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Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Ralph Fiennes and Harriet Walter: our mission to make us love Shakespeare again
'All the world's a stage' runs the line from the Seven Ages of Man speech in As You Like It, but it's the West Country stage that's at the centre of Ralph Fiennes's life right now. In genteel Georgian Bath he's directing a production of the tale of love, longing and exile in the Forest of Arden, with Harriet Walter as an androgynous version of the nobleman Jaques. The venture is part of Fiennes's emergence, at the age of 62, as an actor-manager, not unlike Henry Irving, the subject of Grace Pervades, the new drama by David Hare that opened the actor's much anticipated mini-season at the Theatre Royal in June. Fiennes himself starred in that one, and he has persuaded a host of weighty, unexpected names to join him. The stand-up comedian Dylan Moran is playing the jester Touchstone in As You Like It. And in Small Hotel, a new play by the American writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Fiennes will be appearing alongside a former partner of his, the elegant Francesca Annis. 'I've always harboured the desire to direct Shakespeare on the stage, having directed Coriolanus as a film,' the studiously courteous Fiennes explains when he and Walter take a break from rehearsals in studios in London. 'I didn't want to do a dark tragedy or a heavy history. As You Like It came to me as a first choice because of the wonderful ambiguity around gender that's central to it, with the conceited Ganymede/Rosalind wooing Orlando.' Both actors see As You Like It as an opportunity to blow the dust off a sacred text. Walter believes that one reason so many people find Shakespeare daunting is that they are often introduced to his work in the wrong way at school. (That was certainly my own experience in the classroom at my comprehensive, where drama was reduced to a dreary checklist of metaphors, onomatopoeia and so on.) 'That's what they often do,' laments Walter, 74, who recalls that her own experience of learning Shakespeare at Cranborne Chase, a boarding school in Dorset, was less than inspirational. 'What they always do is go around the classroom and nobody can read it properly. We mustn't underestimate the excitement of being in the presence of people pretending to be someone else and creating a forest that isn't really there.' Are Fiennes and Walter worried that in the age of TikTok it's harder to bring young people to work that demands a greater level of concentration? Fiennes certainly hasn't given up hope. 'It's a challenge. I remain optimistic,' he says. 'When I did Macbeth recently we made a point of going to schools and interacting with young people, and their curiosity and alertness and interest were very palpable. Of course, there are some who will zone out. I think it's not that young people aren't interested. I think a lot of it is about just offering clarity in productions.' Fiennes has fond memories of the teacher at his grammar school, Bishop Wordsworth's, in Salisbury, who cast him in a production of Love's Labour's Lost. Yet he remembers that his O-level course on the Scottish play was 'very dry'. Lots of pupils, he recalls, were bored because their imaginations weren't tested. 'It's very, very hard to get people to be engaged with the plays as a text,' Fiennes says. 'They're not; they're written to be performed. The drama is about engagement and listening and receiving. It involves social skills. It doesn't have to mean we're all going to be actors, but young people need to enjoy what it means to play a scene.' Walter is planning to do her own bit to make amends next year by launching a programme that will take Shakespeare into schools and prisons. She's reluctant to discuss details as yet, but from the excitement in her voice it's clear she's passionate about the prospect. And it's obvious, as well, that these two actors, who have reached a huge audience through film and TV, still find special inspiration in working in front of a live audience. They joke about getting close-up views of the absurd hierarchies in big-screen projects where A-list actors are treated as a breed apart. In a play's rehearsal room there's much more of a sense of community. In Walter's view theatre is where talent can be stretched to its limit. 'Shakespeare is not immediately easy,' she explains. 'But then I think working through things that aren't easy is more rewarding in the end than something that drops into your lap without you thinking.' She's still grateful that her drama school teachers pushed her to embrace complexity in all its forms. 'It's about juggling all those balls,' she says. 'You see something like Hamilton, where people are dancing, singing and articulating very extraordinary language. I see a link. I don't see it as a separate thing, but I do see it as more difficult and more complex than regular naturalistic TV acting.' It's not the first time Fiennes and the Theatre Royal's director, Danny Moar, have worked together. Four years ago, when theatreland was still inching its way back to normality after lockdown, Fiennes chose the Theatre Royal to launch one of his most quixotic projects, a 75-minute solo performance, which he directed himself, of TS Eliot's often bewilderingly dense Four Quartets. Other regional dates and a London run and regional dates followed. An actor who had conquered the heights of Hollywood — nominated for three Oscars, for Schindler's List, The English Patient and Conclave — was reaffirming his faith in the power of live performance at a critical moment. A return to Bath was soon mooted, as Fiennes recalls: 'Danny asked what I thought of running a season and I said yes. It was exciting. No one had asked me to do that before.' The collaboration signals Fiennes's belief in the central importance of regional theatre. Funding cuts have left many local venues in a precarious position. This year, when Gary Oldman decided to perform Beckett's solo piece Krapp's Last Tape in a run at York Theatre Royal, where he began his career in 1979, he was making a point about creating opportunities for the next generation. Fiennes did his bit too in 2023 when he went on the road in a military fatigues production of Macbeth at warehouse-style venues in Liverpool and Edinburgh as well as the London Docklands, far from the usual haunts of West End boulevardiers. As Walter points out, there's a hard-headed economic argument for keeping theatre at the centre of everyone's life: 'People keep arguing about not wanting to appear pro-elitist. It's something we've been talking about for years, this idea of art subsidy. Subsidy is a misnomer. It sounds like you want charity, but actually it pays back fivefold. It's a very productive, remunerative part of British life. We've got ourselves in such a mess by following the pure logic of the market. The bit we've neglected is our hearts and our souls and our minds.' Fiennes agrees. 'There seems to me to be a blind spot,' he says, 'about the value of the arts and the performing art about what it does to the quality of people's lives, their inner lives, their imaginations.' Will there be another Fiennes season in Bath next year? He confines himself to replying that he's 'cautiously optimistic'. In an ideal world, where money and time were no object, he would love to put together a company of actors to take Shakespeare into schools. What we need, he says, is to invoke the spirit of Hector, the idealistic if louche teacher in Alan Bennett's The History Boys (immortalised by Richard Griffiths in the 2006 film), and introduce the young to as many facets of the arts as possible. His mother, he says, played the Hector role in his early years, taking him off to see new films and Waiting for Godot. Fiennes asks: 'Where are all the Hectors in government, who say it's important that you see this film, it's important that you go to these places?' • Read more theatre reviews, guides and interviews As for his immediate plans, he is preparing to take another directorial leap into the unknown, this time at the Paris Opera, where he'll be overseeing Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin in January. It's not his first encounter with Pushkin's tragic tale: he played the title role in the film Onegin, directed by his sister Martha, in 1999. Still, he admits to feeling 'excited and scared in equal measure' after the conductor Semyon Bychkov came up with the suggestion five years ago. 'I just thought, that's an amazing thing, and I could run a mile, but I could just go for it,' he says. 'I knew the background material, having made the film and steeped myself in Pushkin's works. So I had the baggage of the story, not the opera, which I had seen a few times. And I just thought, yeah, I might have a few bumps, but I would hate to live and think I said no.' As You Like It runs at Theatre Royal Bath, Aug 15 to Sept 6. The Ralph Fiennes season ends in Oct with Small Hotel, What's your favourite Shakespeare play? Let us know in the comments below
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ralph Fiennes is utterly compelling in David Hare's smart new play
For all his routinely acclaimed screen performances (latterly Conclave, The Return and 28 Years Later), Ralph Fiennes is a consummate theatre animal. And he lays claim to that terrain with zeal in an ambitious three-pronged season in Bath that begins with him incarnating – in accomplished style – one of the giants of the Victorian stage – Henry Irving (1838-1905). Grace Pervades, a new play by David Hare (with whom he has collaborated much of late), centres on the professional and personal relationship that flowered between Irving and fellow luminary Ellen Terry during his legendary tenure (1878-1899) running the Lyceum in the West End as a multi-tasking actor-manager. With Miranda Raison (formerly of Spooks fame) bringing charm and, yes, grace to the role of actress Terry, there's ample to snare our attention. Do we need so much on shifting theatre trends? Arguably not, but that's no reason to miss out on a play of pervasive insight that successfully evokes a bygone era of tremendous thespian industry, innovation and celebrity. Irving – the first actor to be awarded a knighthood – had his detractors as well as his admirers, the latter group including the Telegraph's Clement Scott, who hailed his Hamlet as a 'noble contribution to dramatic art'. Interestingly, Hare puts some of the fiercest criticism of Irving's limitations – his mind more impressive than his body – in the actor's own mouth. Fiennes's stiff, stooped Irving, with dragging leg and scholarly sweep of hair, woos Terry to join his Lyceum venture on the basis that her joyful radiance will compensate for his natural tendency to dourness (Fiennes is now a past master at a tragicomic air of careworn melancholy). That his instincts about Terry are correct gets amply proven in Jeremy Herrin's fleet production (replete with scenic transformations): in swift succession, a decorously attired, refulgent Raison spellbinds as Portia, Lady Macbeth and Viola. Prone to self-doubt too, Terry frets that Irving's silence about her Ophelia is a sign of dislike; in fact, it's because he is in awe. The script – Hare's dialogue is characteristically crisp – catches the handed-on wonders of the art form, along with its innate requirement to change. But there's something muted about the pair's disputes over Terry's under-nourishing supporting roles and frustrated yearning to play Rosalind (one notes that Fiennes directs As You Like It next). Still, the full, fascinating complexity of their necessarily covert close personal bond is left for us to surmise. Nor do we get to see this leading classical actor donning the mantle of Irving the full-blooded Shakespearean. The focus darts often to Terry's estimable (illegitimate) offspring – Edward Gordon Craig and Edith Craig. Jordan Metcalfe is enjoyably bumptious as theatre's self-appointed, theorising saviour, while Ruby Ashbourne Serkis is likeably grounded as his equally pioneering sister. Other passing dramatis personae include Isadora Duncan and Konstantin Stanislavski. Hare is too good a writer for us to feel that he has bitten off more than we can chew. But he could afford to give the big draw – the veiled power-couple romance at the evening's heart – even more room to breathe, and blaze. Until July 19. Tickets: Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Grace Pervades, review: Ralph Fiennes is utterly compelling in David Hare's smart new play
For all his routinely acclaimed screen performances (latterly Conclave, Odysseus and 28 Years Later), Ralph Fiennes is a consummate theatre animal. And he lays claim to that terrain with zeal in an ambitious three-pronged season in Bath that begins with him incarnating – in accomplished style – one of the giants of the Victorian stage – Henry Irving (1838-1905). Grace Pervades, a new play by David Hare (with whom he has collaborated much of late), centres on the professional and personal relationship that flowered between Irving and fellow luminary Ellen Terry during his gilded tenure (1878-1899) running the Lyceum in London. With Miranda Raison (formerly of Spooks fame) bringing charm and, yes, grace to the role of actress Terry, there's ample to snare our attention. Do we need so much on shifting theatre trends? No, but that's no reason to miss out on a play of pervasive insight that evokes a bygone era of tremendous thespian industry, innovation and celebrity. Irving – the first actor to be awarded a knighthood – had his detractors as well as his admirers, the latter group including the Telegraph's Clement Scott, who hailed his Hamlet as a 'noble contribution to dramatic art'. Interestingly, Hare puts some of the fiercest criticism of Irving's limitations – his mind more impressive than his body – in the actor's own mouth. Fiennes's stiff, stooped Irving, with dragging leg and scholarly sweep of hair, woos Terry to join his Lyceum venture on the basis that her joyful radiance will compensate for his natural tendency to dourness (Fiennes is now a past master at a tragicomic air of careworn melancholy). That his instincts about Terry are correct gets amply proven in Jeremy Herrin's fleet production (replete with scenic transformations): in swift succession, a decorously attired, refulgent Raison spellbinds as Portia, Lady Macbeth and Viola. Prone to some self-doubt too, Terry frets that Irving's silence about her Ophelia is a sign of dislike; in fact, it's because he is awed by her perfection, unwavering even though her rendition alters every night. The script – Hare's dialogue characteristically crisp – catches the handed-on wonders of the artform, along with its innate requirement to change. But there's something muted about the pair's contretemps over Terry's under-nourishing supporting roles and frustrated yearning to play Rosalind (one notes that Fiennes directs As You Like It next). Nor do we get to see this leading classical actor donning the mantle of Irving the full-blooded Shakespearean. The focus darts away often – too often – to Terry's estimable (illegitimate) offspring – Edward Gordon Craig and Edith Craig. Jordan Metcalfe is enjoyably bumptious as theatre's self-appointed, theorising saviour, while Ruby Ashbourne Serkis is more likeably grounded as his equally artistic sister, her bohemian ménage a trois sketched in too, with Isadora Duncan and Stanislavsky factored in on top. Hare is too good a writer for us to feel he has bitten off more than we can chew. But he could afford to give the power-couple romance at the evening's heart even more room to breathe, and blaze.
The Guardian
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Grace Pervades review – Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison exceptional as Victorian stage stars
When fielding letters from theatregoers bewildered by the titles of David Hare's 1990 plays Racing Demon and Skylight, the director Richard Eyre told the playwright that in future he should explain them. Grace Pervades usefully provides an epigraph: 'Grace pervades the hussy.' Even so, Hare still requires us to know, or Google, that this line comes from a review of the great actor Ellen Terry, who is portrayed here by Miranda Raison with Ralph Fiennes as her mentor, the senior British theatrical, Henry Irving. 'Hussy', which would these days rightly get a reviewer removed from the Critics' Circle, referred to her two children 'out of wedlock' and her long affair with the married Irving. Hare feared his temperament too sensitive for the very-public and judged medium of theatre. Grace Pervades, his 32nd full-length play, at the age of 78, is an amused and bemused meditation on why he – and his characters – put themselves through it to the extent that Irving died of an actual coronary very soon after acting one. In what also feels like an autobiographical grace note to Hare's many state of the nation plays, someone bemoans 'the stupid English sense of humour that stops them doing anything.' The 25 scenes spanning 1878-1966 allow Hare a wry anthology of theatrical attitudes. He can rarely have won a bigger laugh than when Terry delicately suggests Sir Henry might tweak his technique to look at other actors rather than the audience when speaking. Ellen's son, Edward Gordon Craig, the theatrical equivalent of architects who would rather sketch buildings than erect them, confides, after three years of Moscow rehearsals: 'Ideally, we would never open.' Irving's life is theatre; Terry prefers living. An in-joke has Sir Henry refusing to stage the 'ridiculous' As You Like It; Fiennes, in a season as an Irvingesque actor-manager, directs it on this Bath stage next month. Grace Pervades' director Jeremy Herrin and designer Bob Crowley smoothly move between multiple locations from Russia via the Cafe Royal to Wolverhampton. There is sometimes the bio-drama fault that everyone is historical: a ballet interlude introduces Isadora Duncan, who's sleeping with one character, while another laments she has just been 'frigged' and dumped by Vita Sackville-West. Such, though, were these circles. Much as aristocrats in modern period dramas are made to sound less posh than they were to avoid alienating the audience, the actors, in the performance extracts, play down the more histrionic acting style of those times. Although Terry, in a dressing room teasing scene, mimics what Victorians really heard – Irving's Shylock booming 'cut-throat dog' as 'cut-thrut dug' – Fiennes finds a vegan alternative to his honeyed ham. This sensibly avoids satirising the hero but also allows Fiennes, a poetic but naturalistic speaker of exceptional clarity, to treat us to flashes of Malvolio, Cardinal Wolsey and Hamlet. Raison's vignettes as Beatrice and Portia showcase both Terry's talent and her own. Irving disapproved of new plays – Fiennes speaks the name of George Bernard Shaw as if it were the period expletive, 'Pshaw!' – and so would never have staged Grace Pervades, but it is a work of considerable intelligence and elegance in which he and Terry could have given great pleasure, as does Hare. At Theatre Royal Bath until 19 July
Times
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Grace Pervades review — Ralph Fiennes is magnetic
A great contemporary actor plays a great late-Victorian actor manager. Does the notion of Grace Pervades, a new play by David Hare starring Ralph Fiennes as Henry Irving, sound like theatre eating itself? It is a bit, though Fiennes is too magnetic and Hare's script too stacked with bon mots and insights ever to be less than interesting. Irving ran the Lyceum Theatre in London from 1878 to 1902, plying a proudly old-fashioned programme of great plays featuring great roles for Henry Irving. And Grace Pervades starts Fiennes's own season of actor-managing, directing As You Like It in August here before starring with his ex Francesca Annis in a new play, Small Hotel, in October. The play's best moments revolve around Irving's relationship, largely professional, with his leading lady, Ellen Terry. In fact you can't help but wish all of its moments were about them and there was less time spent on her theatrical offspring, Edward Gordon Craig and Edith Craig. Partly that's because Fiennes, donning a series of ever-whitening wigs, is sincere, caustic, reserved, repressed, vain, generous — whatever the moment requires — and you wish for as much as you can get of him. Miranda Raison, as Ellen Terry, is engagingly elegant but the character feels like a foil to Irving MARC BRENNER Fiennes shows Irving the actor-micromanager, fastidiously controlling except when it comes to Terry. She can do whatever she likes. Miranda Raison lends Terry an engagingly elegant lightness but struggles, I think, to inhabit fully a character who feels like a foil to the more tunnel-visioned Irving, much though she pulls him up on his foibles. • David Hare interview: 'I have been heartily kicked by the BBC' Time that might have fleshed out this pair more is instead spent following the influential yet seemingly impossible Edward and the crusading Edith, who produces huge numbers of plays while living in a menage a trois in Kent. Every exchange has something going for it, but you wonder what all these character studies and theatrical theories are supposed to add up to. Still, a large cast rises to the challenges of a production, by Jeremy Herrin, played out on a huge area with visible wings and proscenium arch upstage (design by Bob Crowley). Jordan Metcalfe gives Edward a prim perfectionism that makes it easier to buy into this self-proclaimed genius as a great postulator than a great libertine. Bohemian Edith is played with name-making aplomb in her professional theatre debut by Ruby Ashbourne Serkis. (Suitably enough, in a play about theatrical dynasties, she is the child of two successful actors, Lorraine Ashbourne and Andy Serkis.) The cast rises to the challenge of the production MARC BRENNER Do we ever quite know what the story of these differently driven, devotedly theatrical types is supposed to make us feel? Not really. And it's one of those plays that changes time and place often enough that characters spend too much time reminding each other who they are and what they are about. But take it on its own slightly rambling terms and Grace Pervades has far too many ideas in its head ever to be dull.★★★☆☆ 150mins Bath Theatre Royal, to Jul 19, Follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews
