★★★★☆
Four Stars

Lead Feathers has massive boots to fill. Hilary’s Bluebeard, also written by Howard Coase and Douglas Grant, was practically perfect. Lead Feathers should be judged on its own merits but its staging – comfy chairs, cups of tea, a darkened BT studio – is reminiscent of Bluebeard and so the two  inevitably invite comparison from the moment you sit down.

Instead of a care home, the armchairs belong to a family home in Kent in 1919; the mood is tentatively hopeful and very British, as characters busy themselves with funerals and the return to normality. A lone white feather decorates a screen to the right of the stage, which is covered in chicken wire and sown with poppies. The war is over and we find likeable Charles (James Colenutt), complete with medals and a knee injury, home at last with his wife Jane (Emily Troup) and daughter Elsie (Maddy Herbert).

Charles has an easy manner and he contrasts instantly with the family’s thin-lipped, slightly creepy neighbour Robert (Jack Wightman). Robert and his wife Cynthia (Tori McKenna) provide the stiff counterpart to Charles and Jane’s loving, gently teasing marriage: both couples are constantly referring to their shared past, but also to the long time they have spent apart. Suspense builds: we do not understand Elsie’s obvious animosity towards Robert; we cannot understand why Cynthia is not happy to be reunited with her husband.

Conscientious objection has been hinted at by the play’s title, marketing and staging but the topic is only breached by Robert around twenty minutes in. He was supposed to object with Charles, but in the end Charles fought in France and came home a hero. Robert, by contrast, spent three years being ostracised and imprisoned in Britan. The play picks up at the two couples’ reunion and offers a careful examination of the relative morality of objecting, fighting and deserting; it offers no didactic message, but plays heavily on the gulf between rhetoric (‘defending one’s country’) and the grim reality of living in a ditch for years on end.

The history of the thing can feel heavy-handed. We are reminded of the Freikorps, of posttraumatic stress disorder, of Amiens, of ‘conchies’, of the suffragists and the suffragettes. The opening felt at points like a rewriting of my GCSE source paper: beautifully translated to stage, but trying to cover every wartime and post-war social phenomenon at once.

Robert’s long-awaited mention of ‘objecting’ finally explained the tensions between the characters. This was the climax of the first of two long bouts of suspense drawn out by the script: I will not spoil the other, but I found myself frustrated by unanswered questions for at least two thirds of the play. Suspense was brilliantly built and broken, but suspense and speeches about the ‘horrors of war’ detracted from smaller-scale human details which embroider the script.

The best of these were the oral sketches of the world around the protagonists: at one point Jane describes how earlier she saw a man with a moustache on a train whose face was immobile. She later realised that he was wearing a mask which had been moulded to his features in order to conceal his facial injuries. Another brief section saw Elsie collecting up teacups and reading books to music while she waited for her parents to return from the theatre. This was a simple yet charming interlude which demonstrated mature direction: the audience were allowed to immerse themselves in another era and digest what they had already seen.

The script is not as strong as Bluebeard’s in terms of resonance and characterisation, but its cast is bigger and its scope far more broad. McKenna’s performance is consistently strong, while Colenutt and Troup’s marriage – culminating in a wrought final scene – is entirely believable and faultlessly executed. Lead Feathers is an ambitious but assured production and a credit to new writing. 

The description of this play as ‘a series of crude, clownish retellings of different tales from scripture’ could not be more apt. That is what Comic Mysteries is. It is a jumble of Biblical stories hacked together. 

The main problem with the play was that it seemed like it was trying to make a religious or political point, but it just didn’t. The corruption of the pope was an obvious theme in one of the sketches, and yet was never referred to again. The humanity of a soldier, who was then beaten and murdered for it, faded with his last breath. As I left the BT, I felt like I was supposed to have got something from Comic Mysteries that simply wasn’t there – were they criticizing Christianity? Were they criticising the Church? Were they just making fun of Jesus? I’m not really sure.

But then again, maybe the performance shouldn’t be taken so seriously. The script was fairly amusing, and it was interesting to see the stories of the Bible told in such a different way – a particular highlight was Michael Comba retelling the story of Jesus turning water into wine from the perspective of a sceptical drunkard.

The staging was very experimental and kept the audience involved in the piece. We stood in a group in the middle of the stage, being ushered about by the actors when they needed us to move. Though it did reach the point where one just wanted to sit down and watch the actors rather than constantly worrying about being in their way, this wasn’t a big problem, and it made the play more engaging and exciting. In that way we were lucky that there were a mere seven audience members as it meant we got more personal attention from the actors who spoke to us.

There were stand out performances from Laura Whitehouse and Alex Tyndall, who made us both laugh at and sympathise with the characters on stage. Tyndall’s depiction of Pope Boniface was hilarious and Whitehouse is clearly a very talented actress. Switching roles from a grieving mother who is losing her mind, to a cripple hoping not to be saved by Jesus, to a female depiction of Jesus being nailed to the crucifix, meant her abilities were certainly tested, but she gave an effortless performance.

We were led into the BT studio expecting to be disappointed. I was not disappointed; Comic Mysteries was funny, and the actors were good, but it was overall unclear what they were trying to achieve with the performance. It was not, as the OxStu predicted it would be, ‘divine’.

Jez Butterworth is one of Britain’s most famous and influential playwrights. Of all his repertoire, however, The Winterling is one of his least known. By no means is it an inferior script, it simply lacks the hype of works like Mojo, which won the Olivier award for best comedy 1996, or the bombast of Rylance-driven Jerusalem. This production though, is going to change all that. It could just be the best thing you see all year – and I’m not just talking about student productions.

The O’Reilly theatre has been transformed into an immersive stage; gunshots and planes rattle overhead, two chairs adorning one corner of the stage, a mangle looming ominously in the other like some mediaeval torture device. This heightens the paranoid, Pinteresque mood, whilst also evoking memories of the script’s home turf – blink for a second and you could be in the bowels of the Royal Court Theatre, Butterworth’s creative stomping ground. The audience sits tense and alert as the stage lights go up.

What follows is an intimate exposé of the dynamics that drive human relationships, the poignancy and fragility of innocence, and the revelation that even a ‘winterling’ can find absolution. I should point out that a ‘winterling’ (despite what Google would have you think) is none of the following:

a)   a make of Bavarian porcelain

b)   a Florida based Folk-Rock Band

c)    a type of early crocus

A Winterling is actually a Devonshire dialect term meaning ‘the runt of the litter’ – essentially a dejected, abused animal on its last legs. And by the end of the play, the audience certainly knows who this Winterling is – it was staring us in the face all along, as well as humanity’s innate capacity for bestial cruelty.

This production displays a masterful appreciation of the text especially given its ambiguity and ultra-minimal style on the page; Director Susannah Quirke explained, “Butterworth makes you work, but the rewards are great”. She described the play as a “thriller”, drawing on her previous experience directing ‘Rope’ to insert the claustrophobic air of menace that slowly closes in on the characters. The players themselves give memorable and polished turns, rising to the difficult task of juggling comedy and tragedy without missing a beat. 

Joe Allan’s choice of material and skillful eye for casting has reaped dividends; Leo Suter shines as Paddy, one minute showering the audience with gems like ‘poo muffins’, the next raising his hackles like a snarling dog. He and Arty Froushan give us Gangster geezers on just the right side of Guy Ritchie. And I challenge any of you not to pity David Shields’ West, as his illusions of grandeur are shattered by a smile, and a terrible ultimatum.

This production is, essentially, a masterpiece of Oxford theatre. Go and buy a ticket as soon as you can. If you don’t have the cash, take out a new loan. If you’re too far in the red, sell a relative, or yourself. I’ve already booked myself in for another performance on Friday. The money was not easy to come by.

The Audience is a new play on in London based on intelligent speculation surrounding Queen Elizabeth II’s weekly meetings with the Prime Ministers (stretching from Churchill to Cameron). Since there is no documentation, there is no evidence that anything in The Audience actually happened but this does not prevent it from being a political and artistic masterpiece.

 From the moment Helen Mirren walks on stage, the audience are not focusing on the famous actress standing in front of them, they are focusing on the Queen. In this play Helen Mirren does not appear to be acting the role of the Monarch; she is the Monarch. On stage are two chairs and a table where the Queen and the different Prime Ministers converse on a wide range of subjects throughout the play. The thematic rather than chronological organisation of the play is a surprising yet piercing technique. It allows the audience to make connections between the various meetings and it is the collection, rather than the individual vignettes, which makes the play so powerful.

The acting is exquisite. The Young Elizabeth played by Maya Gerber in the production I saw was pitch perfect. Her soft tone and precise diction created the feeling that we were listening to a clip of the Queen, in her early days, not a young fourteen year old from a school in North London. Her role provides a haunting backdrop to the central plot, giving us a greater understanding of how the early years shaped and moulded our present Monarch. There is a focus on how her life is not one she has chosen but one that was determined by God. Underneath the Queen’s witty remarks, surrounding her desire for invisibility, there is a sense of pathos as we remember the little girl in the earlier scenes wondering why she has to carry out this role, ‘what if I don’t want to?’ she says. The Audience thus enables us to see the side of the Queen which we cannot observe in public; for the most part there are only two characters on the stage, making this production unique in its entirely personal nature. The Queen is not just presented as a monarch; she is a human being, named Elizabeth Windsor who has thoughts, feelings and views just like the rest of us. The presentation of her relationship with Harold Wilson was for me, the most memorable aspect of the play. Of course, the Queen is to remain completely objective but when Wilson decides to resign due to his recent diagnosis of alzheimers, she silently wells up and suggests he invites her and Prince Philip to dinner; an honour only once before bestowed, in her 61 year reign, to Churchill.

The most delightful aspect of the play though, has to be the humour. The Queen herself is presented as quick and witty; she does not suffer fools. Helen Mirren’s timing means her lines are delivered at just the right moment to send the audience into fits of laughter; her head slowly drops and her eyelids begin to close, as she listens to David Cameron blandly describe his new policy. You do not need an in depth understanding of the twelve Prime Ministers during her reign but in order to appreciate the political remarks within the play, a brief knowledge is certainly beneficial. Thatcher’s extreme self-interest is cleverly articulated when actress, Haydn Gwynne, makes the decision that their twenty minute meeting must come to an end. Nevertheless, the sensitive amendment to the production, following Thatcher’s death, is dealt with in a respectful manner.  

In The Audience Mirren is not playing the role of the Queen as we see her, an ambassador for our Kingdom, instead, she acts as counsellor, companion and confessor for twenty minutes every Tuesday (until Blair that is, who changed their meeting to a Wednesday). The only person missing from this five star production was, Tony Blair, Britain’s longest serving Labour Prime Minister. It seemed odd that his name only featured in fleeting remark made by the Queen. There need not have been a direct meeting with Blair but it would have contributed to the historical nature of the play if he had, just like Edward Heath, featured as a ghost of the past. All in all, though this play is magnificent and Helen Mirren, at 67 years old, is most certainly the Queen of the West End.