Love In Idleness and Lettice and Lovage - Menier

I too was there last night at Lettice & Lovage!

"It will get better" ...said the person behind me after it had ended at 10.50pm!

I would agree, first preview and the play is basically a two hander between Lipman and Kendal - the latter having 65% of the lines - a truly massive role to learn. The first 20 minutes or so is a monologue by Kendall as a tour guide at a dull stately home and in order to make it more interesting for the visitors embellishes the facts with each successive tour. Tricky to learn I would imagine.

Both actresses I felt struggled with the lines all evening at the expense of character and pace but this will improve. The play is slight and not as funny as I remember it with Maggie Smith in the Kendal role back in the day. They must be hoping for a transfer into town with this. A converted warehouse is hardly glittering Shaftesbury Avenue for Lipman and Kendal.

The sets were inventive and it always impresses me how they achieve such production values in such a tiny space.

But the Menier is uncomfortable with the bench seating on which they have squeezed an extra seat per row too many. You become very intimately acquainted with your neighbour - not necessarily a good thing. The 8.00pm start does not help us out of towners get our trains home either. I will have to try and avoid this venue in future.

Yes, at my age I shouldn't be out after dark anyway!

Trevor loves his long plays and musicals doesn't he.

Saw Mags.  Will be seeing Flick.  Will let you know....

(though I can already guess.. )


Edit.  Just dug out the old programme.  Apparently we could have had 2 courses at Le Renoir (from their a la carte menu) on Charing Cross Rd for £7.50!   I honestly don't remember food ever being that cheap.  But then again, I don't actually remember partaking of much in 1987 that wasn't liquid based....

Abandon your tickets and watch this amazing clip of MS and MT instead:

Painful beyond words. I hope Dame Maggie is steering WELL clear. Mo Lipman plays it with a German accent that comes and goes and a vague sense of embarrassment. Fizzy Kendal is simply ghastly. The solicitor in the third act didn't seem to have been rehearsed. Poor Trevor, he is just SO desperate these days .....

Can we return to Love in Idleness for a moment? I saw it at the Apollo last night and my first thought was how did that set ever fit onto the tiny stage of the Menier? Suffice to say it looked right at home on a West End stage.

There has been one cast change. The part of the frivolous Diana Fletcher is now played by Charlotte Spencer, still remembered for her Christine Keeler in the misbegotten Stephen Ward. She did well. The rest of the cast is excellent with Eve Best's Olivia and Anthony Head's Sir John quite magnificent. But the play really hinges on the returning son, Michael, and Edward Bluemel makes the most of the role, an extremely entertaining performance. The problem for me was that he was directed by Trevor Nunn to be a bit too cartoonish and over the top, at times, and that undercut the play's big moment of decision. We need to understand the choice that Olivia makes and in this case it was difficult to do so.

Similarly the twists and turns of the final scene lacked some focus because Olivia is never given that moment of recognition when she sees Michael with his new flame and understands the hypocrisy of the situation. This one is down to Rattigan, I think, who never quite comes to grips with his characters in the way he does in his better plays.

Still, second tier Rattigan in a (generally) fine production is certainly worth seeing.

I have to say it's extremely annoying to read so many disgruntled comments about Lettice and Lovage when I was unable to get a ticket for it myself. Bad karma.

It doesn't. It makes me feel worse.

But you're probably right, not worth your going to it...... can I buy them off you?

I'm here for Lettice this afternoon. Open-minded about it.

I think he must have improved because I thought he was very good, and funny. For me Kendal played her part in the right style for the piece and Lipman was also fine, and any Germanic accent appears to have gone. Not an earth-shattering play but a perfectly acceptable few hours of entertainment.