Review: THE LINE OF BEAUTY, Almeida Theatre
Johan Persson
The Line of Beauty is nowadays an undergraduate text, a ground-breaking novel about a middle-class gay man willingly swept up in the hedonism of the elite, and this new adaptation makes its debut at the Almeida over a decade after the book was published. Though initially a convivial jaunt into the upper echelons, Jack Holden’s tight script quickly tangles itself up in societal vs real-life politics, against a grisly backdrop of life as a gay man during Thatcherism and the AIDS epidemic.
Holden’s play front-loads with the Wildean waffle an audience might expect from a play about a beauty-obsessed post graduate lodging with an upper class family, but slips soundly into a dark drama about trying (and failing) to find your place in a society that is by nature hostile to outsiders. Nick Guest (Jasper Talbot) takes a room in the Notting Hill townhouse of a uni friend (Leo Suter), and grows close to his family all while trying to facilitate a life of queer debauchery, as a 21-year-old in London rightly wants to enjoy. What unfolds is part melodrama, part haunting cautionary tale about where you lay your allegiance in times of cultural division.
Christopher Oram’s design is strategic and effective. The cast move set into place rather than having the lights raise on the scene: this is a constructed reality that our protagonist is willingly entering into. Adam Cork shines through his sound design, blending orchestral refrains with 80s club classics to remind you how these people live their lives almost time-warped. Beauty - the overt focus of the show - shines through, ornate but cold, in Oram’s set. The action flows seamlessly through a landscape that superficially changes while remaining fundamentally the same.
The cast is populated with bold performances, with Talbot’s sensitive, erudite lead holding his nerve until a powerful moment of emotional breakdown in Act II. Charles Edwards and Claudia Harrison are effortless and scintillating as the wealthy parents hosting Nick, and their ‘difficult’ daughter Cat, played spikily by Ellie Bamber, adds a dissenting voice to the mix, although is perhaps underused in the narrative. The contrast of Nick’s early love interest Leo (Alistair Nwachukwu) is welcome, as he nudges Nick into the warm home of his pious mother (Doreene Blackstock) and shows a different way in which a family can carry on while ignoring the elephant in the room.
The play itself feels a little dated, a little predictable in its descent, but the cast carry it in a way that’s entertainingly decadent. Michael Grandage’s direction slims the play down to its core essentials, highlighting the leanness of Holden’s script that manages to cram a 500-page novel into a 2-and-a-half hour performance with style and sensuality. It’s an indulgence you feel is going to collapse in on itself, the pressure of its social context too much even for the aristocracy to ignore entirely, but it’s an engaging and well-executed journey nonetheless.
Silky smooth with a surprising edge.
**** Four Stars
Reviewed by Oli Burgin
For more information, click here