Look Back in Anger & Roots - in rep - Almeida Theatre

Was good seeing LBIA last week. Really excellent play that has not aged like I feared it might have.

What a horrid revival of Look Back In Anger

A truly dated play

Hindered by leaden and inexperienced direction

Ugly set

And dire acting
The whole thing stinks of A level am dram

I saw both Look Back in Anger and Roots as a two show day and have a few thoughts on it.

Look Back in Anger by John Osborne is a play that broke new grounds when it debuted in 1956 and this production showcases how the play still resonates even today. Billy Howle is excellent as Jimmy and he's not just toxic, he's nuclear and his behaviour affects those around him, Ellora Torchia gives a great performance as Alison as does Iwan Davies as Cliff. Morfydd Clark is good as Helena but it's more of a supporting role. The set is the same for both productions but LBIA uses a trap door as its centrepiece which is very effective. 

Roots by Arnold Wesker is a very different play to LBIA, it's got a lot more humour in it for one but the themes are different as well. Whereas Jimmy Porter in LBIA is the archetype of the angry young men, Beattie Bryant in Roots is the naive young woman who swept away by socialist ideals by her boyfriend in London tries to convince her traditional country family in Norfolk only to find they're not interested. Morfydd Clark as Beattie captures that zeal of being swept away by rhetoric and wanting change and also being annoyed that those around her are a bit stuck in their ways, Sophie Stanton and Deka Walmsey as Beattie's parents are very good and they have some great scenes with both each other and Beattie. Interestingly, Billy Howle, Ellora Torchia and Iwan Davies have more of a supporting role in Roots which is probably more of a breather after the intensity of LBIA. 

I did find it interesting that

LBIA is the stronger play of the two but it was a great experience to see two very different plays at the Almeida with the same cast.

As a completist I'd love to see plays by these two which haven't been revived for years and years. Missing "Not Quite Jerusalem" by Wesker and lots by Osborne - West of Suez, The End of Me Old Cigar, Very Like A Whale, Watch It Come Down... even Luther.

I do appreciate why these two are regularly revived - the major work by each of them - so new generations can see them but a little less depth and more width would suit me better.

Ahhhh...

I found look back in Anger really obnoxious as a play. Jimmy porter is such an abusive piece of crap, I couldn't find any enjoyment from it. Compared to streetcar, the script isn't as interesting either.

The acting is great, so hearing roots has more likeable characters is good. I might enjoy that more!

I thought this was extraordinary and revelatory. As a statement on Britain’s (England’s) post-colonial identity crisis it’s surely more powerful and relevant now than in 1956.

In fact it feels surprising that just 11 years after World War Two Osborne had Jimmy Porter be so unfairly tough on England, expecting so much to be resolved in a Britain still scarred by bomb sites. Yet what’s the excuse now? Here we are 58 years on and England’s inability to be at ease with its identity and find its post colonial purpose seems as fresh (rancid) as ever.

Alison says her dad is wracked with pain that in post-war post-colonies Britain “everything’s changed”, whereas Jimmy’s rage is that despite all that change “everything’s the same”. Witness today’s papers still harping on Churchill, the Blitz spirit, and stories like the one Jimmy reads out about depraved sexual deeds going on in the Midlands. When Jimmy disdains Alison seeking ‘some peace’ or her aspiration to be down in the potting shed it’s a rage about settling for such a small reset when there was a chance for more. Today’s equivalent is to seek solace in the fetish of ‘Countryfile’ and ‘Downton Abbey’.

The play’s intensely political - but not in a Left/Right way. That rage for ‘more’ from Jimmy could be answered by Far Left or Far Right, just as long as it was ‘enough’ at last: a total solution, a bold gesture, a grand narrative. That big narrative may turn out to have few practical gains, but it’s a big story for people like Jimmy Porter to live in. It's the populism we see springing up all around the world now, and the huge danger of a Biden/Starmer-like managerial incremental change being bulldozed by a desire for that decisive "one violent day" (Trump) when things get sorted.

I’ve no doubt that today Jimmy Porter would be a YouTuber, sounding off. When Osborne baptised him Jimmy Porter, he gave him the boyish diminutive of James and a self-pitying surname that suggests he’s carrying the world. I think Stephen Yaxley Lennon had similar ideas when he traded on the image of the lowly British infantryman and created himself as ‘Tommy Robinson’.

Osborne’s script hardly stops giving when it comes to jaw dropping relevance. Jimmy’s friend Hugh shipped out to China (“‘some God forsaken place”) - well Hugh will be doing pretty well now! Unlike Hugh, Jimmy didn't give up on England, but gave up on himself by tying himself to her. After the recent radical ‘Cherry Orchard’ I couldn’t help noticing the similarity between the arrested development of Gayev in that play (with his sweets - chupa chups in pocket), and Jimmy’s emasculating job running a sweetshop - set up in the job by…. his friend’s mum.

Perhaps some newspaper reviewers didn’t see (or want to allow) much of this because Jimmy’s vile treatment of women gets in front and it feels proper to not reward that, and instead make it negate all other points. I think that’s a mistake, as it’s all of a piece. In the absence of a grand ennobling narrative, with the big stories/sacrifices already done in the world wars, Women are the war that’s available for men (and some women) like Jimmy to fight. From social media voices like Calvin Robinson, Laurence Fox and Andrew Tate to politicians like Trump it’s absolutely everywhere today.

Anything practical to be gained from the play now? Just a huge warning to middle-manager style politicians that it’s not enough to gradually aim to do a bit of good. Without the grand narrative you’ll be swept away.

This has just extended a week, I’ve booked Look Back in Anger final performance, but think I will give Roots a miss.

I saw Roots last night. It was a toss-up between that and a seat near the back of the Royal Circle for Waiting for Godot. I went for the Almeida because I know their stalls and was more confident of a decent view. I wish I'd gone for the Haymarket. I found this new Roots inferior in every way to the last production I saw (the Bassett/Raine mentioned above). Whether it was the amateurish set, the rather poor diction of some cast members (it wasn't my hearing or the unfamiliar dialect because other cast members came across very clearly) or just a plodding pace I can't say, but this simply didn't draw me in in anything like the same way as the Donmar production did. I'm usually a fan of the interval-free format but this seemed an occasion where it was inappropriate. The Almeida's 100 minutes seemed to drag on where the much longer Donmar running time gave the action and dialogue room to breathe rather than suffocating it - which was the impression I had last night. I've made a bet with myself that the 3 hours of tonight's The Wild Duck will fly by in comparison.

I went to see both shows yesterday. I haven't seen either before but listened to the radio version of LBIA a while ago, and could not recall much.

I would say LBIA was by favourite of the two as for me the play is still quite engaging, even if our modern attitudes have changed. That being said this production does feel quite long and in the need of some cutting or maybe some stronger direction as noted. I think Jimmy Porter is quite an interesting character as he is just so unlikable but here I felt we never saw maybe a more charming side to him that would make Alison and Helena fall for him, there feels like there should be a essence of Stanley Kawaski in the fact he's horrible but has an appeal. I thought Iwan Davies was a stand out though and definitely feels like one to watch. The rest of the cast where very strong over all the plays however.

Roots I found to take a very long time to get going. The play was the strongest at the party scene but the rest of it sort of did feel like a dusty old play. There are interesting ideas of the younger generation discovering who they are but maybe not enough to justify a revival.

These seem to have sold quite well so maybe that is why the almeida chose to stage them but these productions feel a bit lacking. Maybe if they just focused on quite a radical single production of LBIA it would have worked, it is the sort of play a exciting European type could gnaw at. Also I don't regret booking and these aren't the worst of the year for me but I am let down.