Review: All's Well That Ends Well at Olivier Theatre

REVIEW

Perhaps the reason we are not more familiar with this black comedy, penned relatively early on by the Bard, is the poorly drawn character of Bertram.

He must, if the plot is to succeed, be sympathetic, yet arrogant and headstrong at the same time.

The audience must be lulled into believeing he might, if the light were at the right angle and the wind blowing in the right direction, actually have captured an intelligent young lady's heart to the extent that he would become her single object of desire.

For Helena, a lady of lowly birth brought up by Bertram's mum the Countess of Rossillion, has, we are told, been smitten by his charms.

So much so in fact that she hatches a plan to have him by curing the King of France's "fistula" with an a remedy of her late father's.

And, delighted, the King agrees to use his influence bring about her match to Bertram.

The story in itself seems pretty clear. But sitting in the National watching the events unfold I confess I was baffled.

I just could not understand how George Rainsford's apparently two-dimensional Bertram could possibly be alluring to anyone, least of all Michelle Terry's much deeper Helena.

The fact the cartoon brat then immediately rushes off to war only reinforced my suspicion that Helen may have been quaffing a bit of her dad's magic potion before casting around for a beloved.

And the idea that after stomping off on a sulky pilgrimage she would then spend a significant amount of time cooking up a plan to win him back with a local girl who had caught his eye was a step too far.

For me, this left a gaping hole in the middle of the production which ultimately let the varied and obvious talents of a strong supporting cast go to waste.

The cast were also let down by the pace of the piece. Where the dialogue was witty the play should have fizzed with rapid exchanges.

But while there were flashes of brilliance, notably from Oliver Ford Davies' King and Conleth Hill's Parolles, these were spaced out by stodgy direction.

Watching it was like waiting for an ageing dinner lady to make it all the way across a cavernous dining room, holding out a plate for her to slop a dollop of fun on and then discovering she's got to go all the way back because she forgot the vat of mushy peas.

I was also confused by the decision to have a series of slow-motion tableaux. If this was supposed to draw the audience into the magical world of All's Well, all it did was put the brakes on further, slowing the drama down to a crawl.

In the end I left the theatre in a state of uncertainty.

I'm simply not sure whether this play is one of those works that every 20 years or so somebody gets out of a dusty cupboard, puts on and then remembers why they put it back away in the first place; or whether this is simply a poor production.

Either way this version is fundamentally flawed.

- Go to the National Theatre website for ticket info

- For a review of The Observer at Cottesloe, National Theatre click here