
York Press - A Man for All Seasons Review
June 12, 2008Review: A Man For All Seasons, York Theatre Royal, until June 28
By Charles Hutchinson
A MAN For All Seasons is a play for all seasons.
First staged in the white heat of political turmoil in 1960, and set in Tudor times, Robert Bolt’s durable drama resonates as fiercely as ever as he mulls over integrity, the abuse of power and that increasingly outmoded commodity, personal responsibility.
In our era of slippery-eel politics, where the late Robin Cook’s principled resignation was such a rarity, the clash of pragmatism versus moral conscience and state versus individual is writ large in the rise of Henry VIII’s spin doctor, Thomas Cromwell, and the fall of his Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, scholar, lawyer, philosopher, devout family man, and politician of unbending principle. From the play’s start, More foretells the trouble brewing from Cromwell’s new brand of political expediency.
Theatre Royal audiences brought up on David Leonard as the pantomime villain - despite myriad lead roles out of the panto season - will see him taking on the complexities of More with gravitas and not a little humour in each 75-minute half of Paul Shelley’s clear and precise, witty and wise production.
Less is More for Leonard in his role as the “King’s good servant, but God’s first”. The Donald Sinden vowels of winter discontent make way for still beautiful diction, as weighty and considered in tone as in intelligence. He moves with composure and dignity, and only once does his comic timing fall back on his familiar panto delivery, and why not: Bolt’s More has a withering wit.
Nigel Hook’s ascetic, deep set, with its central stairwell, two levels, stone floors, flint backdrop and clusters of poles, is the heavy bones.
The flesh, the nourishment, lies in Bolt’s words, at once contemporary yet steeped in history too, and after the expositions of the first half, the discourse crackles, especially when Mark Frost’s ruthless Cromwell is doing the dirty work for the self-serving King (Damien Matthews).
Penelope Beaumont’s Alice More and Jessica Manley’s Margaret More, contribute potent support, while Paul Trussell’s geezer of a Common Man is a jack of all trades: audience warm-up act, scenery mover, notebook-carrying reporter and ever-changing player, whose journey concludes with the executioner’s hood upon his reluctant head.
Tim Daish’s Rich, meanwhile, is the political character of our times, forever compromising, with no moral compass, happy to lie and sell himself to climb the greasy pole.
Box office: 01904 623568.