The Way of the World - Donmar

How interesting. Well, good for them to be getting lots of work.

Linda Bassett has now withdrawn, to be replaced by Hadyn Gwynne.

Rest of the cast – Fisayo Akinade (Saint Joan), Alex Beckett (Grimly Handsome), Gabrielle Brooks (Everybody's Talking About Jamie), Frances Brown (Life According to Saki), Sarah Hadland (Miranda), Jenny Jules (Julius Caesar), Simon Manyonda (Barber Shop Chronicles), Caroline Martin (Medea), Tom Mison (Posh), Justine Mitchell (Beginning), Christian Patterson (My Country), Geoffrey Streatfeild (My Night With Reg) and Nathan Welsh (Circa).

Particularly perverse is choosing Drunk Enough to Say I Love You as James Macdonald's credit. In truth - surely the space would be better used to say which part the actors are playing in this production. I'm assuming that Justine Mitchell and Geoffrey Streatfeild are playing Millamant and Mirabel - or perhaps the entire cast, other than Haydn Gwynne, will be tossing coins a la Mary Stuart!

O sorry Linda Bassett out of it now but ok with Ms Gwynne. Brilliant part for anyone of 'a certain age' . V please with G Streatfeild ( who confounds the only spelling rule that works..mostly)

Geoffrey Streatfeild was very good in The Beaux' Stratagem at the National a few years ago - and also good opposite Justine Mitchell in Wild Honey. I'm rather looking forward to this now.

Very happy that my daily checking of the Donmar site has scored me a ticket on the one day I could see this.
I don't even mind that I'll be looking at Tom Mison's rear most of the time. 😎

You are really @ryan and I claim my £5.

Saw this last night (friday). It came in at 3'15. Way of the World must have one of the most complicated plots and it takes a while to get your head around who is who and their relationships. It is however great fun and very enjoyable i. The cast seemed to be really enjoying themselves on stage. It didn't feel overlong but it will possibly come down a little in running time once everyone has settled into their roles.

I had to read the play for my English literature course at the uni, and all I remember of it is that I had to keep re-reading it as I couldn't grasp what was going on for the life of me. Eventually, it defeated me and I just gave up, hoping that, in the exam, I'd get a School for Scandal or The Rivals question instead.

David - I agree with everything you say...about Act I. My friend and I couldn't bear to wait for Act II although I'm glad to hear things improved. Haydn Gwynne was great and I enjoyed Sarah Hadland's performance as well. The rest of the cast didn't appear to understand that there should be some comedy in a Restoration comedy, but perhaps that's just the material. Heaven knows why this has been revived. A sad production as you say, after the fantastic York Realist.

Saw this last night, and as previous posters have suggested, the second half is funny, whereas the first is not.

Some spoilers follow. . .

James Macdonald directed Roots at the Donmar not so long ago, and I thought that was a marvel of naturalism, with Linda Bassett pottering around doing chores, and suggesting immense depth of feeling nonverbally.

I get the feeling that Macdonald was out of his comfort zone directing this. I imagine the actors in the rehearsals being guided into realism and naturalism and motivations, without sufficient attention to comic clarity (ie show your baseness) and comic exaggeration (ie mug up a storm of craziness).

Fisayo Akinade is only in a small role, but I appreciated that he always knows he's in a comedy, as he camps about the stage. I recalled that he worked, as Caliban, in some hysterically funny scenes with Dominic Rowan and Trevor Fox, in Dominic Dromgoole's final Globe Tempest, and I imagined that he must have internalised the way Dromgoole expertly mixed comic exaggeration (Trinculo) with grave seriousness (Prospero). And in this show, he knows he's the comic relief.

Few others do, playing comic parts with undue subtlety, allowing thought and angst to triumph over appetite and mania, and consequently all the froth of the first half flounders.

Three actors redeem the show: Justine Mitchell OWNS her funny lines, revelling in her own egotistical sarcasm. She made me laugh at a line where she said she does her hair like prose, rather than poetry. Her off-the-cuff lightness and confidence and timing make comic hay out of difficult lines.

Haydn Gwynne is great at comically exaggerated frenzy, as she expertly combines the mania of Basil Fawlty with the ineptitude of Mr Bean and the emotional lostness of a real person. But she has her scenes mostly in the second half, which is why that half fizzes.

And thirdly, Alex Beckett does the only full fledged comic mugging, as a lowly manservant disguised to seduce a Lady, and he nails it. The relief of the audience to see some no holds barred comic playing was palpable, as we got our first universal roars of laughter.

Overall, James Macdonald is so good at naturalism (eg Roots) and misery (eg 4:48 Psychosis), that I feel he is struggling with exaggerated humour, and I think the above named actors are calling on their long experience to show him how it's done.

Oh, and I'm not convinced any comedy can make a case for a running time of 3 hrs, 15mins.

3 stars, for the laughs in the second half.

PS: I love Streatfeild and Mison, but here they are too restrained.

The reviews are so at odds with what we've said on here.

What extras do the reviewers get?

In the case of Mikey Billington what he has is an agenda - he’s been moaning loudly at the lack of classic revivals at NT so he’s hardly likely to complain about one elsewhere. Also his current bias against director’s theatre gets an airing. We can knock one star off his review based on that. He also overpraises any Pinter production and has assorted other biases, as we all do I suppose.

Newspaper critics are getting paid so a 3.5 hour play means overtime. Plus they get free drinks so missing last orders is not an issue.