15 - The Children's Hour, Comedy Theatre

And so I return to the West End, this time to see The Children's Hour.

Forgive this rather hurried review here, I'm a few behind after a busy period of seeing 3 plays a week so I'm ahead on play viewing but a bit behind on play reviewing.

This was an engaging play. The heartbreaking tale of what happens when a little girl doesn't like it at school so she tells a lie, that the two teachers are engaged in a lesbian love affair. Immediately as the story spreads, all the parents pull their daughters out of the school and the reputation, business and lives of the two teachers are ruined. I love Keira Knightly on stage, she's not the most stellar stage presence ever but she is an enthalling and watchable actor. Elisabeth Moss was also enrgetic and gave a heart-tugging performance. I also enjoyed seeing Bryony Hannah as the obstinate young Mary who tells the lie who I saw in Earthquakes in London, one of my favourite plays of last year. She was vulnerable and frightening by turn, a really complex character.

While I enjoyed the production it did leave me a bit bemused though about why this play was being revived. It's from the 30s when they didn't say 'lesbian' and even this script about a lesbian romance that didn't happen was banned for being offensive. But we don't really live in that world any more. Surely there are plays that would say something about the kinds of prejudice gay people experience in today's world that would be more relevant and still get the audience rush that combining the words 'Kiera Knightly' and 'Lesbian' have no doubt provided. Compare it to the refreshing modern and relevant reinterpretation of The Misanthrope, Knightley's recent West End debut, and this all falls a little flat.

1- Birdsong - directed by Trevor Nunn at The Comedy Theatre, West End

First play of the year! Thought we had better catch Birdsong as it's quite a short run and promised to be pretty spectacular. Now I actually have not read the book (I know, I'm an awful human being) which probably meant I enjoyed the play more because I often find novel adaptations annoying. The scope of this one is pretty epic as you'd expect from a play based on a novel. The first half is a love story set in Amiens in peace time in which young Englishman, Stephen Wraysford fall in love with, and seduces, Isabelle who is married to a rich factory owner. There were some aspects which seemed too briefly covered, such as the strike in the factory which I would have liked to hear more about, but the cast were wonderful and the story was intriguing and pacy. The set looked to me like the characters were coming out of a pop-up book with projections and set behind them, balanced with just enough set pieces and props to keep the feel theatrical. I particularly liked the scene when they punted along the river in a boat and the projected river bank in the background moved with them.

So far so delightful, a touching love story with mystery, sex and heartbreak. Suddenly at the end of the first half we hear a crash and part of the set at the back collapses forward to the sound of gunfire and explosion. When we return after the interval, Stephen is an officer in the trenches, the war has begun. This is where I thought the production really excelled, as the horror of the trenches was conjured up on stage with amazing sound and atmospheric set design. As the characters experienced the terror of their world being torn apart by war, we experienced it with them all the more vividly because we had seen, in the first half, what it was like before the world came crashing down, idylic settings became mud, smoke and guns.

I saw Journey's End years ago in the west end and it's difficult not to compare them. From what I can remember there was something very authentic and personal about Journey's End, written by Sherriff who was actually there. Obviously Birdsong was more literary but also I think dealt with the bigger themes. It really struck you how inhuman the Somme was, how much it destroyed not only the landscape but how people thought about things. Stephen says at the end "I don't even know if we can call ourselves human any more."

Anyway catch this play while you can! If you can, book a cheap ticket for a weekday and if you're lucky they'll upgrade you. It made us cry so take tissues. You don't often see a production where you are thoroughly hooked all the way through and come out feeling like you have seen something important which has changed you somehow. I instinctively want to drag every schoolchild in the country to see this play, to see what those men went through and remember what war does, but also to show them how gripping theatre can be.