Gatiss and Flynn are revolutionary in this epic tribute to theatre’s perseverance
‘Help him – and he will help you.
Fight him – and he will fight you’
The greatest thespian of a generation and the most famous film star in the world meet in a rehearsal room. Both need each other deeply. Neither is willing to admit it. They will bicker, jab, condescend, humiliate, and create the most successful Hamlet in Broadway history.
Jack Thorne’s barn-storming new play chronicles the 1964 production of Hamlet at the Lunt-Fontaine Theatre in New York, directed by Sir John Gielgud and starring Richard Burton in the titular role. It comes to the West End after its premiere at the National Theatre earlier this year, taking Sam Mendes’ direction and many of the original cast with it.
It is, undoubtedly, one of the plays of the year (and quite possibly, the decade). Thorne’s dialogue is fizzling and his research is meticulous as he paints a theatrical landscape caught between generations, unsure of its place next to Hollywood but unwavering in its self-belief. The greatest choice of the play, however, is letting the performances take centre stage.
Johnny Flynn is truly excellent as Richard Burton, the film star hoping to stamp his theatrical pedigree. You feel the weight of stardom in his every moment of petulance and adolescent stubbornness. Burton’s journey to find ‘his Hamlet’ is a constant tug-of-war between bowing to Gielgud’s stature and asserting his own interpretations; the tension that it creates is palpable. When Burton cracks what differentiates his performance from the 200,000 others in human history, it’s a euphoric victory over self-doubt and generational trauma, and Flynn is utterly captivating throughout. His performance would be heralded as a stand-out, if not for the man opposite him.
Mark Gatiss has always been a well-respected jobbing actor – most will remember his poised turn as Cumber-brother Mycroft Holmes in BBC’s Sherlock – but he’s never had a role that makes the world stop and turn its head. Not anymore. This is the kind of performance that will be discussed in twenty years’ time, a seminal portrait of the artist. Gielgud’s contemporaries view him as a dormant god of the theatre, a relic to be studied, lauded, ignored. His directorial struggle to reel in the wild Burton conceals an actor that knows his time is past and can’t bear it. Every award and compliment is a reminder that he has everything to lose and little to gain. Gatiss melds all his charm, self-depreciation, pain and ruthless ambition effortlessly. It’s perhaps the best live performance I’ve ever seen. It’s also ridiculously funny and quotable: ‘Ah yes, sex. I remember that.’
Tuppence Middleton leads an exceptional ensemble playing Elizabeth Taylor, Burton’s wife and fellow screen über-star. She plays perfect foils to both Burton and Gielgud and is instrumental in the maintenance of their fractious partnership. With Burton, her self-assured willingness to call out his bullshit is unique and conscious: “Richard re-wrote his history because he didn’t like the first draft”. With Gielgud, her lack of filter cuts through his rhetoric. In this, Middleton exemplifies an interesting phenomenon. In the Lyttleton, these performances felt like bullseye impersonations. In the Noël Coward, they feel staggeringly real.
Es Devlin’s set makes it clear why she’s the hottest designer in the business – spacious and precise, constantly shrinking and growing, with a final set-piece, hidden until the end, that feels like being pumped with battery acid (compliment).
It would be easy for the rehearsal room to be the show’s lynchpin and for every scene outside of it to be a dud, but Thorne imbues the world outside rehearsals with such rich detail. Burton and Taylor’s flat becomes a refuge from Gielgud, a boozy bike-shed for the company to reckon with the production’s impact. Gielgud’s study becomes a headmaster’s office, where students come desperate for answers – answers that Sir John knows he does not have. Rarely is every scene in a 150-minute play so taut and necessary.
This play is an ode to theatre, to art, to the innate need to create. But more than that, it’s an ode to re-invention; to feeling lost, taking a leap in the dark, and hoping to turn and see others behind you. At the National, it was an experimental triumph. On this stage, where Gielgud played his Hamlet 80 years ago, it is so much more.