In one of her most famous novels, Dodie Smith begins the adventures of Cassandra Mortmain with the line, “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink”. And whilst I am not sitting on anything half as bohemian as a fire clay ceramic; I write this with a similar preoccupation as to the excessively drear view from my window.
In the background, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is on the television: addressing the Munich Security Conference. The moving erudition of his second language masks the raw desperation of a man begging the world to act against a seemingly impenetrable aggressor. And the location, the global rise of far-right rhetoric, and the pathetic fallacy of the drizzle tells me that one really doesn’t need to be a Cassandra to see that there is never anything new under the sun.
Zelenskyy, of course, initially made his name as a performer - even playing a fictional President as something of a dress rehearsal - before being sworn in officially in 2019: and is one of the latest additions to a long cast list of actors to deem the political arena worthy of their presentational skills. Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Glenda Jackson, Shirley Temple, Tracy Brabin, Michael Cashman… just some of the household names destined to forever be the answer to a pub quiz teaser.
This symbiosis between politics and theatre is a relationship which fascinates journalist and playwright Tim Walker, writer of the new Radio 4 play When Maggie Met Larry. “Olivier says in the play that Downing Street has become just another road off Coronation Street”, Walker says. “And the public expect pretty good performers in both these long-running soaps”.
Yet to many of us, this consummation of politics by the overt theatrics of personality is devoutly not to be wished. Perhaps naively, I would prefer my politicians to be as dry as dust and focus purely on the business of running our lives: but as recent elections have proved, there are a goodly amount of the electorate whose cross will only go in the box of someone who is seen as a bit of a ‘character’.
And politicians, after all, love to play. Primarily with our lives, deaths, national borders, financial records: but occasionally, as is the case for the current incumbent of Number Ten, their innate vocal registers.
Dramatically too, this is a rich field. In recent years The King’s Speech explored how George VI turned to speech therapist and amateur thesp. Lionel Logue to alleviate the worst of his stammer; and Channel 4 drama Brian and Maggie took on the uncomfortable relationship between Brian Walden and the Iron Lady who relied upon him to show her in a good light. And both show a sense of respect extended to their tutors only for as long as their usefulness lasted: heck, Geoffrey Rush even deserved that Oscar more than Firth. But then again, stepping stones are there to become grubby.
Walker’s new piece examines the 1970s meeting between two of the most recognised figures of twentieth century Britain; when Margaret Thatcher sought out the theatrical know-how of Laurence Olivier to help refine her frowzy hausfrau public image. It is a delicious hour of blended fact and what-ifs; liberally and cosily sprinkled with references to theatrical giants so great of shadow that a casually dropped ‘Flora / Claire / Dorothy / Ralphie’ is sufficient to conjure up a raft of flickering cinematic images in our collective imaginations.
But it also splashes meaningfully about in its political roots: from the horrors of the Brighton bombing to the prettiness of a young Cecil Parkinson. And if anyone should know about the lubricious machinations of the political establishment, it would be Walker; whose journalistic career has both covered and created a range of high-profile shenanigans. In 2022, I caught the Edinburgh Fringe run of his debut play, Bloody Difficult Women: a play which not only investigated the pyretic days of bitter Brexit fall-out but instigated its own brouhaha as powerful media enemies sought to get it closed down for its depiction of… yes, the most appalling betrayal of all… facts. And while When Maggie Met Larry is less obviously inflammatory, it is no less thought-provoking: forcing us to consider the extent to which we ourselves feed the fame machine and resultant trivialisation of government.
“I am bloody lucky to have got Derek (Jacobi) and Frances (Barber) doing it”, Walker enthuses about the actors stepping into these mighty shoes. “These two could perform the London telephone directory and make it sound compelling.”
“But that Thatcher voice comes naturally to no one - not even the real Thatcher, we now know - so needless to say Frances Barber needed a bit of help getting it spot on” explains Walker. To secure a pitch-perfect delivery, Barber enlisted the help of Steve Nallon, whose Spitting Image turn as Thatcher was surely only ever bettered by his own immortal Beryl Reid take on the Queen Mother. “Maybe some day I will write a play about the voice coach who coached the actress playing the woman who was voice coached by the actor who was himself coached by the actor he was playing!” jokes Walker, in an aside which deftly reflects the intricate web of complexity woven throughout the piece.
Jacobi’s vocal is less of an impersonation than an impression, although he does have a dabble in some mellifluous vowels which suggest the great man himself: the irony being that Thatcher’s voice has since become more iconic than the most lauded British actor of all time.
This is a louche, waspish, irascible Larry: plagued by the aches which characterised his later years and a yearning for the flirtations of the past. Larry offers Maggie Piper-Hiedsieck but she prefers the Tetley’s she has brought with her: “I don’t want to be loosened up”, she intones before offering to do the washing up in a neat nod to the kitchen sink genre which grabbed Olivier by the hand (supposedly on Vivien Leigh’s advice) and nudged him along the path of a more gritty naturalism.
Larry seems irritated but interested by his pupil, and seems to enjoy his Henry Higgins role. He luxuriates in the pomposity of being U to Maggie’s non-U; e bigger hair, the royal we, a more masculine persona, and anything necessary to “pass you off as a Prime Minister, not a waitress laying out doilies in a tea shop in Hove”. Maggie quite likes ‘Olivia’ because he gets haircuts and wears nice suits. She hates “raving socialists” such as Vanessa Redgrave; and declares that she has “no time for the theatre” in an admission which may be intended as an indication of her Protestant work ethic, but reflects a rather deeper mistrust of anything which causes an examination of humanity. And as with his depiction of Theresa May in Bloody Difficult Women, Walker resists the temptation to veer towards caricature or condemnation, thus offering Barber a more three-dimensional role which suggests the very naïveté and gaucheness Thatcher’s team were keen to override.
One of the few things they agree on is the legacy of Winston Churchill: whose name alone is sufficient to send Thatcher into paroxysms of ecstasy. A chum of Olivier (and slavish devotee of his then wife Vivien Leigh), Churchill was not only enough of a consummate actor to hide his black dog and alcohol dependency from a country at war: but also a shrewd propagandist who understood the patriotism which could be harnessed through films such as Olivier’s Henry V.
Whilst essentially a love letter to theatre history and political artifice, When Maggie Met Larry is also filled with wit and one-liners. “I think it's a fun play” Walker says: “at one point we have Derek Jacobi playing Laurence Olivier playing John Gielgud - that has to be a first! Derek of course was a protégé of Olivier and actually knew about him helping Thatcher so there are layers on layers.”
And it is these layers which will intrigue and excite audiences thirsty for a new take on familiar faces. “People used to think it odd that I should be so obsessed with both politics and theatre but this play rather wonderfully brings the two obsessions together” says Walker: but really, the two have been close cousins since Ancient Greece. And there is, in our own sphere of reference, little which encapsulates the spirit of theatre as effectively as that Victorian sarcophagus designed for combat: lined with green leather benches and peopled by 650 diverse characters competing to shout the loudest in the contest between ego and compassion, reason and bombast at the same times every week.
As Thatcher scrambles from the wreckage of the Grand Hotel in Brighton, her first thoughts are to comb her husband’s hair and make him look presentable. Olivier’s messaging has clearly hit home: her status as a construct is complete. Another of Olivier’s mantras is to “seduce your audience and relax” - and in what must be hoped is another of a series of intelligent, warm, and assured plays, it is clear that Maggie is not the only one taking his advice.
Picture credit: M RAZA HUSSAIN
