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Witty elegy to lost world of cuttings
ALPHABETICAL ORDER
Hampstead Theatre
SOME revivals have an uncanny sense of timing.
When Michael Frayn’s comedy about the chaotic circumstances of a provincial newspaper cuttings library premiered at the Hampstead Theatre in 1975, computers took up whole rooms and the internet was a Behemoth as yet unwoken; today, Christopher Luscombe’s production of Alphabetical Order coincides with massive staff cuts, regional closures and spiralling debts at newspaper offices across the
world.
As for the cuttings libraries, history has all but forgotten them now, and there is an elegiac tone in Frayn’s writing, sentimental before the first whiff of closures, which suggests these dens of obscurely titled folders and news scraps were always an outdated concept, even before there was another way of doing things.
Away from the incessant chatter of the newsroom typewriters, the cuttings room is a magnet for costive reporters and idle gossip, a cave of teetering paper mountains overseen by the skittish librarian, Lucy (Imogen Stubbs, either acting her skittish socks off or suffering press night nerves).
Sections on white bread and nuclear power are to the left, trade unions and enzymes on the right.
“There’s nothing like it anywhere in the world,” Geoffrey, the paper’s ageing messenger declares with pride.
“There was,” a journalist shoots back. “But it died in captivity.”
Not every one is similarly enamoured with the system.
The library’s new assistant, Lesley (Chloe Newsome), wants order: the second act rises on a cleaned and organised office – complete with cleaned and organised journalists – to whoops from the audience.
Much like newspaper print deadlines, it is not always clear whether this production is going to come together or not.
Strong performances from Jonathan Guy Lewis as the distracted leader writer and Michael Garner as the tragi-comic Wally help keep things on course. Special mention should also go to Penelope Beaumont, stepping in for Annette Badland at the last moment to play the saccharine features editor Nora.
The narrative, in newspaper speak, is a downpage left-hand, but in the end Alphabetical Order pulls it off by virtue of its tenacity and affectionate wit. Frayn, a former journalist, no doubt based the play in part on his experiences at the Manchester Guardian. Yet the final scene, which I shall not spoil here, may remind viewers of another flagship independent paper closer to home: the Camden New Journal.
Behind every great newspaper, it would seem, there are a lot of tea breaks and waste paper.
Until May 16
020 7722 9301 |
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