Endgame review: Daniel Radcliffe is woefully miscast in a mostly dire production of Beckett’s play

Endgame

The Old Vic, London                                               Until March 28, 2hrs 15mins 

Rating:

With his box- office power, Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe could sell pretty much anything. His last outing at this theatre was in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead – a belter of a hit.

This Samuel Beckett double bill is a different story. Radcliffe is miscast – he’s too young, too nice – as Clov, an ill-kempt servant who can’t sit down, slaving for his boss, Hamm (Alan Cumming), who is blind and can’t stand up.

The pair’s bickering co-dependence is interrupted by Hamm’s ancient parents, who have no legs and live in separate dustbins. Karl Johnson is Nagg (a part once played by Charlie Drake, who was tiny enough for a dustbin). 

Daniel Radcliffe is miscast in Beckett's Endgame: he¿s too young, too nice to be Clov (above), an ill-kempt servant slaving for his chair-bound, blind boss, Hamm (Alan Cumming)

Daniel Radcliffe is miscast in Beckett’s Endgame: he’s too young, too nice to be Clov (above), an ill-kempt servant slaving for his chair-bound, blind boss, Hamm (Alan Cumming)

Out of her wheelie-bin pops Nell, marvellously played by a crone-like Jane Horrocks. The pair – seen all too briefly – make for a touching couple, almost Alan Bennett-like in their burrowing, forgetful senility.

At best, Beckett’s minimalism – the set is a grey box – can hit you for six with its poetic force. Or send you into a coma. I felt the latter coming on after Radcliffe’s third hobbling lap around the stage. The poor lad never really looks like anything more than a mildly put-upon waiter with an unconvincing case of rickets.

The pair¿s bickering co-dependence is interrupted by Hamm¿s ancient parents played by Jane Horrocks and Karl Johnson (above) who evoke the most relatable side of Beckett¿s world

The pair’s bickering co-dependence is interrupted by Hamm’s ancient parents played by Jane Horrocks and Karl Johnson (above) who evoke the most relatable side of Beckett’s world

Cumming – as his incontinent, chair-bound persecutor – has prosthetic, sparrow-like legs, grey teeth and a camp, bombastic delivery.

‘Can there be misery loftier than mine?’ he drawls in his yawning despair.

‘Yeah, mine,’ I hissed back as my buttocks numbed. Funny how short plays can often feel the longest.

Alan Cumming's Hamm (above) has a camp, bombastic delivery and overall, this Old Vic double bill is a mostly dire evening

Alan Cumming’s Hamm (above) has a camp, bombastic delivery and overall, this Old Vic double bill is a mostly dire evening

Rough For Theatre II is a warm-up for Endgame. Two bureaucrats (Radcliffe and Cumming) discuss a chap (Jackson Milner) who’s perched on a window sill, poised to jump. The men go through a file of testimonials about him. It’s a very wordy, absurdist skit that feels like padding.

I came out thinking that Endgame’s bin couple – Horrocks and Johnson – almost saved the day. The oldsters evoke the most relatable side of Beckett’s unsparingly cold world, old Nell grasping poignantly at a funny story she can’t remember.

How one wishes she had. This mostly dire evening needs it.

 

Persona

Riverside Studios, London                             Until February 23, 1hr 30mins 

Rating:

The first show after the Riverside’s five-year, £50 million rebuild is a version of Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 film Persona.

Sadly, adaptor/director Paul Schoolman hasn’t found a way to transfer the story of an actress (Alice Krige) who stops speaking, and her complex relationship with a nurse (Nobuhle Mngcwengi) who helps her recuperate, to the stage.

Nobuhle Mngcwengi and Alice Krige (above) star in a muddled stage version of Ingmar Bergman¿s 1966 film Persona. This is the first show at the newly renovated Riverside Studios

Nobuhle Mngcwengi and Alice Krige (above) star in a muddled stage version of Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 film Persona. This is the first show at the newly renovated Riverside Studios 

Moments that might be intense on film fall flat, yet the portentous dialogue verges on the melodramatic. Schoolman plays a narrator, reimagining the movie from a hospital bed, further muddling matters.

The most striking thing is the accompaniment of an enormous earth harp, whose strings stretch over the audience’s heads. 

It sounds like something between a synthesizer and an organ – a suitably indefinable, unnerving match for this strange play, but not enough to save it.

Holly Williams 

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