What Shadows - Chris Hannan

Honoured Guest has apparently written a witty reply. Has anyone even done a pity-laugh at it?

Given the overwhelming response last time I know there will be cheering and dancing in all thesp households in the capital when they learn that this is being done at the Park Theatre for a month from late September.

Indeed. I booked for the Park Theatre run as soon as tix went on public sale and am looking forward to this. Due to devious previous behaviour on the pricing front, I no longer book ahead for either space in that venue except in cases such as this where the production has a good track record.

This is a fascinating play, holding the attention from its opening scene between two women: an academic retired prematurely and against her will from the profession, and a younger academic who led protests against her questioning of shibboleths about 'race' and identity. They are invented characters, designed to justify the book that one wants them jointly to research and write on the controversies with which this play is concerned: 'identity' and the historical role of Enoch Powell and his attention-grabbing speech of 1968 that led to his sacking from the cabinet by Tory prime minister Edward Heath.

Thus do Joanne Pearce and Amelia Donkor whet the appetite for an unfolding story that moves back and forth between different points in years 1992 and 1968. Waled Akthar and Ameet Chana play several types of Pakistani immigrant and established characters between them, making serious points in the process while also providing some ironic, comic relief to indicate their changed circumstances over the years. All the aforementioned play several roles, as does Paula Wilcox, and play them well, leaving two actors to play a role each: Iain McDiarmid as Enoch Powell, and Nicholas Le Prevost as liberal Clem Jones his local acquaintance and newspaper editor friend.

So the cast comprises several actors whose qualities are long established and can be depended upon, and whatever the character they play they prove a delight to watch and listen to. Outstanding among them is Iain McDiarmid. Between all in the cast is presented a story that, while about way-back-then, proves so contemporary. The play structure is fairly conventional, and sound and stage design are quietly effective, while it is what characters say and do that grips the audience. I'd booked tickets some time ago once I saw that Iain McDiarmid was to play the brilliant, provocative, controversial, poetry-loving classicist Powell, and that trust proved justified. He is shown both at his strongest and when ailing physically — and we are reminded by the playwright that Powell had various unexpected views on issues other than that for which he is most remembered — McDiarmid revealing the whimsical and magnetic through to the waspish and marginalised Powell. A complex character to present, a type that some would have been tempted to pass off as a pantomime-villain, yet the performance is a tour de force by McDiarmid.

The play presents arguments and the dialogue certainly does crackle. It is going to be up to whoever is in the audience at any given performance to think about what they have seen and heard, when making up the minds which will be turning over with all sorts of thoughts about the play on their way home. Well done to everyone concerned in writing, acting, designing and producing this play.

Oh hell, mine will probably be the only dissenting voice again; am still trying to formulate my minority verdict.

Slightly odd question for those who have seen:

Is there much swearing?

I'd like to take my Dad along to this, but he's fairly old school in that regard and I know it'll ruin it for him if there Is a lot of strong language.

Ta

I don't recall swearing, wiggymess. There were some muttered phrases that could have been swearing but their having been in Urdu or in Latin or Greek meant they'd have passed over our heads. The characters in the play aren't the sweary types. The language used is lively enough and measured. Now I think of it, one of the pleasures of the play was there wasn't a totally, absolutely, massively massively huge, completely and utterly outrageous, empty phrase to be heard from curtain up to closing remarks. The play moving back and forth between 1992 and 1968, and with characters wanting to say something that mattered to them, nothing was put in the way of understanding.

Official press night was only last night so I imagine they will start trickling through

I also reviewed it and my criticisms were slightly harsher but it is still worth it for McDiarmid's scenes, an actor who not only gets Powell but gets why he did what he did. The issue I have was mostly production rather than script or acting, though it was running far longer than 2hrs 15 when I saw it viewfromthecheapseat.com/2017/10/04/what-shadows-park-theatre/

This is what happens when you write reviews on One Note after two glasses of wine and don't have an editor. Thanks

Have you not been following Boris's THIRSTY attempts to become the leader of a party that hates him even more than they hate May. It is mostly embarrassing rather than informative.  He someone managed to get one issue of The Telegraph dedicated to how amazing he is, not only by writing his own 'How I'd Brexit' article but also a load of columnists singing his praises. When that didn't work he did the same thing in The Sun a week later. The difference between Johnson and Powell is that Johnson was a journalist, perhaps a better journalist than he is an MP so he knows how it works and believes he can use it to his advantage.

Of course, people are more media savvy now. It is entirely believable Powell had no clue how the media worked and hence why the speech went down badly as well as it went down well. The masses loved that someone senior was saying what they were thinking but his own peers (who hated him anyway) knew it was provocative rather than helpful. Nobody would even get to the selection stage with that level of naivety today.

What the Tory party hates is the possibility that a Boris blunder might stop it from retaining power.

Having said that I don't see the Powell/Johnson comparison as holding water, there is far more in common between Johnson and Corbyn.