Mother/son duo Lia Williams and Joshua James are the primary promoting level on this fast-paced tackle The Vortex at Chichester Festival Theatre
“I’ve grown up all wrong!”
I’m clearly too simply swayed relating to attempting to avoid Noël Coward. Fresh from returning to Private Lives in opposition to my higher judgement due to Rachael Stirling, I discovered myself reserving in for The Vortex in Chichester due to Lia Williams. Not solely that, there’s the added bonus of seeing her act in opposition to her son Joshua James as mom and son on this manufacturing. Plus Priyanga Burford! And Isabella Laughland, and so forth and so forth.
And while there may be a lot to commend Daniel Raggett’s manufacturing on this comparatively brief run at first of 2023’s Festival, there’s additionally that nagging voice in my head that I’m proper to be eager to see much less Coward, even when I wrestle to withstand the casts. At the time, the queer coding and embrace of ladies’s sexuality resulted in scandalous success however practically a century later, the important drawback stays of how you can make Noël communicate to now.
Raggett inserts modern references hither and thither however taking part in a little bit of David Bowie isn’t sufficient to make it work. Instead, Williams’ resolutely fashionable Florence Lancaster jars horribly with the staging as she roars throughout the stage, you by no means fairly imagine that society would rattling her for a predilection for affairs with sizzling younger males. And James virtually underplays her son Nicky, coming back from Paris with an sudden fiancée and a flaming secret however little impression.
Removing the intervals lends a sure paciness that doesn’t all the time work within the manufacturing’s favour both, there are a number of moments the place you simply want there was time to only breathe slightly and contemplate the shifting dramatic eddies. But regardless of Joanna Scotcher’s fashionable design and a supporting firm stuffed with such expertise, there’s simply an excessive amount of tinkering to let the Coward of all of it really work in the best way it’s presupposed to. My want for Coward variations to be extra daring is clearly a futile one – I simply want to recollect this the following time one will get programmed with an actress I really like.