“If you're lucky enough to have a friend you grew up with in this way, you believe the arrangement is for life"
The Hampstead Theatre has managed to give further life to a couple of their
Downstairs productions to other theatres, but Di and Viv and Rose marks the
first time that one has been promoted to a full run in their main house. Happy
news for me as I loved the play when I saw it back in 2011, though I was a
little saddened to see that it wasn’t the original cast being brought back with
this three-hander. Tamzin Outhwaite has returned but Claudie Blakley and Nicola
Walker have been replaced by Anna Maxwell Martin and Gina McKee respectively,
in Amelia Bullmore’s wonderfully frank and funny take on friendships.
My review of the original production can be read here, and my review of thisnew version for The Public Reviews from a more objective perspective is here, so
I’ll just limit myself to a bit of a compare and contrast exercise here. By and
large, I loved the play just as much second time around and it probably had a greater
emotional impact due to the knowledge of what was to come in terms of the more
dramatic moments. Bullmore has tweaked the play a little, adding a scene to the
beginning of the second act but it has been seamlessly done and if I hadn’t
have read the programme note about it, I doubt I would have noticed.
Performance-wise, it was interesting to revisit a production that had partially
refreshed its line-up as it simultaneously reminded me of before and made its
case for the new incarnation of these three friends. Outhwaite maintained her
excellent mix of feistiness and vulnerability as the forthright Di, most
affecting as the one who feels the bonds of friendship the strongest with the
accompanying highs and lows. Personally I wasn’t quite as keen on Gina McKee’s
take on the buttoned-up Viv with a somewhat more abrasive side than Nicola
Walker previously portrayed, but I thought Anna Maxwell Martin truly excelled as
Rose.
Claudie Blakley was impressive with a daffily comic interpretation of the
emotionally and sexually open art history student but Maxwell Martin really dug
deeper into the character of Rose to create a more rounded persona, less
overtly funny perhaps but more believable in inspiring the kind of love and
devotion that makes her such an adorable presence. Her ability to mix the funny
and the profound perfectly complements Bullmore’s pitch-perfect writing which
really explores the changing paths that friendships take across our lives with
insight and wit, making Di and Viv and Rose once again one of the hottest
tickets in town.
Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes (with interval)
Booking until 23rd February
1 comment:
The biggest problem with Gina McKee is that she doesn't seem to know where her character is from - wildly inconsistent accent
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