LondonTheatre1

London Theatre: Tickets Reviews | News | West End | Off-West End | UK Touring Productions

View All Shows Booking Now
  • Home
  • Top Selling Shows
    • Musicals
    • Plays
      • A Christmas Carol
      • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
      • The Mousetrap
      • The Woman in Black
      • Witness for the Prosecution
    • & Juliet
    • Back To The Future
    • Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club
    • Come From Away
    • Dirty Dancing
    • Frozen The Musical
    • Heathers
    • Jersey Boys
    • Les Misérables
    • Mamma Mia
    • Matilda the Musical
    • My Fair Lady
    • Moulin Rouge
    • Only Fools and Horses
    • Pretty Woman the Musical
    • The Book of Mormon
    • The Drifters Girl
    • The Lion King
    • The Phantom of the Opera
    • Tina the Musical
    • Wicked
    • London Theatres
      • Seating Plans
      • Adelphi Theatre
      • Ambassadors Theatre
      • Apollo Theatre
      • Duke of York’s Theatre
      • Fortune Theatre
      • Gillian Lynne Theatre
      • Harold Pinter Theatre
      • Lyceum Theatre
      • New Wimbledon Theatre
      • New Wimbledon Theatre Studio
      • Piccadilly Theatre
      • Richmond Theatre
      • Savoy Theatre
      • Trafalgar Theatre
  • News
    • Interviews
  • Reviews
  • UK Shows
    • Alexandra Theatre
    • Aylesbury Waterside Theatre
    • Brighton Theatre Royal
    • Bristol Hippodrome
      • Bristol Theatre Seating Plan
    • Edinburgh Playhouse
    • Glasgow Theatre Royal
    • Grand Opera House York
    • King’s Theatre Glasgow
    • Kit Kat Club London
    • Leas Cliff Hall
    • Liverpool Empire
    • Manchester Opera House
    • Manchester Palace Theatre
    • Milton Keynes Theatre
    • New Theatre Oxford
    • New Victoria Theatre Woking
    • New Wimbledon Theatre
    • New Wimbledon Theatre Studio
    • Princess Theatre Torquay
    • Regent Theatre Stoke
    • Rhoda McGaw Theatre
    • Richmond Theatre
    • Stockton Globe
    • Sunderland Empire
    • Swansea Arena
    • Victoria Hall Hanley Stoke
  • Dancewear
  • Newsletter
Home » Reviews » Review of The Entertainer – Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company

Review of The Entertainer – Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company

September 4, 2016 Last updated: April 9, 2021 11:46 pm By Paddy Briggs

Kenneth Branagh in The Entertainer at the Garrick Theatre
Kenneth Branagh in The Entertainer – Photo by Johan Persson

The Entertainer brings to an end the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company’s inaugural season at the Garrick. The seven plays have been varied and challenging and there were no easy hits amongst them. The casting was generally excellent with a few unusual calls (the 77-year- old Derek Jacobi as Mercutio for example). I missed The Winter’s Tale (tickets like gold dust) but saw and enjoyed the rest. To finish with The Entertainer was a fitting climax not just to the season but to Branagh’s starring role in most of the productions. Laurence Olivier, genius that he was, had something of the “Ham” about him at times and as Archie Rice he clearly relished in the ambiguity of a great actor playing the part of a poor Music Hall player in decline. Branagh, who was excellent as the over-the-hill Actor/Manager Arthur Gosport in Harlequinade, also seemed to enjoy playing the failing Archie Rice. In this season he has twice nailed the difficult task of a fine actor playing a very poor performer – perhaps he’s seen a few in his thirty plus years in the theatre!

The Entertainer is a tough, cynical and angry play. Osborne had become an overnight sensation in 1956 with “Look Back in Anger” in which Porter articulates his despair, helplessness and frustration. Osborne had been irate for a while – like Jimmy Porter he “learnt at an early age what it is to be angry”. A year later he gave the anger more focus in The Entertainer where he used the dying world of the Music Hall as a metaphor for what he saw as a dying England. The play is set in 1956 when not only did Anthony Eden’s government commit the supreme folly of Suez but Britain’s whole governance structure was riddled with lies and evasions. (Osborne was to explode further in 1961 with his “Damn you England” letter and in 1962 Dean Acheson more politely worried that “Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role”). It may be sixty years on from Suez and from that time when Archie Rice says “Don’t clap too loud, we’re all in a very old building” – and that building may have been spruced up a bit. But does that make The Entertainer only of retrospective historical interest? Not at all!! Kenneth Branagh says in the programme of this new production that the play “…illuminates our current political and social climate with shocking immediacy”. When he planned to conclude his season at the Garrick with The Entertainer Branagh couldn’t have known that 2016 would see Britain plunged into as fragile a state as Suez had done sixty years earlier.

As in 1956, there are today voices of protest, but they are often deluded and regularly patronised and dismissed. In the play, Archie’s daughter Jean explains her youthful political activism by saying “…somehow – with a whole lot of other people, strange as it may seem – I managed to get steamed up about the way things were going”. Echoes here of the passionate but naïve Corbynistas who in 2016, like Jean in 1956, have just discovered politics and think that they can change the world. In the play, this delusion is countered by her father’s cynicism and her grandfather’s nostalgic conservatism. Kenneth Tynan called Archie Rice as being “…one of the great acting parts of our age” but after Olivier few top actors have actually tackled it. The best of a small number of productions was perhaps that in 1974 when, as today and as in 1956, Britain was at a low ebb. Max Wall’s Archie was obviously quite different from Olivier’s. Here was not a clown played by a great actor but a clown acted by a great clown. With Branagh we are back to the Olivier model and he gives a faultless and at times deeply moving performance. He does not seek our sympathy for his plight for one moment – indeed he has open contempt for himself. Olivier was 50 when he played Archie Rice; Branagh is a few years older. The mid-life crisis years for actors of their stature may be difficult (Arthur Gosport is about the same age and is still playing Romeo!) and if you’ve been a great Shakespearean and also created Wallander (in its British version) with equal skill then the challenge of Archie Rice beckons.

The Entertainer puzzled its American audiences when Olivier took it there in 1958 (although it was a sell-out). It is a particularly British play, not least the heavy sarcasm and self-mockery (bordering on self-loathing) – and the despair. Branagh’s production portrays this well to the extent that the tragedy of Archie’s son’s death at Suez seems almost commonplace. Only when Archie bitterly rants at all of the members of his family – especially his long-suffering wife Phoebe superbly played by Greta Scacchi – do we see how deep-seated his depression is. And when he sings “The Blues” – the high spot for many of Olivier’s performance – Branagh reaches heights that surely match his great predecessor. For me the swift interplay of the Music Hall and the home works well – Archie never quite takes off the greasepaint and performs whether he’s actually on a stage or not. This is a great play by the playwright who more than any other kicked the theatre into the uncomfortable realities of late twentieth century Britain. And there is a performance by Kenneth Branagh not to be missed.

4 stars

Review by Paddy Briggs

Set against the backdrop of post-war Britain, John Osborneʼs modern classic conjures the seedy glamour of the old music halls for an examination of public masks and private torment.

The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company, in partnership with Picturehouse Entertainment, are broadcasting three productions of the season live to cinemas worldwide. The Winter’s Tale was streamed live on 26 November 2015 and was followed by Romeo and Juliet on 7 July (encore screenings will take place throughout summer 2016). The final Branagh Theatre Live cinema broadcast will be The Entertainer on 27 October 2016.

The Entertainer
20th August 2016 – 12th November 2016
Press performance: 30 August 7pm
Captioned Performance: 6 September 7.30pm
Audio Described Performance: 13 September 7.30pm
Performances Monday – Saturday with 2.30pm matinee performances on Wednesdays and Saturdays excluding 20 August.

Tagged With: GarrickTheatre

Search for Tickets

Tori Scott: Tori with an “I” at Crazy Coqs

Tori Scott needs to tell baristas in the sort of coffee shops that write customer names on paper cups in marker pen that it’s Tori With An ‘I’. While … [Read More...]

Home at the Vault Festival | Review

A child plays with an orange, and the old man works himself into the ground. Playful, rough, intimate and touchingly funny, Home is a piece that will … [Read More...]

My Son’s a Queer, (But what can you do?)

I don’t think I ever come across so many video clips of past performances in a single-performer show since seeing Barry Humphries’ The Man Behind the … [Read More...]

SMOKE by Kim Davies at Southwark Playhouse

Like most people, I think, I often have mixed feelings about a show I see. Occasionally, though it is rare, there will be a production where … [Read More...]

Wodehouse in Wonderland at Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Guildford

The well-known actor Robert Daws has worked with writer William Humble many times and in 2017 asked him if he would be interested in writing a one-man … [Read More...]

London Theatre 1 and London Theatre One are Registered Trademarks Copyright 2023 www.LondonTheatre1.com
By using our website you’re confirming that you’re happy to accept our use of cookies.
Privacy Policy & Cookies - Advertising - About Us - Newsletter - Contact Us

As an Amazon Associate our website receives a commission from qualifying purchases from Amazon.