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Review by Paul Nelson |
EVERY once in a while (and that is rapidly becoming once in a blue moon)
my belief that the end is nigh for the theatre is arrested and I am given
another shot of adrenaline by the appearance of a consummate artist who makes
up for all the preceding dross.
Such a delight is Stefan Bednarczyk, whose solo show at The Jermyn Street
Theatre An Evening of Flanders and Swann, is a captivating night consisting
of genuine amusement seasoned with just a little nostalgia.
I recall many of the Flanders and Swann pastiches written for revues, revues
such as were presented in the Laurier Lister days at the Royal Court before
it got serious.
I think I went to see Max Adrian, Betty Marsden and Pat Lancaster in Airs
on a Shoestring more than a dozen times.
I wasn't so enamoured of Fresh Airs, which followed it, but I have to say
I wish we still had small shows of such calibre that could make the youth
of today sit up and realise what wit, style and glamour really are.
Major contributors to these revues were Michael Flanders (Lyrics) and Donald
Swann (Music); though the collaboration is so close, I am unsure that they
could be split up in such a way.
They were an extremely unlikely coupling, who wrote with the deadly accuracy
of a modern day Exocet when they wanted to push a point, yet also managed
to use a feather to just the same effect.
These two were lifelong friends. They met at Westminster School, both went
to Christ Church, Oxford and after a spell at the Oxford Playhouse, the war
saw Flanders serving in a destroyer, and Swann with the Friends Ambulance
Unit. An attack of polio put Flanders in a wheelchair.
This was no deterrent and their collaboration and rapport to anyone who saw
them perform their own material, was one of such bliss that words fail most
people who try to recall their impact on an audience.
Stefan Bednardczyk is a young man with a very long pedigree. I have seen him
at least seven times, and once after a performance, had a drink with him in
the theatre's local across the road. My genuine admiration for him as a performer
was always under control until, that is, this week, when his solo show proved
once and for all that we are dealing here with a major theatrical force.
For a start, he is a master at accompanying himself at the piano, and indeed
other people, as I have witnessed in previous shows at the Jermyn Street Theatre
and in the Phil Willmott series of Dick Barton spoofs in which he toured.
He has also appeared in plays, in shows on both the Fringe and the West End,
and many other parts of this country and the globe generally.
For this show at the JST, he starts modestly with a Song of the Sea followed
by that perfect joke about the London buses, A Transport of Delight.
Effectively he has rediscovered a song that is probably more apt now than
when it was written, and which the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, would
do well to heed, What Are We Going To Do About London?
Several F&S (well why not? G&S is perfectly acceptable) favourites
are not bypassed. You have The Gasman Cometh, Misalliance (that's the one
about the honeysuckle and the bindweed - one twining to the left, the other
to the right), Bedstead Men, a song about dropping all your rubbish into any
stretch of water you can find, and before the interval a brilliant number
I never thought I would hear again. Guide to Britten is an affectionate yet
cutting appraisal of the works of one Benjamin.
The second half starts with reminiscences of fragments of songs that never
were, and these fragments are interspersed with some genuine hits including
the delightful Rockall, Have Some Madeira M'Dear, the Mozart Horn Concerto
spoof, Sounding Brass, and the sentimental retrospective of railway stations
axed by Beeching, Slow Train.
The entire evening is peppered with, of course, small, too small, interpolations
of The Bestiary of F&S. You get The Ostrich, The Sloth, The Armadillo,
The Elephant and The Gnu, the latter written by Flanders because his disabled
parking space was always taken when he arrived home, by a car which had the
registration number *** GNU. He always asked the audience if anyone knew the
owner of the said car but never found out.
So with Stefan's personal connections with the widows of the two men, Claudia
Flanders and Alison Smith Swann, both of whom he swears either persuaded or
bullied him into doing this present show, the evening becomes an object lesson
as to how you can hold an audience spellbound for two hours with only yourself,
a piano and a bottle of Evian.
Well-done Mr Bednarczyk! When you have done this show everywhere else, come
back and entertain us with the next wheeze that I am sure you have up your
sleeve. I'll be there.
An Evening of Flanders and Swann starring Stefan Bednarczyk. Presented
by Jermyn Street Theatre at The Jermyn Street Theatre. Devised by Stefan Bednarczyk
(with the aid of Claudia Flanders and Alison Smith Swann). Lighting Designer
Phil S Hunter. January 22 - February 16. Evenings at 7.30pm (NOT Mondays)
Sundays at 4pm. Box Office 020 7287 2875.
