Travesties

I have said it before about Stoppard. He is just a little bit too clever for his own good. or maybe I mean for his audience's good. Or just me maybe.


That is not say I didn't enjoy Travesties. We had a party of four going to the Meniers Chocolate Factory which is a very welcome change from many other theatres. First its very close to the office - just across the Thames a 10 minute walk. Then it has a very decent restaurant which is well worth going to on its own as a foodie destination. Its ex-industrial use has been turned into an impressive eating space with a raised central platform which means it doesn't feel overcrowded even when full. And with the theatre just through the adjoining door they know what time they have to get folks through for. So we had a nice meal beforehand rather than our usual snatched sandwich.


The play itself certainly has its intellectual bent - on many levels. Our hero is the English ambassador in Zurich (Tom Hollander - best known on TV as the rev in The Rev), and he plays both as an old man in his dotage reminiscing as well as back in 1917 where the events (such as they are) unfold. The story (such that it is) covers his friendship with a Dadaist (played by young Freddie Fox), his relationship with Irish poet in exile, James Joyce, and the presence in the city of Lenin, trying to write in the Zurich library and then escape back to Russia upon the revolution.


However, it is all a rather muddled comedy, but muddled in an intellectual way. Some scenes are looped, so the same scene starts with the same repeated bit of dialogue but then meanders off on a different path. There are some bits of song. There were several brilliant put downs but I can't remember any of them now. But the overall feel is that one is just about hanging on to what is happening in front of you. Any lapse in concentration and it would be gone. You are kept on your toes. Figuratively.


And then in the end, it becomes clear that everything you have just seen may not have happened at all, that the dates of Lenin and Joyce may have been wrong and its all the false memories of an old man.


It is all very well acted (and sung in parts), and justifiably sold out for its entire run in a very small theatre (with high calibre cast for such a small audience). But it is a little hard work.