The Giant
Venue: Hampstead Theatre
Where: Inner London
Date Reviewed: 8 November 2007
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The giant – “il gigante” – in question is a huge block of marble from which will be hewn the statue now known as the Michelangelo David. Antony Sher’s gripping and ambitious new play shows how it nearly became known as the Da Vinci David.

The two artists were in Florence at the same time, around 1501, and there is a theory that the model for the sculpture was one of the quarrymen at Carrara, where the stone comes from (Henry Moore also quarried at Carrara and I myself have a neutral little slab of the stuff on my mantelpiece). So, in Sher’s invention, the artists first of all vie for the commission and then for the attention of the unspeakably beautiful young man, Vito, who happens to be married with a young child (we never see his family).

Old Vito (Richard Moore) introduces the story, giving it an epic, Brechtian dimension from the start, while the literally stunning newcomer Stephen Hagan – fresh from LAMDA, with a Belfast accent that indicates provincialism in Florence and an unstudied physical grace that totally belies his inexperience on stage, let alone the novelty of standing about with no clothes on – unwittingly inveigles himself into their affections.

There are several strands to Gregory Doran’s compelling production. John Light’s obsessive, dust-coated Michelangelo is a bearded solitary with a gruff exterior, while Roger Allam’s silky, seen-it-all Leonardo is a political operator as well as the visionary inventor with dreams of flying. What Leonardo calls “the accident of beauty” is the spur to their rivalry.

The marble sits on the stage until the great moment when it is winched into position in the workshop rotunda. William Dudley’s design is a scaffolded studio that can double as a setting for Leonardo’s Florentine masque about Ganymede, transported by the eagle of Zeus, and of course played by a soaring Vito in a huge pair of wings. Just as we see an astonishing replica of the statue stepping out of the stone, so the play is constructed by Sher, in a fashion both imaginative and workmanlike, from these ideas of art, beauty, flight and spirituality.

And the Florentine politics – in which sodomy is all the rage – lend a gritty, comic context, with a pair of religious bad boys causing trouble, a wonderfully devious and sly Machiavelli (Stephen Noonan) manipulating the contest and the richly robed doge (Philip Voss) leading the official appreciation of art society.

One or two scenes in the second act lose the plot, and the play is 15 minutes too long. Otherwise, this co-production by Hampstead and Thelma Holt of a play first commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company is a credit to all concerned.

- Michael Coveney

Reader Reviews

Score	Comment	Date
	It was very great. I am from German and I saw The Giant three times. Of course I saw this play because John Light. He is my favourite actor, but Roger Allam and Stephen Hagan and the other were very good. Now I hope, I can see my favourite John Light and maybe the other actor's again. - Regina	13 Apr 08
	A slightly lumpy play. Easy enought to follow but could have done with a bit more spark. Unlike other reviewers, I thought Stephen Hagan's performance left a lot to be desired. Roger Allam played the same role he always does. John Light was excellent. - Steven	20 Nov 07
	A dull but worthy history lesson rather than a dramatically effective play - like all those literature dons in the 50s who thought they could write poetry because they had read so much of it, Sher shows that he has learned the mechanics of stagecraft without having any genuine artistic grasp of how to make them work. Allam was 'phoning in his performance, Light shed none; only Vito (young and old) brought anything fresh. Symptomatic of the whole affair was after the raising of the block of 'marble' Michaelangelo attacked it with a hammer, producing not the sharp crack of Carrara but the dull thud of gyproc. - David	20 Nov 07
	A fascinating play which (like Amadeus) gives us a glimpse into the mind of a genius. Ambitious in its themes, the play could be streamlined and shortened to good effect. Roger Allam made the great Leonardo da Vinci seem a surprisingly dull man; but other performances are excellent. A very stimulating, if verbose, evening. - Philip	14 Nov 07
	The play deals with fascinating ideas but in a very heavy-handed way. It should also be cut severely. Some of the performances are very impressive: John Light, Roger Allam and Stephen Hagan. Others leave a lot to be desired. - Fred	11 Nov 07

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