Roots/Look Back in Anger, Almeida Theatre, stage review: ‘Extremes are the rule of the day’
Morfydd Clark (centre) shines in Roots. Photograph: Marc Brenner
Double trouble indeed.
Staging two different plays with the same cast on alternating days is quite the gift for an actor. But what about the audience?
The end of the 1950s in England was a time of great political and personal upheaval: post-war, nuclear threat, bankrupt state and tattered status quo.
Enter the “angry youngs”, a generation of playwrights/writers who gave voice to the ignored, irked, working class, sidelined and forgotten.
John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger rocked theatreland in 1956, and Arnold Wesker’s Roots followed in 1959.
Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey sat between them in 1958, but is sadly missing from this double revival.
Nevertheless, the two aforementioned plays offer authentically gritty tales that upended the idea of a gentle night at the theatre. They were challenging, shocking and revolutionising in the process. The kitchen-sink drama was born!
The plays sit well together, although tickets must be bought separately of course, because… capitalism.
Thematically, they balance on either side of a seesaw.
A male antagonist thrashes against urban domesticity in Look Back in Anger and a female protagonist fights rural psychological syrup in Roots.
Naomi Dawson’s red circle of a set – almost gladitorial – spins slowly for both.
But wait, you’re not talking about the glittering stars! Enough of the history lesson and background muck. Let’s get to the lady who plays everyone’s favourite angry blonde elf in Lord of the Rings spin-off Rings of Power: Morfydd Clark.
Here, Clark plays Beatie Bryant as she returns to her roots (so on the nose throughout that it might end up disjointed) in preparation for her new London boyfriend’s arrival.
She parrots his political beliefs to her relations, marvellously conjuring up memories of family dinners for many of us.
Billy Howle takes the lead in Look Back in Anger. Photograph: Marc Brenner
Some nice ensemble work comes from Eliot Salt as Beatie’s sweet sister, Jenny, as well as Sophie Stanton as their underestimated mother and Deka Walmsley as the grouchy father.
Billy Howle is brother Bryant in a smaller but still eye-catching role.
Despite comically realistic and repetitive dialogue from Wesker, circles of family conversation, the end can be seen coming from a good country mile away.
The character of Beatie never quite breaks our hearts as much as everyone is hoping she will.
While Roots aims for a slow build of resentment at perceived working-class “backwardness”, Look Back in Anger is a howl of unadulterated rage.
Howle (see what I did there) is in the leading role this time as Jimmy, who blisters, barks, and bites at everyone.
Ellora Torchia, who has a small part in Roots, is crushable yet graceful as Jimmy’s much-lambasted wife, Alison.
Iwan Davies snatches a larger role as lodger and unpaid couple’s counsellor, Cliff.
Clark comes in swinging with a fantastic 180-degree turn as Alison’s rich actor friend, Helena, who arrives and unsettles an already chaotic coop.
Walmsley, who again plays a father, this time Alison’s, goes from grumbling about the electricity meter in rural Norfolk to an ex-army general lamenting the end of the British Raj.
The acting chops on show is one of the double’s best features, with the cast almost winking at the audience in a look-what-I-can-do sort of way.
Howle, as Jimmy, has some of the best written and most venomous rants ever seen in theatre. He never falters, spitting and frothing with admirable tenacity, as he rails against everything from the class divide to the loud turning of the Sunday papers.
The sexism explored in both plays is chilling to witness, especially in Look Back in Anger, as Jimmy’s venom is met mainly by silence from both women as they iron his shirts.
Both are undeniably important works that irrevocably changed the British theatrescape, but I still question the exclusion of A Taste of Honey, which could have given a female perspective and broken the heterosexual monopoly. If two, why not three? You can never please a critic.
Directors Diyan Zora (Roots) and Atri Banerjee (Look Back in Anger) have tried to revitalise these plays for the modern audience. Extremes are the rule of the day so, if you’re brave enough, treat yourself to both on a wet Saturday.
Just don’t hold me accountable if you shed a salty tear on the way to the station or break into a rant on moral disintegration when someone steps on your toe.
Roots and Look Back in Anger run until 30 November at Almeida Theatre.