by Rees Arnott-Davies
Somebody once told me that if you want to give a play a bad review, simply describe what happens in it. King John begins with the promise of a war of sovereignty between England and France, with the French disputing John’s right to the English throne, arguing that his cousin, Arthur, holds a legitimate claim to the crown. Meanwhile, Philip the Bastard is made aware that he is the illegitimate son (hence bastard) of Richard the Lion Heart, after having been knighted, and given the opportunity to fight for John in France. In France, a number of strangely unconvincing noblemen, including the Archduke of Austria, the Dauphin Lewis and King Philip of France convene outside of Angiers with the aim of deciding how to win the crown for Arthur. They are soon met by the English army, led by John, and battle ensues, without any sign of victory for either side. So the kings decide (with the help of an impartial bystander) that perhaps it might be a better idea to resolve everything with a marriage, as was the way back then. So there’s a marriage, making some people happy and some people sad, at which point the Pope’s legate comes along and breaks it to everyone that John’s been a bit sacrilegious and will have to be excommunicated. This unravels everything, causing France to go to war with England all over again, a war in which John is victorious, capturing Arthur with the intention of killing him. I think you get the idea. One of the foremost problems with this production, besides the fact that it seemed a little under-rehearsed, was that it focused on presenting this story of blood loyalties and power-games in the style of Eastenders. The scenes between Queen Eleanor and Constance were bizarrely similar to a shouting match in the Queen Vic. The moments of intrigue and surprise were positively begging to be interrupted by an aerial shot of London and the tune that invariably denotes another cliff-hanger. This is not to say that the production was without merit. Both Alex Bowles and Chloe Sharrocks as King John and Constance gave generally good performances, but as the performance wore on it seemed as if words took longer and longer to come, and when they did they were often stumbled over. Of course I understand that a cast of post-grads and finalists may have more important things to worry about than learning lines, but the general lack of any directorial impulse (it seems characters spent most of their time, when not speaking, standing with passive and aimless looks upon their faces) coupled with the farcically over-directed battle scenes (soundtracks of an indecent amount of grunting) left the audience feeling that perhaps they had stumbled upon a revamped Beyond the Fringe. However, despite Helen McCabe’s portrayal of the royal court as an East-End pub, despite performances that put the amateur in dramatic, despite somewhat rusty stagecraft, despite all these things and more, it may be worth going to see King John, if only because until the RSC performed it in 2006, the last recorded professional performance of King John was in 1944.
