Ben and Imo at the RSC’s Swan Theatre – review

Mark Ravenhill has come a long way since the in-yer-face shock value of his first play Shopping and F***ing. In 1996, only the very wise would have predicted that, nearly thirty years later, he’d be opening a play about the composer Benjamin Britten at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Yet although the distance travelled is great, Ravenhill’s interest in values, in what makes people tick, in the compromises and calamities that make up the messy business of living remains constant. Here, in a work which had its origins in a Radio Three play from 2013 (the year he was also writer in residence at the RSC), the basic question is what is genius and how much should be tolerated or endured in pursuit of great art?

It’s set in the months straddling the turn of the year from 1952 to 53, when the talented musicologist, teacher and composer Imogen Holst (Victoria Yeates) arrives in Aldeburgh as musical assistant to Britten (Samuel Barnett) who has just been commissioned to write an opera for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. He has decided to compose Gloriana about the relationship between the ageing Elizabeth I and her favourite Essex and knows, from the first, that his vision and the requirements of a national celebration may well be at odds.

On Soutra Gilmour’s simple set, with rugs, a drinks tray, and a grand piano, the two begin an uneasy bond that will drive the work to completion and mark the start of a relationship that lasted their lifetimes. Ravenhill is interested in asking at what cost. Early on, Holst, who has already spent a large portion of her life in the service of the work and legacy of her composer father (of Planets fame) plays down her own talent. “A composer is a very special thing. I’m just not one of those special people.”

Britten equally is explicit in how he treats those around him, first enchanting them and then despising them. “I try to push them away. Only they won’t be pushed away. They’re too deep in…So what I have to do is…I have to break them.”

The passage of the play is seeing these conflicting needs develop, Holst’s jolly schoolgirl enthusiasm and belief in the power of art set against Britten’s self-doubt and cynicism. While the production, under Erica Whyman’s understated direction, never quite escapes its talky radio origins, the dialogue and performances are so good that the tension increasingly ratchets up.

Barnett makes Britten a simpering, self-obsessed child, both arrogant and needy. There’s a wonderful moment when Holst accuses him of being impossible and he just nods almost imperceptibly. He wraps his arms protectively around himself, repelling all comers with waspish comments about ballet dancers “hopping around in their tulle doing their little spins” and the nascent arts council and its personnel.

But he also captures Britten’s passion for what he is doing, the sense of inspiration that overtakes him. Conor Mitchell’s clever, minimalist score creates a sense of the music that runs through his mind, his sheer importance as a composer justifying his appalling behaviour. Ravenhill pushes the limits of that tolerance. There is one scene where Britten is unbelievably cruel to Holst, fulfilling his own prediction, condemning her to the company of the second rate. There is one moment too when it really seems as if she will have the strength and conviction in her own merit to abandon him.

Yeates’ performance – as open and vigorous as Barnett’s is tightly-wound – makes you hold your breath for her happiness. She charts each hope and disappointment with a brisk determination to take it all on the chin, characteristic of so many talented women of her era, and perhaps our own, who were willing to put their talent in the hands of a man they believed in.