My Perfect Mind (Tour-Tobacco Factory)

A couple of years ago actor Edward Petherbridge was contracted to play King Lear in New Zealand. Two days into rehearsals he suffered a debilitating stroke that forced him out of the Everest of stage roles. But snatching victory out of defeat, he has collaborated with Told By An Idiot and director Kathryn Hunter to create an inventive, hilarious biographical show that flits from episodes in Peterbridge’s life to vignettes of his aborted Lear.

It’s fascinating to consider what his Lear would have been like. On this evidence he would have been a thoughtful, clear, softly spoken Lear, incredibly moving in the later scenes, perhaps less convincing during the tougher opening and underpowered in the storm. Dressed in casual actor gear of jeans, white shirt, flesh waistcoat and red scarf, he also manages to highlight the ‘luvvie’ in him, full of anecdotes about working with Coward and Laurence Olivier.

Paul Hunter portrays the great man known as ‘Larrie’ as well as every other character in the story from a New Zealand theatre director, to a taxi driver who saw Royal Hunt From The Sun, from a doctor who diagnoses his stroke, to a Romanian cleaner with a thesis in Lear. He’s madcap and zany but revealingly honest, there can be no better audition for Petherbridge’s Fool if the opportunity ever does arise.

Hunter keeps the momentum moving and it is impressive that in a ninety minute piece with only two actors there are no longeurs. Petherbridge also shows his own skills as an artist creating a mural of Lear’s daughters that he then splashes with paint as the storm hits. If this sounds both pretentious and slapdash, well, there are a number of jokes about that as well as the borderline offensive accents and characterisations Hunter uses. If you like your comedy slapstick and silly, this is the show for you.

As an avid lover of theatrical gossip and biography I lapped up My Perfect Mind. What those who aren’t theatrical junkies make of it is harder to tell. The more you know about the history of the National and RSC, from Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead to Nicholas Nickleby the more you get from it.

If there is a Lear in Petherbridge’s future, well its hard to see how it will be a better artistic triumph then what has been produced here. Maybe some entrepreneurial regional playhouse will prove me wrong. Tom Morris at Bristol Old Vic, are you reading?