Some of the best things I’ve ever seen in the theatre have been done by the students of Birmingham School of Acting. Their tutors are really clever. They choose ambitious plays not often seen in mainstream theatres and bring in top guest directors to give the students a real taste of the metropolitan theatrical world. Often the results are amazing.
Over the last few years these have included a marvellous version of Wycherley’s The Way Of The World set in the sixties that was so fresh it sounded as if the ink was still wet on the page, an extremely elegant and satisfying Tartuffe and a production of Mark Ravenhill’s Handbag which I’m still thinking about. Try seeing those plays anywhere else.
The first night of this complex and potentially difficult play of ideas was a triumph. Set in Sidley Park, a great stately home in Derbyshire, the complex plot involves two parallel stories, one from 1809 and the other 1989. In the earlier period a thirteen-year old girl is being educated in enlightened fashion by a tutor who’s a friend of Byron. In the second three different people are engaged in research about the Enlightenment, the history of ideas and the artists and thinkers of the period including Lord Byron himself.
Into the mix comes a lesson in the development of neo-classical Enlightenment ideas into the emotional thrills of the romantic Gothic via the remodelling of Sidley Park’s great garden. Throw in sex, rivalry, a murder mystery, a sharp focus on the heritage industry and the obsessions of academic researchers plus an exposition of mathematical theories about the nature of creation and you can see this is a heady mix. And in case you’re wondering, no, I didn’t understand it all.
American Director Lise Olson told me she was amazed at how well the first night of this long and complex play had gone. She was being modest – the level of production, set, costumes, lighting, even the smallest prop put more “professional” productions to shame.
I can’t mention everyone in this great cast (well it is a top drama school), but Shannon Anthony as the brilliant 13-year-old Thomasina Coverly was touchingly convincing, while Katie Burchett as the feisty 20th century researcher Hannah Jarvis, (the role taken by Felicity Kendal in the original production) showed a formidable talent.
But even in so skilled an ensemble there’s always a star, and here it’s Pip Barclay who scarcely appeared to be acting in the long and difficult role of her tutor Septimus Hodge, friend of Byron, whose mercurial character was offset by a darkly Gothic grace. I’ve no doubt casting directors will soon be recruiting him for the next Cranford/Austen/Downton Abbey-style blockbuster, and good luck to him.
