Current location:entertainment >>
Feeble, sophomoric and paper
entertainment7976People have gathered around
IntroductionAn Enemy Of The People (Duke of York’s Theatre, London)Verdict: More likely to make us demand our mo ...
An Enemy Of The People (Duke of York’s Theatre, London)
Verdict: More likely to make us demand our money back than it is to send us rushing to the barricades.
The last time I saw Matt Smith live on stage, he chased down a super-sized moth that had dared to invade his space mid performance at the Royal Court Theatre in Chelsea.
The former Doctor Who, who also played Prince Philip in the Crown, is therefore nothing if not an exciting and unpredictable showman.
I’m sorry to report, however, that this does not so much apply to his eagerly anticipated return to live theatre. He is wasted on a piece of sophomoric, paper-thin agit-prop that’s more likely to make us demand our money back than it is to send us rushing to the barricades.
The actor with the famously vulpine features is taking the lead role of Doctor Stockmann in a feeble modern day updating of Henrik Ibsen’s great 19th-century indictment of institutional corruption in a Norwegian spa town where the water has been polluted.
Matt Smith is wasted on a piece of sophomoric, paper-thin agit-prop that’s more likely to make us demand our money back than it is to send us rushing to the barricades.
The actor is taking the lead role of Doctor Stockmann in a feeble modern day updating of Henrik Ibsen’s great 19th-century indictment of institutional corruption
Directed by German avant-gardist Thomas Ostermeier, it is set among a group of the town’s middle class, ‘wokey cokey liberals’ who have identified civilisation as ‘clinically dead’.
Such snarling propaganda is better suited to a student union than the West End, and with most remaining tickets priced at £100-£200, the real swindle is on Smith’s legions of faithful young fans.
The first thing that greets them in the theatre is a bar selling Veuve Clicquot champagne. Yet that hasn’t stopped the fragile pretence that the show is a fist shaken at fat cats and vested interests.
After the interval - when the blackboard set, painted with cartoon hieroglyphics, has been spattered in white paint during an ersatz display of defiance - the production turns into a political protest meeting. Smith steps up with a class-war diatribe, in which he proclaims ‘society deserves its extinction’.
As becomes apparent from the Question Time style involvement of the audience (yes, there is voluntary audience participation), feelings of powerlessness and despair at the future are real concerns for many young people.
But all they get here is flimsy moral dilemmas, as Smith’s doctor comes into conflict with his brother the Mayor (Paul Hilton), defender of the fictional town’s economic interests.
Said town is, moreover, in the grip of a serious epidemic of nepotism. Not only has the brother secured Doctor Stockmann’s job, Smith’s wife (Jessica Brown Findlay) is the daughter of a gruff Yorkshire industrialist (Nigel Lindsay) who makes a handful of appearances with an inexplicable Alsatian dog.
And no less cliquishly, Smith and his Mrs are part of a David Bowie and Oasis cover-band who rehearse in his home with the editor and leading writer of the local paper.
He is wasted on a piece of sophomoric, paper-thin agit-prop that’s more likely to make us demand our money back than it is to send us rushing to the barricades
(L to R) cast members Zachary Hart, Paul Hilton, Matt Smith, Jessica Brown Findlay, Nigel Lindsay, Priyanga Burford and Shubham Saraf
Directed by German avant-gardist Thomas Ostermeier, it is set among a group of the town’s middle class, ‘wokey cokey liberals’ who have identified civilisation as ‘clinically dead’
Nor is there any test of Smith’s acting. Placidly sitting through a public character assassination by his brother when things go bad, he loafs about the stage in designer jeans and sweat shirt, muttering about his unimpeachable integrity and getting spattered with paint balls when the town turns against him.
Personally, I didn’t turn against him, because I couldn’t get behind him in the first place.
There are audible sniggers from Whovians when one character tells him he’s a brilliant doctor, and although that may have been true when he was up against the Daleks, here he’s just roadkill for the play’s evil capitalist cronies.
Smith’s Doctor Thomas Stockmann comes into conflict with his brother the Mayor (Paul Hilton), defender of the fictional town’s economic interests
Tags:
Reprint:Friends are welcome to share on the Internet, but please indicate the source of the article when reprinting it.“Global Gazette news portal”。http://grenada.bahnsport.org/article-98c199896.html
Related articles
Revival of vinyl records spares a 77
entertainmentSAO PAULO (AP) — It took almost a half century for Brazilian singer Cátia de França to find her audi ...
Read morePoliticians arrive at Rātana celebrations in wake of national hui
entertainmentNgāti Tuwharetoa arriving on the first day of Rātana 2024. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver ...
Read moreFormer National MP Alfred Ngaro interviewed by police after family fight next to mum’s coffin
entertainmentBy Joseph Los'e of ...
Read more
Popular articles
Latest articles
Interstate near Arizona
Fa'anānā Efeso Collins: Warning over fake livestream links for funeral
Waitangi 2024: Watch government leaders speak at the Treaty Grounds
Trump to stand trial on 25 March in New York criminal hush money case
China's top legislator meets DPRK top leader
The royals have historically been tight
LINKS
- Closure of HK's Music Zone leaves a hole in local indie scene
- Department of Conservation set to lose scientific expertise in job cuts
- President Lula to showcase Brazilian pasture recovery program at COP28
- RSA reverses course on poppies thanks to big donation
- China balloon: US military recovers sensors from wreckage
- Brazil’s federal tax revenue totals BRL 215.6 bi in October
- VOX POPULI: Being an adult should be about more than what we can achieve
- VOX POPULI: Shizuoka head’s sudden exit leaves question about his ‘talent’
- HK activist says national security law designed to persecute 'political enemies'
- 7.7 earthquake hits Taiwan, rescues from collapsed buildings underway