by Dodie Smith began her career as a successful playwright before the second world war. Dear Octopus First published in 1938. She wrote the novels for which she is known – The One Hundred and One Dalmatians and I take the Castle – years later. It’s easy to see why her newly-created play, her sixth, is rarely performed: it’s a funny but almost unflinching portrait of a family spanning three generations, gathered for a golden wedding anniversary. What he needs is a top-notch, fast-paced, perfectly pitched performance and, with director Emily Burns at the National, this is exactly what he gets.
What ensues is a wonderful night of domestic time travel – surprise – in which we are transported back to the 30s and into an English mansion outside Birmingham with sage green walls (elegant design by Frankie Bradshaw). It is interesting and fun to see how family life has changed and stayed the same. For Smith, the family was the octopus whose tentacles you couldn’t escape.
This portrayal of Dorian Gray combines the seriousness of the novel with a vaudeville brashness bordering on the mad.
The preparations for a party are underway and one of the grandchildren insists on rescuing a rose from an otherwise dead bunch of flowers: “Things shouldn’t die before they have a chance to live,” she says cheerfully . How people use – and don’t use – their opportunities in life is at the heart of this play, which is a poignant exploration of aging (Smith was in her 40s when she wrote it). The inimitable Lindsay Duncan plays Dora, the 70-year-old being celebrated: elegant, disciplined, decorously malicious. Kate Fahy is fantastic as her aging rival, unfazed by her own attempts at a cosmetic upgrade.
A love story develops in the younger generation, between Dora’s son Nicholas, who shows a vague lack of self-awareness (played believably by Billy Howle), and high-strung Fenny, a companion/housewife and the human equivalent of the rose in need of rescuing . (played beautifully by Bessie Carter). Writing is a joy. I loved the funny speech in which Dora’s husband, Charles (Malcolm Macna Ceardie), explains that he never fulfilled his ambition to become a member of parliament because there were too many “little jobs” to do around the house: shelves to put up , put down shelves. Despite (or because of) this, he is happy. The play is a glimpse of pre-war contentment, a slice of life, a tonic for our troubled times.
Sarah Snook is called Shiv Roy in HBO’s Succession. Her breakthrough performance was a ruthlessness with simmering vulnerability and misery, and won her two Golden Globes and an Emmy. And now, for a short spell in London’s West End, she is playing Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde’s doomed narcissist, described in the novel as “a tall, elegant young man” with a “romantic olive-coloured face and a worn expression”. The casting is so wide of the mark, it intrigues. It’s an evening that relies on Snook’s hell-bent chutzpah as she recounts exhaustively, with stamina, comic pizazz and vampy camp everyone in the novel (all 26 of them), from the venomous nobleman Lord Wotton to the jilted painter Basil Hallward Dorian. lover of Sibyl Vane.
Another actor performed for the first time in Sydney in 2020, The picture of Dorian gray which is admirably directed and adapted by Kip Williams. The conceit is to play with screens (today’s canvas) with a riff on today’s vanity of selfies and smartphone filters. The screen creates more power than the stage (video design by David Bergman) and Snook is projected larger than life, a twinkling cupid, in one incarnation, with an auburn bob and a smoldering cigar, wallowing in aristo absurdity, to send the t -novel up in smoke. . Make no mistake: this is it The Picture of Sarah Snookhis famous vehicle, his showmanship, flirtation staged so anxiously and so wrongly you can almost convince yourself that it is right.
The novel (1891) is a compelling moral tragedy in which Dorian leans towards good but finds evil more powerful. He lives within a frame he cannot break free from, on a canvas he did not choose. He has become more concept than man. The portrait he keeps hidden shows his corrupt deeds. Wilde’s darkest investigation is Dorian’s desire for immortal youth. This performance undermines the seriousness of the novel, it evokes a vaudeville brashness bordering on madness. The fatal ending is more of a terror than a calm response to Wilde’s truly merciless conclusion.
Converting Live Aid, the landmark fund-raising event spanning two continents, into theater is a tall order – there is no chance of conveying to the audience of 72,000 people at Wembley on 13 July 1985 the spontaneous thrill of the main acts: David Bowie giving it his all, Elton John adding live-wire energy, Freddie Mercury punching the air in ecstasy. Live Aid was watched by 1.5 billion people worldwide. He raised £150m towards the Ethiopian famine – around £458m in today’s money. It is a shame that, on the stage of the Old Vic, songs rarely run their course but are organized into a small collage. But Directly for one day still an excuse for some great tunes and it features a great ensemble, tightly directed by Luke Sheppard.
John O’Farrell’s book tries to see the danger of being beyond nostalgia by educating a younger audience. But, like many tribute pieces, it proves dangerously dangerous, to continue to tell. It tries to be edgy by including risk factors that no longer have mileage, such as Bob Geldof’s battle to get Margaret Thatcher to hang up on VAT. However, Craige Els matches Geldof’s non-deceptive quality and I was amused by Jo Foster, portraying Rebel, Rebel with fiery ambiguity: “Your mother’s in trouble / She’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl .” Amara Abiona Omonua, who works for the Ethiopian Red Cross, sings A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall in such a beautiful voice, I wanted her to sing forever (cancel the rest of the show, let’s stay on and listen).
Star ratings (out of five)
Dear Octopus ★★★★
The picture of Dorian gray ★★
Just for one Day ★★★
• Dear Octopus at Lyttelton, National Theatre, London, until 27 March
• The picture of Dorian gray at the Theater Royal Haymarket, London, until 11 May
• Just for one Day at the Old Vic, London, until 30 March
