Private Lives, Lockdown Theatre, review: proof that Emma Thompson needs to do more theatre
Private Lives, one of Noel Coward’s best-loved comedies, turned a very sprightly 90 in August; Nigel Havers and Patricia Hodge were to have played the accidentally reunited, suddenly re-enamoured divorced couple Elyot and Amanda. Alas, Covid put paid to that – at least for the time being.
In the meanwhile, though, a star-studded “virtual table-read” of the play’s first act was on offer on Sunday evening, boasting Emma Thompson and Robert Lindsay in the leads. Emilia Clarke, of Game of Thrones renown, joined Sanjeev Bhaskar to play Sibyl and Victor, the newly wed, increasingly despondent spouses of the sparring, doomed-to-be-reunited divorcees.
The simple proposition was to log-in, via Zoom, to watch the willing quartet, each in their own home, undertake a third of the play. The mute audience (some 1,400 in all) hailed from as far afield as Ottawa, Fargo and Antwerp.
This brief encounter was in a good cause: raising money for the Royal Theatrical Fund, in aid of the theatre industry’s struggling multitudes. It’s not every day you get to gawp at famous faces in their natural habitats - bringing a piquant modern sense of ‘privacy’ to the table - in aid of charity.
Brandishing a script as if she’d picked it up for the first time (in fact there had been a few dry runs with director Jonathan Church), Thompson’s natural radiance was offset by a celestial white locale – a kitchen, perhaps? Bhaskar, sporting a cravat and a reticent air, was hemmed in by books. Lindsay’s luxuriant hang-out (offering more telling personal touches than an Old Dutch Master interior) would furnish a whole Coward production. Clarke directed a shy Mona Lisa smile our way, near upstaged by her bottle-green door and bookcase.
The big surprise was how theatrically involving the humble read-through was. The directness of the Zoom format (highlighting the speaker) accentuated the verbal ping-pong. The up-close and personal approach - highly exposing - brought out the professional focus in all of them, as well as the vulnerability in the characters, and the imaginative response in us.
Thompson, in particular, caught the chiaroscuro of Coward’s writing, one moment all concerted smiling unconcern, the next brimming with sad-eyed despair. Lindsay, despite being more than twice Elyot’s stated 30 years, retains an unfading ability to signal foxy male charm, quiet pain and a sitcom-light pent-upness. I had no quibbles about Clarke’s sweetly wide-eyed Sybil, either. Bhaskar made the best of what is a pretty dull job.
We were left wanting more. “I will tell you what’s liberating – it’s acting without a bra, bras have disappeared during lockdown!” Thompson exclaimed in the short, good-natured Q&A that followed, energised by the experiment. “Em” is often castigated for getting on her high horse about things but I was left re-smitten and wishing she’d follow through on this brave foray and tread the boards again – it’s been barely half a dozen times in her whole career. The Master plainly calls her, she cannot say no.
A Marvellous Party will stream on Sunday 20 September at 7.30pm; via www.stream.theatre
