A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (Comedy) Hamlet (Barbican)
Star turns
Toby Young
If I was asked to rank the various kinds of performers who ply their trade on the West End stage I would put stand-up comedians far above common-or-garden actors. These days, the rewards for a successful comic are virtually limitless: your own show on BBC 2, a chance to star in a Hollywood movie — even, in Ben Elton's case, an invitation to collaborate on an Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical. In purely financial terms, that's the dog's bollocks — or, rather, the cat's pyjamas.
Yet Eddie Izzard, probably the best stand-up comedian of his generation, wants nothing more than to be an actor. He's now appeared in several West End productions and is currently starring in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Peter Nichols's 1960s play about a couple struggling to bring up a handicapped child. Why does someone with such an extraordinary gift for stand-up comedy want to become a luwie? I daresay it's because he wants to be taken more seriously, a common failing of comedians. Remember Woody Allen's 'serious' films? Neither do I, and I think it's unlikely that Izzard will be remembered for his role as Bri, the frustrated secondary-modern teacher in Joe Egg.
Not that he's bad. With the exception of one or two weak patches, where he seemed to have trouble remembering his lines, he's perfectly competent. Like most comics, though, he's completely self-absorbed and, as a result, doesn't interact well with the other actors. Izzard can talk the hind legs off a donkey and when he's delivering one of Bri's long monologues he seems completely at home in the role. But he's not much good at listening and when someone else is talking he looks a little lost, as if he's not quite sure what to do with himself.
In particular, I found it hard to believe in the relationship between Bri and Sheila, his
long-suffering wife, who's effectively portrayed by Victoria Hamilton. To be fair to Izzard, the classically trained Hamilton is obviously used to interacting with a more conventional, less skittish actor — he's only just taken over from Clive Owen in the role — and they may settle down into a more complementary rhythm. Nevertheless, I think Izzard is to blame for the absence of any real spark in their relationship. Izzard's Bri just doesn't seem all that interested in Hamilton's Sheila.
Where Izzard really comes into his own is during a long scene in the second act in which he has to impersonate a succession of different authority figures: GP, paediatrician, priest. He may not be completely at ease with the other characters on stage, but he seems effortlessly in control of the different characters in his head. This scene, which lasts about 20 minutes, is a masterclass in stand-up comedy, a brilliant star turn. Released from the enforced democracy of the play, the mad dictator assumes his rightful place at the centre of the stage and the full force of his personality is unleashed. For a few brief moments, Izzard has the audience completely at his mercy. I don't quite know how he does it, but it has something to do with his eyes: Izzard can convey in a single glance what ordinary mortals take hours to express. He has the most articulate eyes in showbusiness.
One of the secondary characters in Joe Egg is Bri's overprotective mother, ably embodied by Prunella Scales. In real life, Scales is the mother of Sam West, who's currently appearing in the RSC's production of Hamlet at the Barbican. I saw this production in Stratford and wasn't overly impressed. The problem isn't with West, who gives a creditable performance as the young Dane, but with the real star of the show: the director Steven Pimlott. Almost everything about this production. from the spare, minimalist set to the modern-day costumes, seems designed to draw attention to just how brilliant Pimlott is. It's less a dramatic event than a series of flashy stunts. In the end, even Shakespeare gets buried beneath the cacophony of bells and whistles. What chance do the actors have?
However, three performances stand out, in addition to that of West. Christopher Good is wonderfully old-fashioned as the ghost of Hamlet's father — his portrayal is so over-the-top it borders on comedy; Marty Cruickshank is a suitably shilly-shallying Gertrude, switching sides with a libidinous volatility; and Alan David is a remarkable Polonius. He's less obviously buffoonish than most actors in the part and manages to make the character's pomposity seem more like a tragic flaw than a running gag. When Hamlet finally kills him — with a pistol that makes an enormous bang, needless to say — I actually felt some pity. That takes some doing. Of course, the wonder is that Pimlott didn't offer Eddie Izzard the part of the Dane. I don't doubt that he'd accept it in a nanosecond.
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