Beryl Cook was a British artist best known for her original and instantly recognisable paintings. Often comical, they pictured people she encountered in everyday situations such as hen nights, drag shows, or a family picnic. She had no formal training, not taking up painting until she was in her thirties, and, as this one-person play demonstrates, she was a very private person, the opposite of the flamboyant and extrovert characters her art usually showed. Influenced by Stanley Spencer and Edward Burra, her “naive” work always included bulky figures and bold primary colours.
Kara Wilson, who has previously devised plays on other artists, including a documentary on John Rennie McIntosh, has struck gold with this particular piece of theatre. Looking the epitome of Beryl Cook, apart from an obviously false wig, and sitting in Cook’s studio, she is supposedly giving a talk to the camera for television in 2005 about her life and work: she disliked being interviewed, so she is the only person “in the room”. At the same time as recounting her life story, she sits before her easel working on a picture which she starts as the play begins and finishes on the very last word. This in itself is quite fascinating and one continually finds oneself being sidetracked from what she is saying because one is looking at her painting! If there is a fault it is that, as her artwork is upstage parallel to the front row of the audience, she does not allow us to see her facial expressions as much as we would like because she is looking at what she is doing while she paints.
Cook always kept her private life “private”, which means there are few revelations, but much humour, in the play. She married the “boy next door” who was a car salesman, and even their sojourn in what was then Southern Rhodesia seems to have been fairly pleasant. “Sun” readers will look in vain for any hint that her life was not a happy one and this means that encountering Wilson’s play is a positive, feel-good experience – and we could all do with more of those!
Even though there is little movement during the play’s sixty minutes, the time flies by whilst the painting is gradually completed and is a totally entrancing experience. Juliette Demoulin’s set is as much like Cook’s studio as is possible, including many paintings with their fronts hidden, pairs of shoes on display – she loved shoes in her pictures we are told – and various paints laid out in front of her. Wilson is absolutely “at home” here and we feel as if we are really at a “Private View”, even though she tells us that she hated them, because they were never ‘private’! Simple yet effective lighting and sound design are by Venus Raven and Edward Lewis respectively, and Kara Wilson finishes the evening by a brief question and answer session, which does not really add anything: the play is complete in itself.
An uplifting evening – recommended!
Review by John Groves
Beryl Cook’s joyful and exuberant paintings are known and loved throughout the world, but little is known of the very private person behind them.
Instantly recognisable, her paintings depict characters that are fun-loving, uninhibited and larger than life. But in real life, the artist’s own personality was very different.
In a stunning coup de théâtre, Beryl Cook: A Private View offers a rare glimpse into Beryl’s private thoughts as she completes one of her bold and playful oil paintings live on stage.
BERYL COOK: A PRIVATE VIEW
Written, performed and painted by Kara Wilson
Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Road, London SW10 9ED
Tuesday 1 October to Saturday 26 October 2024
