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The Late Middle Classes at the Donmar Warehouse – Review

On October 23, 2011May 13, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Helen McCrory is both devilish and divine

by Michael Coveney | October 23, 2011 | The Independent

The late Harold Pinter, who first directed the late Simon Gray’s The Late Middle Classes, found it to be a rich and beautifully wrought piece of work that was “deeply satisfying” to direct. I see what he means but I do not share his certainty.

That production, which I saw at the Watford Palace, never made the West End. That led to some grumpy protestations, not least from Pinter. So it’s good to see the Donmar reviving the piece, even if David Leveaux’s production doesn’t prove any more persuasive.

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Print Media Reviews The Late Middle Classes

The Late Middle Classes at the Donmar Warehouse – Review

On June 2, 2010May 13, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

The Late Middle Classes is Simon Gray at the very top of his game

By Charles Spencer | June 2, 2010 | The Telegraph

Finally, 11 years after its premiere, and almost two years after the dramatist’s death, Simon Gray’s The Late Middle Classes has made it into London.

This rich, haunting play, mostly set in the early Fifties on Hayling Island and with a period flavour so strong that you can almost taste the powdered egg, was bumped out of the West End last time around by a dire musical.

In a way, you can see why those who blocked the play’s transfer back in 1999 were nervous.

There is a rare subtlety, and ambiguity about the piece, a mixture of comedy combined with something far darker that resists easy explanation or analysis.

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Reviews The Late Middle Classes

Review: The Late Middle Classes

On June 1, 2010April 15, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Smooth Operator… Helen McCrory in The Late Middle Classes

by Michael Billington | June 1, 2010 | The Guardian

Helen McCrory in The Late Middle Classes at the Donmar Warehouse — Photograph: Johan Persson

Justice has finally been done. This Simon Gray play expired on the road in 1999 without ever making it to the West End. Now, in David Leveaux’s sensitive revival, it emerges as one of Gray’s best plays: a quietly moving portrait of repressive 1950s England and, in particular, of the way children often become the victim of adult dreams and desires.

The action is bookended by two present-day scenes in which the mature Holly visits his former music teacher. But the bulk of the story takes place on Hayling Island in the 1950s where the 12-year-old Holly is caught between conflicting emotional needs.

Print Media Reviews The Special Relationship

The Special Relationship on HBO – Review

On May 27, 2010May 18, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Through Thick and Thin?

by Alessandra Stanley | May 27, 2010 | New York Times

Bill and Hillary Clinton may take comfort in the flattering portrait of their marriage offered by a new HBO movie by Peter Morgan on Saturday night. But unfortunately for former President Clinton, the film’s title, “The Special Relationship,” refers to his partnership not with his wife but with Tony Blair, the former British prime minister.

That alliance began as a bro-mance in the 1990s: two like-minded baby boomers leading a center-left political movement they called the “third way.” It fizzled at century’s end like a broken marriage, in bitterness and mistrust.

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Reviews Rosmersholm

Rosmersholm at the Almeida – Review

On May 26, 2008April 30, 2021 By helenistic No Comments

Helen McCrory and Paul Hilton star in a fascinating and complex play that was a favourite of Freud

by Benedict Nightingale | May 26, 2008 | The Times

At times Rosmersholm seems the most modern of Ibsen’s plays, at times the most dauntingly complex. Either way, Anthony Page’s revival maintains its grip, largely because Helen McCrory and Paul Hilton generate a quiet, unpretentious intensity while obeying the dramatist’s own orders: “No declamation, no theatricalities, express every mood in a way that seems credible and natural.”

Hilton’s Rosmer is a pastor who has lost his faith. He’s also the scion of an influential family and, as such, both a magnet and a target for his community’s warring factions. Indeed, it’s his floundering attempts to maintain a degree of idealism and become a reconciler and peacemaker that make him recognisable today. He manages to alienate both Malcolm Sinclair’s ferociously reactionary Kroll and Peter Sullivan’s Mortensgaard, the radical who aims to exploit his social and religious status. He’s that sorry figure, a piggy in the middle.

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