The Entertainer
Old Vic, London from 7 March 2007
John Osborne was one of the 20th century’s most celebrated playwrights
and the original ‘angry young man’. Following the success of
Look Back in Anger, he continued to examine the state of the country in The
Entertainer, this time using three generations of a family of entertainers
to symbolise the decline of post-war Britain.
To mark the play’s 50th anniversary, Robert
Lindsay plays struggling
comedian Archie Rice, a music-hall performer in an age when music halls had
all but disappeared. Driven by dreams of stardom and a desperation to equal
his father’s success, Archie finds himself a man out of his time – a
selfish, deceitful has-been, headlining a tacky revue in a rundown seaside
town. Family tensions rise to the boil as he shamelessly cheats on his wife
and tricks his dying father into financing one last revue. But throughout
it al, Archie jigs and jabbers before his ever-diminishing audience and does
whatever it takes to keep the show going.
Audience's reviews:
Osbornes' play has stood the test of time not only as a
vehicle for a leading man in the role of Archie Rice, (Robert Lindsay is
brilliant as the jaded vaudevillian), but also as a commentary on a changing
Britain where room has to be made for the migrants and people are no longer
in love with a PM who has sent our boys to the Middle East. Plenty of laughs
and pathos provided by Lindsay and cast with a standout performance by John
Normington as Archie's father. A full nights entertainment! 
David
Lloyd (30) London
