Shall We Dance? Big Dresses and Bold Ideas as 'The King And I' Visits Leeds
Plus, What's On In And Around Yorkshire Oct 28-Nov 3
The problem with history is that the past doesn’t stay the same. I once owned a copy of ‘Orientalism’ by Palestinian-American author Edward W. Said. A foundational text of ‘post-colonial studies’, it argued that Western art and culture portrays the rest of the world negatively through the distorting lens of Western power.
And the problem with ‘post-colonial studies’ is, of course, that whilst it’s making a fair point, in the hands of stupid people it reduces the entire universe of human cultural endeavour to a one-dimensional space in which things are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
Hell’s bells! No-one over the age of 24 has any business to be thinking like that. Art is complicated. So is life.
My flat is small, my days are finite, and both my temper and my book space are limited. So after a couple of sincere attempts to read — or at least, dip into — Edward W Said’s volume, it fell victim to one of my periodic clearouts. You could say I cancelled it.
Yet the book was influential. It helped shape the cultural landscape we inhabit today. Thanks to ‘Orientalism’, it is no longer quite respectable to read great authors such as Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad.
This annoys me so much that I’m thinking of starting a secret book club in which members furtively pass each other grubby copies of The Jungle Book stories and Lord Jim hidden inside the sleeve jacket of Paris Lees’s memoir.
Fortunately, in theatreland, some shows are too big to cancel. Money talks, and it would take a really bad Rodgers & Hammerstein production not to be a surefire commercial hit.
Bartlett Sher’s lavish Broadway touring production of The King And I is very far from being that. The fictionalised story of a straightlaced Victorian teacher’s real-life encounter with the much-married King Of Siam is deeply unfashionable with the post-colonial mob.
And not all their criticisms are unfounded. There are moments in the 1956 Hollywood film when Yul Brynner portrays the 19th-century King Mongkut as a naive buffoon — when in reality he was a shrewd observer of the West who ensured that Thailand was never directly colonised. Thai culture was misportrayed and disrespected in, to be honest, an orientalist way, and the real-life Anna’s Anglo-Indian heritage wasn’t even general knowledge at the time the film was made because she’d made sure to hide it.
To me, those things count as an ephemeral manifestation of outdated attitudes. For posterity, The King And I has great tunes, a great story and great, hooped dresses. At the moral heart of this musical is not just an affecting cross-cultural story of growing mutual respect and affection but the confident assumption that the rights of the individual are sacrosanct, that slavery is wrong and that the British were right to spend most of the 19th century opposing that age-old and universal institution wherever they found it. The King of Siam says he wishes to modernise. But can citizens of the modern world be subject to the whim of a despot? That is a big, intelligent question at the heart of the froth.
There are some core values of our civilisation on display here, ones to be proud of, and we lose sight of them at our peril. Arguments about colonisation and so forth will ebb and flow but this, in my view, is what makes The King And I such an enduring work of art. Leeds Grand Theatre, Oct 31-Nov 4, £26-£58.
What’s On Oct 28-Nov 3
As British as rain, Michael Frayne’s cleverly constructed comedy Noises Off is an extended theatrical in-joke as a second-rate troupe of jobbing professional actors stumbles repeatedly through a dire farce in a series of multi-hyphenated provincial backwaters. (Sorry, Stockton-on-Tees — that’s the author’s opinion and not mine.) The result is one of the funniest plays ever written. The real cast of this 2023 touring production from Theatre Royal Bath is top-notch, and includes Liza Goddard, Matthew Kelly and Simon Shepherd. York Theatre Royal, Oct 31-Nov 4, £15-£25), Sheffield Lyceum, Nov 28-Dec 2, £15-£45, plus nationally.
A Joke
In a similar vein of post-modernist self-awareness, Secret Planet presents Dan Freeman’s absurdist comedy A Joke. The story of how three men — an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotman — emerge into consciousness in a void and then have to make sense of themselves is a beautiful, and very careful, piece of writing which has earned many five-star reviews in the Fringe press. Viaduct Theatre, Halifax, Nov 1, £16-£20.
These Majestic Creatures
Fiercely rooted in a particular time and place, Emma Geraghty’s drama These Majestic Creatures tells the story of Max, a self-identified ‘queer’ person who returns to their home town of Scarborough where their family has for many years run a B&B. The stage is said for some big truths and bitter showdowns revolving around Max’s preoccupation with a dead whale that’s been washed up on the beach.
As regular readers will know, I’m not fond of gender identity theory which has given rise to this new category of ‘queerness’. I think it’s homophobic, denies the material reality of sexual orientation, and is especially tough on lesbians. But full marks to the Stephen Joseph Theatre, which has always put new writing at the heart of its mission, for putting a homegrown production by such an early-career writer on in its studio space. To Nov 4, £10-£10.
War Of The Worlds
The mayhem generated by the young Orson Welles’ 1938 radio adaptation of HG Wells’s sci-fi novel The War Of The Worlds was in all likelihood exaggerated by print newspapers who regarded the new broadcasting services as a threat. But the story that his fake bulletins, unfolding a real-time narrative of Martian invasion, sparked terror and exodus throughout New Jersey is really, as editors say, too good to check. You can relive the moment with a War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast at Theatre Deli on Oct 31 from 12.30pm, £4 & £6.
And Edy Hurst’s Comedy Version Of The War Of The Worlds, which collides novel, radio broadcast, naff film adaptations, Jeff Wayne’s studio album and dreadful low budget special effects into a single, lunatic performance, can be experienced at Hull Truck Theatre on Nov 2, £11.50 & £13.50.
Halloween And Beyond
We are now entering that spookiest time of year when, in the Northern regions of the Western Hemisphere, light is giving way to darkness and the enternal cycle of death and rebirth reaches a critical stage.
In practice for British people this means damp leaves, loud explosions and family arguments about the central heating.
Treason The Musical at Sheffield Lyceum is a lively piece of gig theatre which tells the true and remarkable story of the notorious Gunpowder Plot of 1605 which nearly blew up the Houses of Parliament, along with King James I and a generous slice of the British Establishment. The most famous plotter, Guy Fawkes, was born in Yorkshire and even today it is said that pupils at his alma mater, St Peter’s School, York, are offically discouraged by their headmaster from participating too enthusiastically in the annual festivities of Bonfire Night on November 5th, which celebrate his arrest and truly horrible torture and death. I mean, steady on, he’s an old boy! Oct 31-Nov 4, £15-£45
I am less a fan of Halloween, an ancient Celtic festival which, although always celebrated in some form or other in the UK, has crossed and re-crossed the Atlantic to crowd out — in a blaze of cheap merchandising — both Guy Fawkes night celebrations and our devilish local Micky (or Mischief) Night on Nov 4.
Of the rash of Halloween-style ghostly, supernatural and horror shows, three stand out:
Uncanny: I Know What I Saw, at Sheffield’s Crucible, explores that uncertain zone where apparently sane people have strange experiences which they are unable to explain in rational terms. The classy team is headed up by Danny Robins, the driving force behind The Battersea Poltergeist. Nov 3, phone for returns.
The Incident Room at Ilkley Theatre is an amateur production by the Ilkley Players which tells the disturbing story of how failures in the police investigation allowed serial killer Peter Sutcliffe (the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’) to extend his creepy murder spree by several years. Nov 2-11, £5-£13
And much-loved Nunkie Theatre visits University Of Sheffield Drama Studio with Gravest Fears: Two Stories By M R James. Actor Lloyd Parry has made it his life’s work to ensure that the masterful ghost stories of M R James (1862 – 1936), a Cambridge don who wrote chiefly to amuse his friends, are not forgotton. Parry also pops up at The Folly, Settle, Nov 2, and Barton-upon-Humber’s Ropery Hall on Nov 9, plus other dates nationally. Best of all, he has an online performance on Halloween Night (8pm GMT, 4pm EDT) which you can register for here.
That’s a wrap, folks. Have a great, spooky week — and remember to tie up your gates on Micky Night (Nov 4) to foil the elvish naughtiness of the village kids.
I wish I still lived in Yorkshire when I read your pieces. I particularly loved The Crucible, when I lived in Sheffield through the Michael Grandage years in particular. And thank you for your thoughtful remarks about The King and I. When my husband told me it was being revived, I said I was surprised and delighted that it was still allowed!
Micky Night? Where did that come from? It was only ever Mischief Night when I was a boy (a long time ago).