Bingo - Chichester Festival (Review)
Review by David Munro
EDWARD Bond’s Bingo was produced at the Royal Court with Sir John Gielgud in 1974 and one may well wonder why the powers that be have decided to revive it at Chichester.
It is, in effect, an attack by a left wing writer on the integrity of our greatest dramatist based on an assumption that Shakespeare condoned the enclosure of common lands at the expense of the local peasants.
The play is set in Stratford in 1615-16 at the end of Shakespeare’s life. He has retired from the theatre and is living at New Place in search of a peaceful end to his life but with our success.
He finds his wife (whom Bond keeps off stage) impossible to live with whilst his daughter, Judith, continually nags him. When he tries to help a poor woman, the authorities hang her; the peasants revolt against the enclosures leaving him depressed and questioning whether he actually achieved anything in his life.
“Was anything done?” he repeatedly asks himself as he finally commits suicide.
Against this background of an unhappy, morose and self-doubting man it does seem a little strange that he consents to the proposal of a local landowner, William Combe, for the enclosure of the common fields.
Bond attributes this to a concern to protect his profits, although one detects a certain element of special pleading on Bond’s part, which is underlined in the play’s funniest scene when Shakespeare is castigated by a drunken Ben Johnson for his supposed lack of feeling.
Patrick Stewart is superb as the unhappy, discontented man. He gives full value to Bond’s soliloquies and his outburst of unhappy frustration at the end of the play rings true.
He gives the man an inner strength which is gradually eroded as the play progresses until it is clear that suicide is his only release from a life which has now become impossible.
Stewart conveys a lot of this by body language and small seemingly insignificant gestures; a truly great and memorable performance.
He is supported by a strong cast; in particular Ellie Haddington as his female servant (housekeeper?) who keeps a benevolent semi-sardonic eye on the proceedings and with whom in the end he finds some kind of solace.
As his daughter, Judith, Catherine Cusack makes the best of an ungrateful part. Bond clearly intends her as Regan to Stewart’s Lear although this does not come off, not due to Miss Cusack’s performance but because the part is hopelessly underwritten.
Her big moment is at the end when she scrabbles through her dead father’s papers in a vain attempt to find another will, which proves a fitting end to a not very pleasant play.
Jason Watkins, as Coombe, the avaricious Stratford merchant, seemed a little over the top in his arrant villainy. Whereas the rest of the cast managed to underplay and give a feeling of reality to Bond’s dialogue, he went for it hell for leather and in my view was the one weak performance in the play.
Richard McCabe was a splendid rollicking rogue as Ben Johnson and brought a much needed touch of humour to the play. His attempts to needle Shakespeare, whose attitude he described as “serene” (a description which stung), were positive and his secondary purpose was to unwittingly provide Shakespeare with the poison which ended his life.
Angus Jackson‘s direction was sure and he built a good production around Patrick Stewart’s overpowering performance, in which he was assisted by Robert Innes Hopkins’ clever mobile backdrop, which enabled the scenes to move effortlessly forward.
One accepts playwright’s licence but I venture to suggest that Edward Bond has over stepped the mark in this attempt to denigrate England’s greatest playwright like a dirty little terrier snapping round the paws of a Great Dane.
If Shakespeare was, as portrayed, venal and self destructive, this does not diminish his stature as a playwright and I for one, Mr Bond, do not find my belief in Shakespeare shaken or even stirred by this superbly performed but grubby little play.
Bingo by Edward Bond
Directed by Angus Jackson
Designer – Robert Innes Hopkins
Lighting – Tim Mitchell
Sound – Jonathan Suffolk
Composer – Stephen Warbeck
CAST: Patrick Stewart; Catherine Cusack; Richard McCabe; Jason Watkins; Ellie Haddington; Joanne Howarth; Kieron Jecchinis; John McEnery; Matthew Needham; Alex Price; Michelle Tate.
Minerva Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre
Oaklands Park, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 6AP.
April 15 – May 22, 2010
Evenings: 7.30pm/Mat. Weds or Thurs. & Sat. 2pm
Box Office: 01234 781312.