The Real Thing

 Another last minute bargain ticket, this time in the dress circle with a theoretically restricted view because of a pillar, but actually there was a great view.

This play about love, fidelity and writing is a tricksy thing, with plays within a play partly about writing a play.  And then there are relationships overlapping, both real and unreal, and with the lines often blurred, and pretty much all of the characters as both actors in the plays as well as ‘real’ life.  

The overlapping love triangles in this work really well to explore what is real love anyway.  James McArdle plays Henry, who feels like a stand in for Stoppard, as a playwright, with a successful play about a breaking marriage, while in the process of breaking his own.  Meanwhile Bel Powley as Annie treads a tight path as the lover then wife of Henry, who has some different interpretations of love.  Is love about making one commitment and sticking with it, or bargaining, and remaking that commitment day by day?  We have both represented here, and we hear the arguments for both.

It’s also a play about writing, what makes writing or any kind of art good and authentic?  As as Henry continues to try and fail to write his play about loving Annie, we have the juxtaposition of Brodie, who has something to say but lacks the means to say it in an interesting and engaging way - so genuine but a terrible play, or no authentic experience but able to make it feel real?  I also enjoyed the very visible stage management, with their own dance routine no less, constantly reminding us that this is a play, not real life.

This is a wordy play, but sparkly and witty too, and its charm in large part comes from McArdle managing to make this overly self absorbed character endearing and engaging.  I thoroughly enjoyed the attempts to choose his Desert Island Discs trying really hard not to show his real musical favourites and trying to find music that suits the image he wants to present of himself.  Music plays an important part in the play too, with records being changed to suit the mood, and as Henry tries to educate his musical taste.  The joke about Bach stealing from Procol Harem got a great laugh and made a great point.  And the music was good in its own right too!

For a play from the 80’s I was a bit worried about the sexual politics and they were definitely a bit dated, but I gather that some of the most egregious stuff has been removed for this production.  The tech was clearly old though, with  references to digital watches and video machines, and the use of landline phones and a vinyl record player, although of course that is now slightly cool or could even be pretentious in today's world.  The class politics are a bit clunky with fun being made of accents and a pretty empty cliche of an angry, slightly dodgy working class man but did the job to flag that while working class can appear more real or authentic (see Oasis!!), that might not actually be the case..

 Another treat was meeting a visitor from the US sitting next to me in another bargain seat, comparing notes about plays we had seen or not seen.  We were so busy talking we almost missed going back in after the interval, superficial but feeling like a real connection and adding another level of enjoyment to the evening.  

So, in the end, this play about love and writing, and finding what is real in both, is still both satisfying and fun.  And we were played out of the theatre to Daydream Believer - what’s not to love? 

EDIT:  Just realised where I had seen Bel Powley on stage before, in Jumpy with the always excellent Tamsin Greig.