I chickened out of seeing War and Peace, a two-part adaptation of Tolstoy that Shared Experience brought to Hampstead on Monday, but yesterday I more than made up for it with a marathon day of Shakespeare’s histories that are, of course, also about war and peace. Leaving home at 9am to get to Chalk Farm’s Roundhouse for a 10.30am kick-off with Henry IV Part 1, progressing through to *Part II *at 3pm, and concluding with Henry V that finally ended at nearly 11pm, I wasn’t home again till 11.30pm. (And that’s without factoring in that I was there the night before, too, for Richard II). Does this breach the EU regulations on working hours for critics - never mind for the actors giving their considerable all to animate this spectacular drama?
Of course, doing something for work that most do for pleasure I shouldn’t complain; and nor will I, given how well we were all looked after throughout the day by the good offices (and even better officers) of the RSC.
There were drinks in a private room at each interval (including cakes in the afternoon one), Ploughman’s lunch boxes at lunchtime, and dinner laid on at Belgo’s across the street before the evening performance. Of course, none of this hospitality is in any way obligatory for them to have laid on, and should never be assumed; but it certainly added to the enjoyment of the day and our commitment to it without the rush of having to arrange something for ourselves in the limited breaks available. (But yes, we are spoilt!)
There’s no denying that attention does occasionally flag across such a long day. I spotted one website critic regularly dozing, while another senior daily colleague admitted nodding off to me during the second play. But there’s also, of course, a fantastic sense of a shared experience - as the eponymous War and Peace lot have embodied in their name - to going into battle (and battles) with a company over an extended period like this. The 34 actors, of course, have had two years to reach this point, and in reaffirming Michael Boyd’s commitment to re-establish the RSC “as a long-term ensemble theatre company”, in his words, we complete the journey by taking it with them and becoming a kind of ensemble ourselves, if - in our cases - only for a day.
The audience are a character, too - literally so, in part of the second play when David Warner’s Falstaff conscripts a section of the house stage left as an army (though only a few stood yesterday as commanded) - and just as there are irritating actors, there’s always the danger of irritating audience members, too. I had one such right over my shoulder for the first two parts: he clearly thought he was watching Shakespeare’s comedies rather than histories, and kept up a nearly-constant chuckle through every even remotely funny line or situation.
By the end of the day, I realised that I could have flown to California, door-to-door, in the time that I had spent on this theatrical marathon yesterday (and by the end of the entire cycle, which we’re returning to complete on May 6-7, I could have flown to Australia), but the journey is rather less boring - and better in-flight catering and entertainment, without delays or lost luggage, either. But fellow critics who were mystified by my lunchtime behaviour as a I emptied the entire contents of my bag to try to find a tiny joystick that navigates me around the menu on my mobile phone will be relieved to know that I actually found it underneath my seat in the second play!
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