Tony and
Bridget with the NT staff in putting the whole show together is
commendable. That said the play is the
thing.
This House is
a play by James Graham and has started in the studio space of the National
Theatre known as The Cottesloe. The play
is sold out for the run though will be transferred to the Olivier Theatre in
2013. The play recalls the events in the
House of Commons between 1974 and 1979.
This is shown as the fall of the Heath government, the arrival of the
Labour government under the leadership of Wilson then Callaghan then the
victory of the Conservatives in 1979 under Thatcher.
The National
Theatre CD had been sent to me a few weeks ago and it contained much
information. This includes information
on the set, characters and descriptions with a useful glossary of parliamentary
procedure pre-television broadcasting. At
the time only major broadcasts on radio were live and one had to listen to
transcripts of events in a programme which still goes out on the BBC- Today in
Parliament.
The play is
really interesting as it deals with the relationships of the opposing team of
“whips”. By tradition the whips do not
speak to the public and the Whips Office is usually an important part of the
“greasy pole” of many political leaders.
They are supposed to know all the secrets. I remember many of the events referred to in
the background. Each year has an echo such as the Silver Jubilee in 1977 and
the surprise resignation of Wilson in 1976.
The set is laid
out to resemble the green benches of the House of Commons. The dialogue is very quickfire with typical
adversarial snippets when scene shifts occur from office to chamber.
Many of the
characters have multiple roles and appearances.
In order to keep things simple all the Conservatives (Tories) have
“Posh” accents and are often described as Tory Twats. The Labour characters are usually given Northern
English accents. There are non English
roles such as MPs from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Most
of the MPs are referred to with the name of their parliamentary constituency
and the Speaker refers to them in this way.
Among themselves, the MPs use other terms of endearment including first
names. We have, for example, a reference
to Plymouth – Alan Clark (famous for sex and diaries) and Chelmsford – Norman
St John Stevas (pompous constitutional expert and deceased).
The dialogue
is filled with snippets of details which kept the Labour Government on a knife
edge. The Labour government managed to
survive for most of a 5 year term. The whips office has a blackboard on which
the razor thin majority is gradually stripped away. At the time calculators and computers would
have been available but a blackboard is a useful prop.
In hearing
about the set, Tony McBride had walked the length of it and had stopped where
important parts of debating procedure are embedded in the chamber. There are 2 redlines which represent 2 sword
lengths apart when in debate. The Serjeant
at Arms still has a sword in the chamber and the Speaker still wore a full
bottomed wig and gown. One of the new
Labour Whips plays with his stick of office (not unlike my Whitestick).
We were
introduced to the cast and were taken round the props. The audience is seated on the benches and
there is a working bar on the set with Irish Whiskey (surely shome mishtake). Chris Godwin took me round the set and as he
plays the member for the Western Isles, I asked him how his Gaelic was. To my surprise he answered in Irish. I was able to sit in the Speaker’s Chair and
it can revolve revealing a cleaner’s cupboard complete with Izal loo paper, not
Bronco. We were also able to handle some
of the costumes including a very expensive Savile Row suit said to be worth
£10,000 in today’s money. The suit has
apparently made several performances on TV, film and theatre, and is worn by
Julian Wadham who plays the role of Humphrey Atkins.
The play
itself unrolls as a timeline with much of the drama being between the two
deputy whips. In real life, this was
Jack Weatherill played by Charles Edwards and Walter Harrison played by Philip
Glenister. (Obituary on BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20080858
) For political junkies, broadcasts of
the real events and dramas in the House of Commons can be found on the BBC and
other channels as well as on radio. At
the time transcripts of debates in the house were taken by Hansard and with
some redaction, appeared in the Parliamentary Report. This continues to this day and is available
on line at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/search-hansard/?gclid=CMCkyJXh77MCFSTLtAodbQ8Abw
Members of
the cast who were present during the Touch Tour included:
Christopher
Godwin - (Walsall N/Speaker in Act
II/Plymouth Sutton/Ensemble)
Giles Taylor -
(Speaker in Act I/Mansfield/Serjeant at Arms in Act II/West Lothian/Ensemble)Tony Turner – (Bromsgrove/Abingdon/Liverpool Edgehill / Paisley / Fermanagh /Ensemble)
Rupert Vansittart - (Esher/Belfast W/ Ensemble)
Julian Wadham - (Humphrey Atkins, Tory Whip)
Gunnar Cauthery - (Clockmaker/Peebles/Redditch/Nuneaton/Ensemble)
Jane
Suffling, the Stage Manger, was also present.
This play
will transfer to the Olivier Theatre in February 2013.
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/this-house
Conclusion:
The seating in this show added to the drama and if this can be replicated in a
larger theatre it should transfer well.
Much of the detail will go over the heads of those who have forgotten
the late 1970s but the detail does not detract from the drama of the apparently
wasted effort in politics at the time, though having listened to several
political books recently (Andrew Rawnsley on the End of the Party (Labour)) it appears
that little has changed. For the sake of
balance the term Omnishambles comes to mind.
By the way
the part of the Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles was not creepy enough!
I ran across him when he was canvassing to be Rector of Edinburgh University in
the 1970s. (Gordon Brown had at least been successful in getting that post.)
