Circumstances, not necessarily good ones, make it possible for me to watch and blog this triumphant production from the National Theatre and the Nottingham Playhouse- both of which will need support in the coming months, as theatres traditionally do in times of plague.
Alan Bennett's wonderful 1991 play (look in the films index for my blog of the excellent 1994 film starring the late, lamented Nigel Hawthorne) is, perhaps, dated by the depiction of blue urine and the then-fashionable diagnosis of porphyria. But who cares. Literary art needs not a diagnosis. It deals in human nature. And Mark Gatiss- not, perhaps, a traditionally classical actor, gives us a performance which may well surpass that of the sainted Sir Humphrey.
The play is, of course, a masterpiece. We first see the king as he is- erudite, sexually repressed, an extrovert forced inwards by a role which forbids introspection. He is a force of personality when sane, as the early scenes effortlessly depict. The reason for his lapse of reason may not be porphyria- Gatiss has suggested a nervous breakdown- but it matters not. What matters is the star, and Gatiss more than delivers. The script sings of human nature, of the 1780s, of the British constitution, of the human psyche. Of all the kings of England, Charles II is the one you'd want a pint with, but you’d want George III on the psychiatrist’s chair. He may have weathered the crisis of 1788. but his end would not be a happy one. The gilded cage, inevitably, has its casualties.
It is, perhaps, questionable that the quacks should all be played by women, but one of them is the wonderful Louise Jameson. But the production gets no further criticism, from me. Again, we see an erudite and human script triumphant. And Gatiss is a revelation. Please... see this production before Thursday.
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