Differences of critical opinion are nothing new: one of the refreshing things about being a critic in London is that there are so many of us that no one has the last word on anything. But it must be awfully confusing for the readers – or at least those who read more than just a couple of notices. The last week, for instance, has seen a couple of openings where the opinions offered couldn’t be more extreme.
Antony Sher’s new play The Giant, that opened at Hampstead Theatre on Wednesday, received a two-star notice in the Evening Standard from Nicholas de Jongh. Though he casts an admiring, if not salivating, glance towards “charismatic Stephen Fagan” who plays Michelangelo’s model for his statue of David, noting that he exposes “every handsome, muscular, naked bit of himself for minutes”, he also says, “If Sher’s speculative and ambitious adventuring in the worlds of 16th century Florence, power politics, artistic creativity and sexual psychology had proved as interesting and purposeful in theatrical practice as they sound in outline, The Giant might not be such a confused, unrewarding experience.”
In a five-star notice in the Sunday Telegraph, on the other hand, Tim Walker, finds it incredibly rewarding: “There’s a highly-charged moment that comes at the end of a great production – after the final line is uttered – when everyone falls completely silent. It lasts maybe two or three seconds before the applause and you are lucky if you get to experience it – even if you to to the theatre evey week of your life – more than once in a lifetime. One can only describe it as awe, and that is what I shared with the audience at the Hampstead Theatre on Tuesday night after Stephen Hagan and Richard Moore declared in unison that they could fly.” (Peter Pan had obviously come early to Hampstead – but it’s the characters they are playing who make the declaration, not the actors themselves, who it takes two more paragraphs for Walker to link together and identify for their roles).
For The Bicycle Men that opened at the King’s Head on Thursday, we had, on the one hand, Lyn Gardner’s no-star review in yesterday’s Guardian, which called it “an American theatre comedy show so puerile and unfunny that it makes you doubt the presence of intelligent life forms in that field”, while Fiona Mountford’s one-star review in the Evening Standard declared it “a tired, one-note cliche about the quirks of our Gallic neighbours, a nightmarish cross between your old school French textbook and Royston Vasey, penned by a plume of which nobody’s tante could be proud”. On the other hand, Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph claimed it was “one of the most delightfully daft shows I have seen in ages” and admitted, “There were many moments when it reduced me to helpless hilarity.” And in a four-star review in The Times, Benedict Nightingale announced, “’I’m ashamed to say I laughed often”.
There are many possible explanations for the divergence in opinion: for a start there’s a clear gender divide between those who liked and disliked the show in this selection of reviews, and it may well be that the show appealed to the schoolboy in Charlie and Ben. (For the record, I hated it, too, but then I’m a gay man). But humour, as ever, is a deeply personal thing; and who can say what will tickle whose funny-bone?
I found this myself when I went to see Southwark Playhouse’s revival of Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take it With You. Again, in the naysayers department were Fiona Mountford and Lyn Gardner (with two stars in the Evening Standard and Guardian respectively); but I laughed a lot, as I declared in the Sunday Express. So did Robert Shore in a four-star review in Time Out that had the show declared a Critic’s Choice.
