EMLYN Williams was an actor and dramatist who died in 1987 at the age of 81. He was a great favourite in his time, and my mother was among his many avid fans. He had a 35 year marriage, and was actively bisexual throughout his life.
He wrote 15 plays and performed in more than 40 plays and films. He was a star of his day. These days, as homosexuality, bisexuality and all other sorts of sexualities are increasingly accepted, theatre directors are searching the archives for works that covertly celebrated what were then criminal activities. In 2011, director Blanche McIntyre rediscovered Williams’ 1950 play Accolade, and mounted a production at the Finborough Theatre in London, starring Aiden Gillett and Saskia Wickham. It was well received, and praised for its insight into a hidden world, described as “a coded account of bisexual promiscuity” by Michael Billington in The Guardian.
Now it is out on a five-venue tour again, at Bath this week and ending at Richmond next. Sean Mathias, another Welshman, an actor and often brilliant director, has reworked the play, performed in an elaborate Julie Godfrey designed set, which has all the bells and whistles, all the smoke and mirrors – and must be a challenge to re-constitute for every new venue.
Although I was sort of brought up with Emlyn Williams, I had never heard of this one until it appeared in the Bath programme, and was fascinated to see it. But, even after many hours since the curtain came down (or rather, was whispily drawn across by the youngest character), I have no idea why it has been revived and can well understand why it languished for 60 years almost never performed. It’s not because of the subject matter, and from Mathias’s production I cannot begin to see that coded account of bisexuality – but then you can find anything if you want to, and try hard enough … look at conspiracy theories.
It is the story of Will Trenting (originally known as Bill Trent) an East Ender writer, praised for the gritty realism of his stories. He has a happy marriage, a teenage son, a house in Regents Park, a Nobel Prize for Literature and a successful career. He gets the letter announcing his knighthood – just after he has been slumming back East. He has always revelled in living the stories he writes, has a coterie of friends from the pubs of Rotherhithe and a taste for orgiastic parties. On this occasion, he ended up with a girl who looked at least 24 in her high heels, lipstick and fur … but was only 14. Her father is turning the screws.
The public, all ready to cheer the newly-dubbed Sir William, turns into a baying mob when they read about him in the tabloid press. This, I think, is supposed to make us gasp at the fact that the impact of social media and lurid headlines is really nothing new. It was Shakespeare who wrote: “What great ones do, the less will prattle of” – back in 1601.
Honeysuckle Weeks is the shining star of this production. Her brittle delivery and sensuous tension is perfectly suited to the period, and we know from Foyles War how her oddly flat but beautiful voice can convey a million emotions without any actor-ly emoting. She is Rona Trenting, a society girl who first met her bit of rough when he was at it with two women and asked her to join in. She knows what he is like, and accepts it … is even turned on by it. But when it threatens their life, and their child, she knows it’s time to run to ground (with Will).
TV star Ayden Callaghan’s Will Trenting is completely lacking in charisma. He never convinces, and even his haircut shouts inauthenticity.
The versatile Sara Crowe is underused (by the script) as Rona’s friend Marian, Gavin Fowler and especially Sarah Twomey have a great and (presumably directed) vastly caricatured time as East Enders Harold and Phyllis, David Phelan is the nicely underplayed Thane (who might have hinted at a secret life, but didn’t), Jamie Hogarth is Will’s butler-driver-secretary (another rather under-written part) and young Lewis Holland is the self obsessed son, Ian. Narinder Samra gives a memorably peculiar performance as the defiled girl’s father. No thought is given to her at all. Perhaps it’s all supposed to be about male entitlement in the 1950s?
GP-W
Photographs by Jack Merriman