Albion

Iris Murdoch is mentioned in this play and in many ways it is the equivalent of her so many fabricated novels; it drags on at great length with character after character wriggling their ways through improbable situations. So what if the Albion represented here is a ' Special Garden ' ? Who should really care if it is appropriated by a self-glory seeking woman who appears to conquer all before her ? Is this our UK of today ? If it is I feel more sorrow for it than I do already ? Plus the overlong comedy/tragedy of it all has an old fashioned theatricality about it worthy of the Haymarket Theatre in the 1950's. Take away the ' daring ' Lesbianism ending in failure ( of course ) and references to 'sensitive ' political issues and it would have played to packed houses with Diana Wynyard in the lead role. It is not a particularly interesting haul of nearly 3 hours but I give it a 4 for Victoria Hamilton who gives a fine performance. I also felt the rest of the cast were adequate but the characters were too numerous and the full on ' dramatic ' scenes with their tinges of Shakespeare and Chekhov too obvious. But many thanks to the BBC for showing it, and many viewers no doubt were beguiled by its ' relevance '. Any theatre seen is precious during these times, good or bad, and there is a certain sadness in seeing packed houses and recalling a time which after only a matter of months seems a lost world.

Structurally, Mike Bartlett's 'Albion' is a very conventional play: an ensemble of characters meet up at intervals, sometimes histrionically, at the same location (in this case a garden); in between these encounters, dreams blossom then die. The garden is a place of some importance to the central character, Audrey, who wants to make it just so; but her resistence to change is futile, her indifference to the will of others mutually destructive. The play's title suggests a Brexit metaphor; but the politics don't neatly align with Audrey's social class; and while her rationale is that of a Brexiteer, her general attitude is more that of a baffled remainer who can't understand why everyone else just can't accept that she knows best. It's strange that the two sides of the argument are embodied in the same character; it's in Audrey's nature (and the line even exists in the play) that she likes everyone else to be her own support act; but the narrative might have been stronger had someone been about to balance her in the script.