Naked, Live & Never Again: My Last Discourse on Dramatic Method
Pleasance Dome
10 to 30 August, 15.50
The title suggests yet another down and dirty cabaret act. Instead, fictional actor and friend to the stars “Jack Treadwell” presents his farewell discourse to an audience of 500 (a few fewer, in reality) on dramatic art.
Treadwell is played by Andrew Hawkins, son of the film star Jack Hawkins, and a really fine, supple actor in his own right. He demonstrates the malleability of the fourth wall and rails against the ranting excesses of some colleagues and dumbing down at the BBC.
His own BBC programme on great acting, for instance, has been ditched in favour of “How to Be a Celebrity.” Peter Brook gets a bashing, too, but Jack does break off to take calls from Al Pacino and Bruno Ganz.
It’s an odd, quirky, beautifully scripted little show and a witty calling card for Hawkins’s own talent as a notable exponent of relaxed naturalism.
