KEMBLE’S RIOT
It hardly seems possible that Brighton Open Air Theatre is already ten years old and even less possible that it is even longer since the untimely death of its inspiration and benefactor Adrian Bunting. So what better way to celebrate the anniversary than to take one of Adrian’s plays and revive it?
When Kemble’s Riot was first given it was to huge acclaim with actor George Dillon in the lead role. I was there for the first night and loved it. This new production is longer, the full text as written and in the role of Actor/theatre manager we have Samuel Masters as John Kemble and very good he is too, pompous, overblown and entitled.
And entitlement is at the heart of this work. The actor feels that he is entitled to fair recompense for the monies he, and his benefactors, have invested in the rebuilding of the Covent Garden Theatre. The theatre going audience feel entitled to continue to pay the ticket price charged prior to the disaster, a sixpence more. And by chance rather than choice we the audience are divided in half, stage right pro audience and stage left pro Kemble. I felt so divided, sat in the audience camp I wanted to cheer for a return to pre fire prices, but at the same time I sympathised with Kemp who, despite being a total, word mangling ham, had theatre at heart.
Sounds familiar? Well of course it does with ticket prices over the last few years soaring to astronomical heights, and we all need to face the fact that everything is costing much more. That said, ticket prices for theatre are no doubt driven by the crazy prices being charged by certain aging pop stars, I think you will know to whom I refer.
Back though to Kemble’s Riot. The play is interesting in that it clearly demands of the audience a level of participation and we are prompted to take sides and cheer and heckle. But our cheering and heckling are, in a way irrelevant as the outcome of the dispute and riots is an historical fact, with Kemble having to give in to public pressure.
Kemble’s sister, the celebrated Mrs Sarah Siddons is played with imperious authority by Amy Brangwyn, a truly excellent performance. Mr George Cooke is played by Leigh Ward with a real sense of drunken arrogance, strutting and staggering around the stage and making light of Kemble’s pomposity. Rosa Alempour is delightful a Miss Dorothy Jordan, the ingenue who challenges Mrs Siddon’s place as the darling of the theatre with her youth, beauty and the finest legs in all of England.
Adrian Bunting’s script is finely wrought with some really delicious moments of word play and humour, but does the work stand the test of time? Well for the most part it does and this collaboration with Brighton Little Theatre is very worthy of his memory and his legacy. Having the two factions of the protestors and supporters, played with gusto by Michael Grant, and with heart by Tahsina Choudrey, in modern dress sort of works, but did I need that conceit to make me see the parallel with modern times, I think not.
The period costumes are very fine indeed, lavish even, but at what cost? Well I suspect at the cost of a convincing set which for me seemed not only poor but clumsily executed, and not even neccesary.
All this said the piece is well delivered, thought provoking and entertaining. And a great reminder of the brilliance and vision of Adrian Bunting.
Andrew Kay
4 May
BOAT
Rating:
