By Cal
Link: https://www.whatacarveup.com
£12 or £16 with goody bag (programme plus a selection of recipes)
Available until: The performance you book becomes available
at 7.30pm on the day of the performance and can be accessed for 48 hours. The
final performance is on 29th November 2020.
Warning: 16+ - features strong language and graphic
descriptions of murder
What a Carve Up!
is based on a novel by Jonathan Coe from 1991, though Henry Filloux-Bennett’s
adaption includes scenes set in the present and addresses some of the issues
we’re facing now. I would say What a
Carve Up! is a film rather than a play as it is filmed on location - with
social-distancing, from what I remember (I was too focused on the story to take
note of this properly) though it seems very much a play about the distance
between people, whether that’s physical or emotional or a time distance or
separation due to death. The title might suggest a comedy and it has been
described as a satire, but it didn’t really seem that way to me – though
perhaps it might have done if I was old enough to remember Margaret Thatcher (I
don’t even really remember Tony Blair but I’ve been told that’s probably for
the best) or if I’d seen the comedy film from which the play takes his name.
The political situation of the present seems more a tragedy than anything else
and I can’t really imagine seeing the humour in it.
What a Carve Up! is written in the style of a documentary, with a series of interviews with and statements from the characters in the story. Director Tamara Harvey uses videos, interviews, voice-overs and photographs to bring the characters and the story to life, showing us the story in different ways and from different angles. There is also some excellent and very atmospheric music, composed by Harry Smith, which feels just right for the subject matter.
Although it is about the mystery surrounding a series of
murders, it is not a murder mystery in the conventional sense. There’s no
detective as such. The murders happened thirty years ago. Raymond Owen, the son
of the man who is believed to have committed the murders, does a lot of
research into the background of the murders, but I wouldn’t call him a
detective. More a man going on a very personal journey in search of the truth,
unable to believe his father, Michael, is a murderer. Raymond seems not to
appear in the original novel, or at least not as a major character – which is
understandable as he’s unlikely to be more than a few years old in 1991.
Some of the names of the characters required a bit of
getting used to. The suspected murderer, Michael Owen, shares his name with a
former professional footballer. The fictional Michael is a novelist who wrote
about a character named Jason Rudd. A character with this name appears in
Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d from
Side to Side. But the novel What a
Carve Up! was written in 1991, several years before Michael Owen the
footballer became a professional, and Agatha Christie used so many different
names, even she ended up using the same ones twice. So I don’t think there was
any reason to change these names. (I think other familiar names are entirely
non-coincidental.)
The action moves back and forth in time and sometimes it
literally goes over old ground, with the same sequences being shown more than
once. I would imagine this is done in order to illuminate a particular point,
but either I’m very dense or the acting and direction was good enough for me to
see everything the first time. We see an interview with the one surviving
relative of the family Michael is alleged to have murdered. Raymond has
conversations with other people who were part of Michael’s past. There is also
information from Raymond himself as he shares his current situation and the
difference between what he has been told and what he believes.
If the film is slightly biased in Michael’s favour, that’s
understandable. After all, the story is about the discoveries of Michael’s son
and it would be unrealistic if he explored the past in a detached manner. Also,
the Winshaw family are horrific, to say the least. I’m not saying they deserved
to be murdered as I don’t believe anyone ever deserves that and nothing makes
murder acceptable, but I doubt they’re very much missed. But we also hear of
Michael’s struggles and imperfections. He might or might not be a murderer, but
he’s definitely not a saint.
The Barn Theatre, Lawrence Batley Theatre and New Wolsey
Theatre have put together an all-star cast, known for both stage and screen,
including Stephen Fry, Derek Jacobi, Celia Imrie, Sharon D. Clarke and Griff
Rhys-Jones – some of them in fairly small roles, but their brilliance is
unmistakeable. There are also a lot of names I don’t recognise, but they are
names I hope to see again. (Ideally inside a theatre. Online theatre is
wonderful and something we really need right now and I hope it will continue to
some degree for the people who can’t physically travel to a theatre or can’t
afford it, but those of us who can – audiences and actors - know where we
really want to be.)
Alfred Enoch is very likeable as Raymond, a mentally strong
person who tries to put on his best face for the camera, but it’s clearly an
emotional journey for him. Samuel Barnett appears as Michael in flashbacks,
likeable enough for us to want him not to be the murderer, but dubious enough
for us to understand why everyone thinks he is.
Celia Imrie gives a very touching performance as Joan
Simpson, Michael Owen’s best childhood friend – I love the way she slowly opens
up to Raymond as he gains her trust - and Derek Jacobi is brilliant as the
mysterious Findley Onyx, a private detective from the past who seems to pop up
far too often for it to be a coincidence. Fiona Button’s Josephine
Winshaw-Eaves is rude, elitist, prejudiced, false… exactly the sort of person
you don’t usually see outside social media (the majority of people on social
media are lovely, but I'm sure
we've all encountered at least one idiot). But Josephine has had to grow
up knowing her whole family were murdered. It can’t be the easiest thing to
live with.
Even if you’re not usually interested in crime drama, I’d
say it’s worth giving this a try just for the exceptional cast. They’re
awe-inspiring.
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