Review: TWO HALVES OF GUINNESS, Park Theatre

Photo credit: Danny Kaan

Two Halves of Guinness was first seen, in an earlier version, in 2010 and toured for many years. It has now been revived in an updated version and a new production. Zeb Soanes now plays Sir Alec Guinness (and everyone else featured) in Selina Cadell’s inventive and thoughtful production. It’s a gentle ramble through a complicated life, hinting at some of the more troublesome aspects of the central character, but ultimately not revealing much unknown to the theatregoer familiar with Guinness and his career. Despite an initial lurch into brief audience participation, this is mostly a very traditional one-person biographical play, in the worthy tradition of the likes of Roy Dotrice.

Following a broadly chronological trajectory, apart from an initial cameo related to Star Wars, Mark Burgess’ script is lively and strong on character, sketching many of the participants in the broadest of terms as is inevitable when so many of them appear. Cadell makes good use of music and mime, supported in these areas by her regular collaborators Didi Hopkins and Eliza Thompson. It’s good, too, to hear more about Guinness’s troubled mother and absent father, and their influence on his career.

That career was, of course, a remarkable one and provides good material for playwright and actor. All the main roles are covered, including the ten months in Gielgud’s Hamlet after which Guinness was never unemployed again (except during the War). His military career is covered well too. It’s a very conventional biographical play, no bad thing in itself, but it does seem at times like an echo from a theatrical past. The famous roles are less clear in the later years and disappearing behind a screen or curtain to change character starts to seem unhelpful.

Some fascinating asides about the parts that Guinness turned down, like Waiting for Godot and Death in Venice, raise thoughts about the play that might have been, with an actor portraying Guinness in those roles. The play ends with the triumph of Smiley (once the correct spectacles have been found) and the detested (but very lucrative) Star Wars.

Set and costume (Lee Newby) are inevitably simple and often effective, although the often-used dressing gown does not convince as belonging to its owner. The decision to begin in full evening dress, accepting an Oscar, makes the later costume suggestions seem slightly incomplete.

Zeb Soanes makes clear in the programme that he is a Guinness devotee, and has been from an early age. He is more than up to the necessary mimicry when portraying John Gielgud, Edith Evans or Laurence Olivier, although it seems a little over the top to list all these characters in the programme. His portrayal of Guinness is suitably tentative and nicely differentiates between the private man and the roles played by the public actor.

The play has toured a few venues earlier this year and is likely to prove a popular booking for venues where audiences are of an age to remember Guinness. It’s an amusing and considered production which will remind many older theatregoers of the enigma and great actor that was Sir Alec Guinness.

**** Four stars

Reviewed by: Chris Abbott

Two Halves of Guinness plays at London’s Park Theatre until 2 May, with further info here.