Two Halves of Guinness at the Park Theatre – review

Zeb Soanes has an instantly recognisable voice to any regular listeners of Radio 4, where his rich, sonorous tones are synonymous with phrases like “and now, The Archers“. Here, he’s returned to his acting roots to portray his childhood hero Alec Guinness in a revival of Mark Burgess’ one-man bio-play, which was first seen all the way back in 2010.

Structurally, it’s pretty formulaic, opening with Guinness giving a characteristically understated acceptance speech for his honorary Academy Award in 1980, before rewinding to his peripatetic childhood (he never knew the identity of his father, and speculates his flighty mother could well have slept with a member of the Guinness dynasty).

It then takes us from his early theatrical breakthrough, thanks to an encounter with John Gielgud, through to his wartime adventures with the Navy and subsequent superstardom courtesy of David Lean and George Lucas. It’s undoubtedly a story worth telling, and Soanes tells it well, capturing Guinness’s deep, mellifluous voice near-perfectly (acting teacher Martita Hunt taught him to “emphasise the verbs”), along with his constant tendency to glance downwards.

Burgess’ script feels rather over-stuffed – an hour would suffice but here we get nearly two, including an interval – and Selina Cadell’s production, staged on Lee Newby’s dust sheet-covered set, feels more ponderous than polished. For all his vocal prowess, Soanes’ occasional forays into physical comedy are less successful (notably a sequence where he recreates every death in Kind Hearts and Coronets), and the overwhelming impression is this could work just as well on his old stomping ground Radio 4.

However, there’s plenty for Guinness aficionados to enjoy, including glimpses into the inspiration for some of his iconic roles (his famous stagger in The Bridge on the River Kwai was inspired by his polio-afflicted son), and an exploration of the complicated figure alluded to in the title. As well as his constant search for a father figure, which perhaps explained his embrace of Catholicism, he was a closet homosexual, which he indulged alongside his marriage to actress Merula Salaman. He was also enjoyably ambivalent about his most famous (and lucrative) role, Obi-Wan Kenobi, at one point telling a young Star Wars fan he will recite a line from the film on condition he stops watching it.

For all its occasional stodginess, the play’s clear reverence for its subject shines through, and its tending of the Guinness reputational flame is welcome. Although he may be fading from the wider public consciousness now, there’s no question he was one of the greats, whose rags to riches success, much of it due to sheer chutzpah (he found Gielgud’s number in the phone book) contains many salutary lessons for today. In the words of Hamlet, who was the source of both triumph and failure for him: what a piece of work is a man.