Missives from Months Lost: The Government Inspector

This was on at the Young Vic in June, and to be honest, I haven't thought about it much since, so I can't imagine typing up my original scribblings will be much surprise.

A Study in Deference
'in defence of deference'

Typified by its unwillingness to probe or question its (undeniable) stars. Julian Barratt, poor man, who looked desperate to be given something other to do than lope around stage and pump his fingers into his palm whilst trying to get his lines out as quickly as possible without forgetting them, is a wonderful actor wasted. It felt like he came to this looking for a challenge and a chance to explore a more body-ful way of performing not used in the facical tics and wonderful timing of his TV work - and was instead greeted with a cynical campagin on the YV's part to sell, at all costs, this show as 'The Mighty Boosh''s Julian Barratt. Just likethe poster.

(The audience was certainly comprised of people in their mid 20s, mostly in suits, who seemed to be waiting for subtle Boosh references and had perhaps been big fans at uni when the show first came out.)

It felt like he'd been directed to be Howard Moon and nothing else. You saw glimpses of him leaping out of that oddly ill-fitting demeanour (go with your instincts, Julian! You're right! Acting for TV isn't what you want to do on stage! Don't listen to or worryn about what the director tells you!) - at the very end a physical and vocal spasm as the realisation of the Mayor's mistake dawns on him. Like a jolt of electrivity had been shot through him, Barratt fitted and convulsed, the words coming out so much easier and truer because he wasn't thinking about them. He was doing.
He doesn't strike me as a prima donna, so it's curious that the direciton showed such deference to him + his career - ultimately suggesting a lack of faith. "Just do what you normally do, Julian" stops being a mark of respect 9even sycophancy) and becomes if unchecked, a tool of fear/ A director scared to push a performer and a performer suddenly scared that s/he can't do anything else. Then the words become terrifying, tangible: like the ghost-train neon INCOGNITO which flitted around the walls of the mayor's home.
Kyle Soller meanwhile had the life of 6 people flowing through his wiry frame. I could not take my eyes off him - neither could the audience nor the rest of the cast.
I ddin't completely understand the mish-mash design either - at once retro then clashingly futuristic, or rahter, very 'nowness', with its cut-and-paste references and mingling of aesthetics which ultimately left it feeling oddly styleless...?

Really, I thought it would be less boring.
And more funny.

It seemed that the mayor's anxiety - so potent in the play - had influenced the rest of the skittish productions; with the exception of the bottle rocket 'Government Inspector' - an enigma in the cast and an enigmatic expception to the other largely strained performances.

Kyle Soller, on the otherhand, was the reason for not leaving at the interval. He was mesmeric, and had the effect of a sports star or a dancer at his or her best, who you simply watched open-jawed with their virtuosity. His energy was the kind that, for two hours, makes you fall completely in love, forgiving everything else around you.