The Philanthropist

Synopsis

The Prime Minister and his cabinet have been assassinated and England's most treasured writers are being murdered one by one. Back at the university, a bachelor don tries hard to please his academic friends as he anguishes over sex, marriage, anagrams and the meaning of life.

Our Review:

14 September 2005

The Philanthropist, premiered in 1970, was not Christopher Hampton’s first play but it was the one that established him. He went on to deliver on his promise with Savages, Tales from Hollywood, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and, in more recent years, The Talking Cure, as well as myriad translations and screenplays.

Four years ago, the Donmar thrillingly revived Tales from Hollywood, Hampton’s imagined life of Hungarian playwright Odon von Horvath, who died of a freak accident in 1938. Now, with equal authority and under the assured direction of David Grindley – who, of late, seems incapable of putting a foot wrong despite a hectic rate of productions including Some Girls, Journey’s End and What the Butler Saw this year – it reclaims this earlier “bourgeois comedy”, which Hampton wrote as a variation of Moliere’s 1666 classic The Misanthrope.

Instead of centring on Moliere’s pessimistic Alceste, H...

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Latest User Review

81.129.0.169) - 11 October 2005:

It isn't a great play, but what a faultless production. The design makes great use of the Donmar space. David Grindley's direction is full of subtlety and attention to detail. The entire ensemble is magnificent, with Simon Russell Beale's performance amongst his very best - every word, movement and facial expression contributing to his portrait of a fascinating character. That clever Christopher Hampton wrote a play about a man with extraordinary low empotional intelligence before we know what it was !...

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