Standing ovations, once reserved to acknowledge only the highest calibre of performance, are now part of the theatre routine. They are as everyday as ticket checking and pre-ordering interval drinks. Like the service charge on your restaurant bill, standing applause is an expected part of the exchange between provider and receiver. Expected, but still optional.
A dire and depressing dirge. It is dark, shadowy, and grey, grey, grey
After being dragged through the funereally long 3½ hours of London Tide – an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, now at the National Theatre’s Lyttleton – aside from a handful of assumed family and friends, the audience remained seated.
That takes effort.
Which says a lot.
Contrived and forced
Our Mutual Friend was Dickens' last completed work. Though more positively reappraised in recent years, the characters were initially considered contrived, the plot forced. Add to this that Dickens’ verbosity makes staging his work (outside of Oliver and A Christmas Carol) notoriously difficult and adaptor Ben Power has had his work cut out here.
The main narrative (there are several) surrounds John Harmon, returning to London to claim his inheritance from his estranged father. The legacy is conditional upon him marrying Bella (Bella Maclean), a pretty but hard-faced young girl he has never met. In narrative-explaining monologue, we are told how drugs, theft, murder, and mistaken identity, have led everyone to believe Harmon is dead.
This means the fortune has passed to his father’s poor and stupid ex-employee, Noddy Boffin (Peter Wight). Guilty at receiving Bella’s ‘almost win,’ Boffin invites her to enjoy the inheritance with him and his wife. Meanwhile, the not-really-dead John Harmon calls himself John Rokesmith. With little effort, he becomes the lodger to Bella’s family and the secretary to Boffin. With equally little preamble, he then declares his love for Bella.
Meanwhile…
On the other side of London, we have the Haxam family. This is the part of the city we may as well call ‘Dickens’ Docks’. A place where women have ‘earts of gold, and men steal that gold for a tot a’ gin.
‘Gaffer’ Haxam (Jake Wood), trawls the Thames and drinks what money he steals from the floating corpses he finds. His martyrish daughter Lizzie lives only to help others. This renders her blind to the natural beauty and raw intelligence we are told she clearly possesses. Lizzie teaches brother Charley to read, then uses her savings (selflessly obvs) to send him to school. Charley’s desire for betterment leads him to dismiss his sister and blindly follow his cruel schoolmaster, Bradley Headstone. Headstone loves Lizzie because she is so beautiful (again, obvs).
You may wonder why the Harmons were estranged. You may wonder why there was a condition of marriage to a stranger in the will. You may wonder what happened to Mrs Haxam. You may wonder at the sexual dynamic between Charley and Headstone.
I also wondered these things. I still do.
Power does his best to draw everything together. He cuts characters, tweaks plotlines, and changes elements of the story. He is only partially successful. It’s hard to argue with the initial view that this is contrived and forced.
Masterclass in overacting
The performances don't help with believability. Only two characters seem to hail from London. I won’t name them, but their training at the Dick Van Dyke school of Cockerney will make it audibly clear.
As Rokesmith / Harmon, Tom Mothersdale is shifty, always hovering round the edges. His shoulders are hunched, and he seems to constantly shiver as though in bad withdrawal.
Rufus Wright and Jamael Westman portray the middle-class lawyer types by striding around in a middle-class manner. Ami Tredrea and Brandon Grace as siblings Lizzie and Charley, may be alluding to a shared familial condition. Both seem to use their arm to open their mouths, unable to deliver a line without gesticulating widely either downstage (her) or upstage (him).
Giving a masterclass in overacting is Scott Karim who portrays the evil of Bradley Headstone by swinging his arms, overarching his eyebrows, and shouting. His performance is aiming towards comedy rather than threat, but still misses that mark. Closer to what one may expect from a seasoned amateur, it is surprising to discover this is not his first professional role.
Dire and depressing
Perhaps the actual characters matter little. Symbolically, the main character in this adaptation should be clear from its new title. In London Tide, London is the star, with the River Thames giving able support.
Bunny Christie's design gives the sense of an ever-present river, flowing as the blood through the veins of the city. Banks of fifty or so lights are lowered and raised over the stage, undulating like a heartbeat. The river gives life and serves death on its shores.
But this is no loving lament to London. Instead, it is a dire and depressing dirge. It is dark, shadowy, and grey, grey, grey.
Beaten to submission
This is a musical. But a musical in the National Theatre sense of the word. Although billed as a ‘play with songs,’ I would suggest that when a show has thirteen songs, it becomes a sizeable libretto, not just some tunes served as a side dish.
The music has a major impact on the tone and atmosphere. How you view this impact will likely depend on your enjoyment of the music stylings of its writer, PJ Harvey.
Wikipedia describes Harvey’s musical style as “alternative rock, punk, Blues, art rock and avant rock,” and says she “experiments with electronica, indie rock and folk music.” It’s possibly the sort of music that her fans will say only intelligent people “get.” Certainly, it’s an acquired taste. It appears I am neither intelligent nor acquired.
Considering this plethora of influences, there’s little differentiating these thirteen tracks. To my ear, it may well have been just one extended number, laden with nauseating screeches and toneless shouting, and paused to allow the story to continue.
The songs don't advance plot. They don’t display characters’ emotions. They don't function as comment. The opening number chants “This is a story about London…and death.” Later we have the monotone of “London is not England; England is not London.” It feels like being beaten to submission by endless repetition. Okay we get it, London is shit. Now please just let us go home.
The last nail
The songs interrupt the already meandering plot. Or perhaps it’s the other way round. Never have I dreaded more hearing the opening bars of a number striking up. Only for the relief at the song’s end to be quickly diminished as it made way for another scene to be lumbered through.
Again, if you're a Harvey fan, the music may be the appeal of London Tide. But for me, it was the final repetitive banging of the last nail in this cumbersome coffin.
Dickens wrote Our Mutual Friend a decade after the death of Charlotte Bronte, whose life with her sisters is currently given a refreshing take next door in the Dorfman. Underdog: The Other Other Bronte takes a 19th century tale and makes it engaging, entertaining, fresh, and fun. London Tide takes a 19th century tale. And there the comparison ends.
