National Theatre Live - The Motive and the Cue

 

The National Theatre's production of The Motive and the Cue was shown at the Aylesbury Odeon on Thursday evening. It had been a while since I had last visited our local cinema. The story and the script by Jack Thorne (his film of Radioactive is on record) are excellent and the direction by Sam Mendes is first class. A large cast was necessary as we see rehearsals for "Uncle Will's" Hamlet. A knowledge of the play was quite useful. Head and shoulders above the other actors was Mark Gatiss as Sir John Gielgud who at sixty is now relegated to director. The trouble is he has the now the world renowned Richard Burton (a fine Johnny Flynn) as the star. He is recently married to Elizabeth Taylor (a terrific and funny  Tuppence Middleton) who is on number four. 

At the heart of the play is the tension created between the star and director, two very different people. There is one scene where the rest of the cast in rehearsal are banished and Gielgud and Burton are left alone. Sitting closely opposite one another they start to talk about their fathers and there is some sort of mutual understanding instead of confrontation. All this leads to Hamlet's big speech which echoes Shakespeare's own father. OK, Flynn is not the best actor to give us "To be or not to be ......." but it does reflect their conversation. 

I did like how some of Shakespeare's text is delivered in rehearsal in front of a dark stage with an ingenious device of how it opens up to the huge bright rehearsal room. Fortunately one of the extracts we see rehearsed is that for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Although those two actors were not a patch on Daniel Radcliffe and Joshua McGuire. (I must see this again - rent on Amazon). However, their are a few great supporting performances, notably the ever brilliant Janie Dee playing the actress Eileen Herlie who has the role of Queen Gertrude. 

I had hoped that the sound would have been louder given this was shown in the cinema as I could not hear everything. But that might have not been just me. There are also small titles at the start of each scene that were too dark to see properly. But these are small issues. I might like to see it live if it ever gets a national tour, or online if not. During the interval there is an interview with Sam Mendes and Jack Thorne that was well worth seeing.