We're off to the Southwark Playhouse, under London Bridge Station, again. Perhaps I am getting lazy. Or perhaps this is a certain way of bypassing the dreaded TfL Journey Planner. More likely it is to do with the splendid fare provided there.
There were two splendid amusements on the way there. A man is having a loud argument on the phone. When he finishes, he gives the girl he's with a tenner and tells her to go get a drink from the shop just beyond the ticket barrier (which is away in another part of the station). She does that, and immediately, the train appears. "Oh damn (that's not the word he used)", he says, "we'll miss the train!". He is standing under an indicator which tells him the train time, and also that it's on time. Poor soul must find life difficult, mustn't he?
The second amusement was when I sat down on the train and looked around. Further up the carriage, six men were sitting in a six-seat alcove. All of them were bald as coots (well, had shaved to hide the fact that they were heading that way). It looked just like a giant egg box had been opened. Later, one of them pushed a pair of those bluebottle-coloured sunglasses up over his forehead. As he carried on the animated conversation they were having, he looked like the invisible man, with this totally featureless face.
'Moll Flanders' is very theatrical (which I love) and very original. It opens with a splendid Hogarthian Tableau spilling vigorously into the theatre. The cast are in stylised Georgian clothes and make-up. It is a very large cast. A cast of fifteen is huge for anything not a musical. This isn't a musical, although the music is quite beautiful, and extensive dancing is used, successfully, to both link and advance the story.
There were several people in the front row opposite me taking copious notes, so I guess they have high hopes for developing this production. I hope they succeed: it's very good.
The burden of the lead was lightened by what I might call a 'Dr Who maneuver', where the actor was replaced at regular intervals. Which didn't matter at all: the bulk of the cast played a kind of Greek chorus, emerging individually as and when necessary to play individual parts. It all worked fine.
I'm not sure how you might describe the staging: the stage was not raised, and the audience was on three sides. I'd call that 'thrust' rather than 'in-the-round'. My companion expressed a criticism that the action was just a little too close for this very theatrical presentation. I think I agree, much as it upsets me to say so, since it is this very intimacy that I love about fringe theatre. Perhaps this production is so very theatrical and stylised (which I loved) that it might benefit from a proscenium arch. But it grieves me to say that, and , in any case, that's not what the Southwark Playhouse does.
We were offered an opportunity to take part in a 'Moll Poll', by ticking a voting card as to whether Moll should have got away with it or not (opinion has it that Defoe, a puritan, was none to clear on this point in the original book). However, I rather disapprove of anything that smacks of democracy in the theatre: that should be left to the cultural desert that is television. So I spoilt my ballot paper. I voted 'yes' and 'no'.
Then I scampered off to the delights of the Shipwrights' Arms (they leave out the apostrophe, but probably only because they write it all in capitals). There we were surrounded by a most unusual clientele, and had some fun discussing what their origins might be: turned out to be A-level night.
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