28 ARTS
THE WEEK 9 April 2022
Drama & Podcasts
Theatre: To Kill a Mockingbird
Gielgud Theatre, London W1 (0344-482 5151). Until 13 August Running time: 2hrs 50mins (incl. interval) ★★★★★Aaron Sorkin’s “blistering” stage
adaptation of Harper Lee’s tale
of racial injustice in 1930s
Alabama was a huge hit on
Broadway, and it looks set to
storm the West End too, said
Patrick Marmion in the Daily
Mail. The brilliance of Sorkin’s
“Hollywood-tight script,
peppered with great one-liners”,
is that it makes this 62-year-old
literary classic “feel like it was
minted yesterday. Far from
creaking like a period piece,”
it is a riveting drama that
“chimes with modern racial
conflicts on both sides of the
Atlantic”. Directed by Bartlett
Sher, the production is innovative too, in the way it makes the
decent white lawyer Atticus Finch “squirm” in his position as the
middle-class liberal who must avoid “seeming patrician”. Rafe
Spall is “stunning” in the role of Finch, said Clive Davis in The
Times. In an engrossing performance, he presents the lawyer as a
courageous, but arguably naive, man whose faith in decency “may
not be enough to tackle the poison lurking in his home town”.This is a “revelatory staging” that “blazingly captures the
zeitgeist”, agreed Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph.
Sorkin has taken three “intelligent liberties” with the material: he
has “prised the narrative viewpoint away from Finch’s admiring
daughter, Scout”; stretched the pivotal rape trial right across theaction instead of holding it back
for the second half; and given
a far greater voice to the black
characters. Jude Owusu’s
“solemn, sorrowful Tom
Robinson breaks your heart”,
while Pamela Nomvete as the
Finches’ housekeeper Calpurnia
“speaks volumes with every
reproachful questioning look”.Scout, Jem and Dill are all
played by adults, said Arifa
Akbar in The Guardian – a
“high-risk venture which pays
off remarkably well”. Miriam
Buether’s set is “fluid, mobile
and unshowily gorgeous”. The
piece retains a “slight lack of subtlety”, said Nick Curtis in the
London Evening Standard: Atticus is too saintly, the “kids too
winsome and cheeky”. Still, this is a “powerfully uplifting”
theatrical event. “All rise for a magnificent Mockingbird.”Rafe Spall as Atticus Finch: “stunning”The week’s other opening
Diary of a Somebody Seven Dials Playhouse, London WC2
(020-3841 6600). Until 30 April
John Lahr’s rarely revived but “chilling and hilarious” play about
the playwright Joe Orton and his partner (and killer) Kenneth
Halliwell stars George Kemp as the cocksure Orton and Toby
Osmond as his “self-loathing” lover; both excel (Guardian).Stars reflect the overall quality of reviews and our own independent assessment (5 stars=don’t miss; 1 star=don’t bother)Philippa Perry’s BBC Sounds
podcast, Consumed by Desire,
had me “thoroughly beguiled”,
said James Marriott in The
Times. Her previous excellent
pods for Audible, Families in
Crisis and Siblings in Session,
took the form of anonymised
therapy sessions. This one is
more of a “psychotherapeutic
and philosophical ramble
through the idea of desire”,
in which Perry is joined by the
likes of artist Michael Landy,
advertising executive Rory
Sutherland, and writer/
psychotherapist Adam Phillips.
In the wrong hands, all this
could “become wafty and aimless. Fortunately, Perry has
the natural insight that I’ve always suspected is probably more
useful in a psychotherapist than years of training.” I do have one
“unfulfilled desire” for the podcast, though: to be free of the
surfeit of audio clutter (the sound of guests getting in and out
of taxis and so on). “But, as Perry warns, the fulfilment of all our
desires can be a dangerous thing...”I’m a big fan of Julian Simpson’s The Lovecraft Investigations,
said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer – three series of “incredibly
engaging, madly spooky” mysteries, based on the stories of H.P.
Lovecraft. Simpson’s new five-part drama, Who Is Aldrich
Kemp?, is a fabulous “spy/crime caper” that overlaps a bit with
his Lovecraft world (we hear the occasional familiar voice), butwhich stands on its own merits.
The “ludicrously far-fetched”
plot centres on a secret service
researcher and skilled fencer
named Clara Page, who must
track down criminal mastermind
Aldrich Kemp. Along the way
we meet “dashing cads”, baddies
bent on world domination and
“well-spoken old ladies who are
more violent than they might
appear”. It’s “gripping, funny”
fast-paced – and a “hoot from
start to finish”.Looking for “bite-sized”
podcasts to fit a shorter
commute? Short Wave from
NPR offers accessible and often amusing ten- to 15-minute
explorations of the science behind everything from climate change
to mental health, said Rachel Aroesti in The Guardian. This is
“brain food that’s both enticing and satisfying”. Alternatively,
from Radio 4, the “sub-15-minute tête-à-têtes” on One to One
are as insightful as they are concise. In one recent episode, the
actress Tuppence Middleton spoke to clinical psychologist Dr
Gazal Jones and Pure author Rose Cartwright about OCD. Or
delve into the archive for Clive Myrie on immigration or Tim
Dowling on ambition. Last, on the Rob Auton Daily Podcast,
the stand-up comedian and poet combines “surreal, lyrical
monologues with dry, down-to-earth humour”. Some last for just
a couple of minutes, which is “plenty of time for listeners to soak
up their evocative, imaginative strangeness”.Podcasts... Philippa Perry, bite-size science and a spy caper
Perry: takes you on a “philosophical ramble through the idea of desire”© MARC BRENNER; DAVID LEVENE/EYEVINE