I’ve been neglectful; as I get to the end of the seemingly endless to-do list for the summer — derailed by illness and other unexpected things — I am catching up on things I forgot to write up. I saw this play at the National Theatre back in May when I was traipsing around London. It was nearly sold out even then and now moving to the West End, indeed the Noel Coward Theatre.

I thoroughly enjoyed the production. It is aimed at theatre lovers and hits the mark. If you’re not aware of the famous Hamlet production from 1964, see a snippet here. Gielgud’s notion was to perform the play as if it were a rehearsal so this play is rather meta in that respect, showing the rehearsals for the play that would be. Jack Thorne’s script cleverly uses Shakespeare’s play to full advantage — most of the emotional moments come from the players using Shakespeare’s words in new contexts. Sometimes it feels a little heavy-handed, but mostly it plays to the audience’s recognition of the familiar and appreciation for how miraculous a thing a good performance is.

Gatiss and Flynn embody their roles more than giving impressions, which I think can derail a performance, though Gatiss clearly has studied Gielgud’s mannerisms. Middleton’s Taylor mostly prowls around in marabou and a negligée to remind us that film stars are sexy and this was the hot heyday of their mad romance. Gielgud had the anxiety of fearing his best years were over; Burton the fear that he could not be the legendary actor he yearned to be — while also wanting to be famous and rich and indolently happy with Taylor.

The sparring between the two veers off in various directions depending upon which anxieties were foremost on the day. Act one has a lot of sabotage — of one another but also of each themselves. The end of the act has Gatiss delivering Hamlet’s ‘Speak the speech, I pray you..’ as Gielgud so depressed and fearing failure that it was heart wrenching. Something I did not expect of Gatiss who has a habit of leaning into the grotesque humour of things (or reining it so far back that galaxies are depleted).

Flynn makes you care for the sometimes petulant and bantam-cocksure Burton, to see the seething need under the bravado, the wonder he takes in Taylor. As they work to unlock the performance both director and actor know or suspect is there, he gradually strips away a lot of that carapace. As Gielgud tells him it’s the magic of the live performance that draws him (not to diminish Burton’s adoration of the poetry):

You like the art. That relationship between the audience and the stage — that moment of conversation — theatre is thinking — pure thought — collective imagination, yes. but also just — I don’t think there is any other art form in the world where minds meet so beautifully. One thousand people, sat together, in communion with what’s in front of them.

The audience at that matinee included a bunch of actors from the National that I recognised, a few rows in front of me and they were definitely vibrating with joy at that thought. There is nothing like theatre. Burton’s evocation of the much studied soliloquy after this conversation offers a take on the classic that sings.

Negatives: the women’s roles, such as they are. I never really bought Tuppence Middleton as Taylor who was always so physically voluptuously larger than life. Alas, her role here was just to reinforce the message that Burton was considered very sexy (Flynn needed no help to demonstrate that) and to provide the emotional connection between the sparring star and director. Yes, that’s what women do, give voice to the emotions men cannot and ‘fix’ their relationships. There is a lot of truth in that as history, but it’s so tiresome to see nothing else about women. Luke Norris’s William Redfield playing Guildenstern had a much more developed role though still just there to give Burton’s character a chance to speak. Modern women actors are seldom allowed to be voluptuous. Taylor was all the curves. And the mean spirited visual joke about chicken wings was classless fatphobia.

How can you tell a straight man is writing gay characters? When the gay character hires a sex worker just for ‘a cuddle’ (yes, really).

But I did really enjoy the performance: Flynn and Gatiss were excellent. And it really does speak to that frisson that only happens between the players and the audience since time immemorial.