By Michael Coveney
Tweet

Ridley joins revival ranks

You don't have to be Scottish to tell this joke, but the accent helps: "What's the difference between Bing Crosby and Walt Disney? Bing sings, but Walt disnae."

Yes, well, it's the way you tell 'em. And I gave up early on trying to work a reference to it in my review this morning of the excellent revival at the Arcola of Philip Ridley's The Pitchfork Disney. The two "outside" characters, the entertainer Cosmo Disney and his sinister associate, Pitchfork Cavalier, fail to produce much of a song themselves.

When Pitchfork gets on a chair at Cosmo's bidding, he tries to sing but only comes out with an inchoate mumble in which you can vaguely descry the words "cradle" and "heaven." So, what's the difference between Chris New's febrile Presley Stray and Cosmo's sinister sidekick? Presley sings, but Pitchfork Disney.

It's almost shocking how not very shocking The Pitchfork Disney now seems, exactly 21 years after its first performance at the Bush Theatre. Eat a live cockroach? You see that every day of the week on reality television. Stay home with your sister and eat chocolate? Regular practice on any housing estate. Frighten little kids in bondage gear? Yawn, yawn.

What survives unaltered, of course, is the vivacity of Ridley's writing and the way he makes theatre of imagery, of dreams and nightmare, in a distinctive London voice. He's as much a playwright of the East End, in his own way, as are Harold Pinter, Arnold Wesker, Bernard Kops and Steven Berkoff.

The Pitchfork Disney is just one of several plays that are coming round again this week testing my memories and reactions to their very first performances. On Monday, it was Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good. I happened to bump into Jim Broadbent, who was in the original 1988 cast, on the tube, and told him how much I still enjoyed the play. He looked glum, muttering something about how it suffered from being one of those "workshop" plays and somehow over-contrived, or so they all felt at the time.

And then at the opening of She Stoops to Conquer I told Howard Brenton how much I was looking forward to seeing Bloody Poetry (1984) again after all these years. "Let's hope you still like it this time round," he said, slightly fearfully, I thought. It opens at the Jermyn Street Theatre tomorrow. Brenton said how much he liked the poky little venue. I suppose it reminds him of the cramped Open Space basement on Tottenham Court Road all those years ago. (I much preferred the Open Space.)

And then, good grief, there's Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends (1974) bouncing back at the Harold Comedy next week. That was the first Ayckbourn I ever reviewed, and a real gob-smacker it was, too, very bleak and unexpectedly abrasive, especially as Richard Briers was in the cast.

It was around this time that the Marxist playwright Trevor Griffiths said that there was simply no theatrical continuum between Ayckbourn and Brenton -- ah, those were the good old days of stand-off and divisions, barricades and suspicion between the commercial and subsidised sectors.

Critics like Ronald Bryden and Irving Wardle helped to dissolve these differences. And I suspect that now even Brenton himself would probably see the merit in Ayckbourn's mordant view of lower middle class morality in the suburbs.

What a week in the London theatre! Everyone's been mightily cheered up by the restoration of She Stoops to Conquer at the National, one of the truly great English comedies (written, as are most great English comedies, by an Irishman); and tonight the Young Vic opens one of the masterpieces of Jacobean theatre, and one of my Desert Island dramas, Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling.

I just hope they have a go at the whole play and don't cop out by cutting the crucial sub-plot, as they did, somewhat pathetically, at the Southwark Playhouse at the end of last year.

- by Michael Coveney

Any opinions expressed above do not represent the view of Whatsonstage.com nor any of its staff or contributors beyond the bylined author.

Related Content

Booking Tickets & Show Listings
	The Pitchfork Disney Listing Page
	She Stoops to Conquer Listing Page
	Absent Friends Listing Page
	The Changeling Listing Page

Other Posts By Michael Coveney
	Michael Coveney: Big Apple bites and Manhattan memories - 22nd May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: New York honours Matilda with five big awards - 20th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Tales from New York in Kinky Boots - 17th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Finsbury hails its local Park Theatre opening - 15th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Hooray for Halifax and Carrie's ENO debut - 13th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: All change at Trafalgar, Liverpool and Finsbury Park - 10th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Critics come full Circle in centenary bash - 8th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: High old time with High Tide in Halesworth - 7th May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Hytner steams on, Sondheim scintillates - 2nd May 2013 blog
	Michael Coveney: Theatre queens and Paris low-life - 30th Apr 2013 blog
	More...
Internal Links
	Theatregoers meet Absent Friends at Whatsonstage.com Q&A - 7th Mar 2012 features
	A wedding & Awards in West End - 20th Feb 2012 blog
	Review Round-up: Absent Friends is a hit at the Pinter - 10th Feb 2012 roundup
	1st Night Photos: Ayckbourn greets West End Friends - 10th Feb 2012 photos
	Hitting the headlines - 10th Feb 2012 blog
	Absent Friends - 10th Feb 2012 reviews
	The Pitchfork Disney - 2nd Feb 2012 reviews
	Review Round-up: National latest Conquers critics - 2nd Feb 2012 roundup
	She Stoops to Conquer - 1st Feb 2012 reviews
	Philip Ridley On ... Revisiting The Pitchfork Disney - 30th Jan 2012 interviews
	Opening: NT Stoops, Midnight Tango, Changeling & Pitchfork - 30th Jan 2012 news
	Show Pics: Steve Pemberton & Katherine Kelly Conquer National - 27th Jan 2012 photos
	National stages Haddon's Night-time, Bean's Cristo & Bennett's People - 25th Jan 2012 news
	Photos: Cast of Ayckbourn's Absent Friends in rehearsal - 19th Jan 2012 photos
	Jo Caird: Some Theatre Tips for 2012 - 5th Jan 2012 blog
	Photo: First Pic of Cast for Ayckbourn's Absent Friends - 4th Jan 2012 photos
	Cast: Stewart-Jarrett in Arcola Disney, Officer, Master Class - 22nd Dec 2011 news
	Tointon & Shearsmith Return to West End in Ayckbourn's Friends - 9th Dec 2011 news
	Pemberton, Thompson & Corrie's Kelly Conquer NT - 12th Sep 2011 news