The Beast's Pen

Photo: The Other Richard

Writer: Marcelo Dos Santos

Director: Matthew Xia

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Feeling Afraid as if…was an award-winning hit at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but, at first glance, it seems that the driver transporting it to London could have made a wrong turn, dropping it off at the Bush Theatre rather than a mile along the road at the Hammersmith Apollo, home of stand-up comedy. The line that separates a play in monologue form from a stand-up routine can often be wafer-thin, but, here, it is near to invisible.

Distinction is made even more blurred by the performance of Samuel Barnett, an actor of considerable repute, who is so convincing as a 36-year-old neurotic comic that it becomes almost impossible to believe that he is not the real thing. Barnett takes on the guise of a camp performer in the mould of, say, Joe Lycett, churning out sharp one-liners with consummate ease and mixing them with sly asides and natural rapport with the audience.

The comedian, comfortably immersed in London’s gay scene and averse to any form of commitment, tells the story of a slow-burn relationship with an American man who has the misfortune to suffer from cataplexy, which means that laughing can trigger a severe, perhaps even fatal physical reaction. The central irony in the monologue is that the comedian’s new boyfriend can never give him the response that is his professional life blood.

Writer Marcelo Dos Santos’ script is structured beautifully, blending coarse humour with dark, brittle wit and he signs it off with a delicious punchline. Underlying the laughter, this is a multi-layered piece that explores the human fear of and need for close relationships. Director Matthew Xia sets his 65-minute production in what Kat Heath’s designs make to look like a middle-ranking comedy club.

The show sticks to a very simple formula, but it should not be approached with the sort of trepidation that is suggested by its overlong title, because, when Dos Santos, Xia and Barnett join forces, they  make something terrific happen. However, perhaps it needs to come with a health warning that it is totally unsuitable for anyone who suffers from cataplexy.

Performance date: 15 November 2023

Photo: Pamela Raith

Writer: Jonathan Maitland

Director: Michael Fentiman

⭐️⭐️⭐️

With the possible exception of Michael Parkinson’s clash with Emu, Martin Bashir’s 1995 encounter with Diana, Princess of Wales could be the best remembered interview in the history of  British television. So why does writer Jonathan Maitland feel that it is necessary to re-visit this already over-familiar event? It takes a long time to find the answer.

At the time when the interview aired, opinions divided sharply between those who saw Diana as an innocent victim of a broken marriage and others who believed that she had become a monster set on wreaking vengeance whatever the collateral damage. So much depended on facial expressions and body language that are difficult to reproduce on stage and, wisely, Maitland includes little of the actual interview, opting to sit on the fence. Yolanda Kettle mimics the look and voice of Diana very precisely and suggests that the Princess was gullible, but a long way from being a fool.

Maitland seems interested primarily in Bashir, who is presented unequivocally as a sycophant and a liar. Ultimately, this play is all about Bashir’s deceptions, revealed fully some 25 years later, which were contrived in order to gain the interview, and their consequences. Tibu Fortes is convincing as the ruthlessly ambitious and unrepentant television journalist who has no qualms about persuading Diana that they are both outsiders struggling to survive, she in the Royal family and he at the BBC.

Matthew Flynn gives an air of inflated self-importance to Paul Burrell, who alternates between serving as Diana’s faithful lackey and acting as narrator to the audience. He advises his mistress to be cautious in dealing with Bashir, as does her confidante, the eminently sensible Luciana (Naomi Frederick). Director Michael Fentiman’s in-the-round production has the actors standing, somewhat awkwardly, on a bare stage, not detracting from the detail in the writing.

Maitland is following in the footsteps of Peter Morgan, the master of chronicling modern Royal life, whose screenplays for the Netflix series The Crown have already covered the interview and the subterfuge that led up to it at great length. Unsurprisingly, yawns set in during the first hour of this play, which does little more than tread the same ground, seemingly without any fresh purpose. 

Fortunately, the play finds new life when, effectively, Maitland puts Bashir on trial before a modern-day jury for distorting truth as a result of his deceptions and devaluing all reporting of news. An intelligent debate follows and, intriguingly, Bashir is allowed to defend his actions, as he may not yet have done publicly in real life. Thus the play redeems itself in the final third, but getting there is a slightly tedious slog.

Performance date: 1 November 2023