Wild Honey - Hampstead Theatre

Maybe it's just as well if you are seeing this, not to have seen the CFT/NT version? I regret missing it but at least I will have nothing with which to compare this one!

I have seen four different productions of this play (and three of them were directed by Jonathan Kent).

The 1984 McKellen version of the Michael Frayn text was a big hit at NT and transferred to Broadway but I thought it was no more than OK. The problem (to be repeated) was that there was an inconsistency of tone within the play with scenes veering uneasily between tragedy and comedy and farce. Later it emerged McKellen himself had had problems with this, he’d struggled in rehearsals and considered withdrawing and he claims it was not until the first preview with an audience “I realised it was a comedy” and he found a way to play it.

In 2001 I saw the Sir David Hare text in an Almedia production in an old railway shed at Kings Cross. The staging in such a large space was a bit distancing for the domestic scenes but obviously good for the train. The actor playing Platonov needs to have some sort of charisma so you can see what all the women see in him – Aidan Gillen in this production was quite good.

The 2016 NT production of the Sir David Hare text we have all seen. Now this production of the Frayn text.

To start, I think the Frayn text is much more consistent and coherent as a play. With 5-6 hours of source material to choose from it is significantly different from the Sir David Hare text although I think the latter is probably closer to the original. The Frayn version is also better written with none of the clunky Americanisms of the latter. (Frayn also speaks perfect Russian so worked directly with the original rather than via a literal translation).

The two main problem remain. Is it a tragedy or a farce or both ? Does Platonov convince ?

Jonathan Kent is not really the director to resolve these problems of tone, I rate him highly but he has never demonstrated much of a gift for comedy and the Frayn version tends towards that conclusion. At moments the ensemble work which was a feature of Howard Davies productions was visible but it is not clear how much input he had. Overall the direction here looked a bit vague.

On the other problem Geoffrey Streatfeild is a charisma-free zone as far as I am concerned, it is literally unbelievable that the women would see anything in him. He is by far the least effective of the four actors I’ve seen play the role.

Ultimately as a production I think the recent NT one was better.

But, overall, quite a good production and mercifully short given the desperately uncomfortable seats at Hampstead.

Well, for me Mr. Streatfeild is a bucketful of charisma per se, but if he's managed to make his Platonov unattractive (in a role where attractiveness is essential) I'll be very VERY much surprised! )

Have to agree with Lynette, this left me pretty cold whilst I bounced out of the NT version. I so wanted to like it but it did seem rather lost, not sure what it was about and actors who are normally utterly reliable to be good didn't seem to be quite working. As a character I wasn't convinced that all these woman would be throwing themselves at Platonov, if anything having seen the NT's Ivanov he seemed to have more echoes of that. Can anyone better informed throw any light on the ending, I know that it was an unfinished play but is the ending unwritten, unclear, hence the different interpretations. I couldn't tell from this one if he was meant to be running to or from destruction.

Jan Brock I did enjoy staring at the front stalls wondering which was you, I assume you were none of the following people, audience members breaking part of the circle rail and trying to fix it in a very quiet scene, the man talking loudly with the usher re inaudibility, audience members talking loudly between and into scenes, the woman who gave me a mince pie?

Oh was it a breaking circle rail ? I wondered what it was, I assumed it was a departing audience member with poor walking stick control. No, I wasn't any of those, also I wasn't any of the multitude in the front stalls coughing like it was a TB ward in 1916. Didn't spot you unless you were the lady nonchalantly steadying herself against the box office during the interval.

So what is in the original ending? The NT had him being shot and killed by accident and then a lovely 'mourning scene' with a few ends tied up and the money thing was clearer at the NT with the doctor begging for money from his father and a reconciliation between the old guy with the money and his son, both going to Paris. Am I right, have I remembered it ok? Not broken out the Baileys yet but you know, time of the year. The liqueur chocs already gone.

I thought that too but according to my neighbours it was a bit of accidental circle breaking. Well I was leaning against a pillar in the interval downstairs but I doubt I'd have pulled off nonchalant.

Well. I don't quite know if it was because I was tanked up on mince pies and sloe gin or just didn't read the programme properly but I didn't realise that it's pretty much the same bloomin' play as the one at the NT recently just with a different title. Sneaky.

Anyhoo. Is it a requirement that all Chekhov plays have to have a lot of trees on stage? Do they use the same trees and just move them from production to production?

Play was entertaining enough. Think I preferred the NT one though. Geoffrey Streatfeild was delightful. He's not the obvious local lothario but he does manage to convince otherwise through sheer force of personality. However, I wouldn't have let him grow his hair. It's a bit, shall we say, thin.

Lovely performance from Joe Bannister as Sergey too.

Funny ending though. Not funny haha but funny odd. Audience started clapping because they thought it had ended and then there was another quick bit at the end. They didn't know whether to clap or not after that.

No, I was there on NYE. Just now coming out of my sloe gin stupor to post more camp old nonsense for 2017! 

The ending is very strange. I think it's because the lights fade after the main scene so it seems like the end, hence some applause, and then, oops, we actually get another bit that lasts for like 10 seconds before the lights fade again. It's like the audience are thinking "Ha, you aren't going to fool us a second time Mr Director".

No confusion at the ending tonight but uncertainty of tone is definitely a problem for this play. We had Tom Attenborough reading in as the Colonel (announcement beforehand that the original actor had been taken to hospital but was ok) and that added to the general muddle, I think. But Geoffrey Streatfeild is adorable and I didn't see the NT version so overall was glad I saw this.

I like Hampstead as a theatre but agree with the comment further up this thread that the seats are hideously uncomfortable.

My pre-visit email from Hampstead contained the line "You might also like: Sex with Strangers". Bit presumptuous, I thought...

I studied Russian and as far as I know, it's 'PlatOnov'. I wouldn't put much faith in their Russian pronunciation - Streatfeild appeared to be the only one attempting authenticity on the night I went! And the less said about everyone's 'Gerasim Kuzmich' efforts, the better...