Joy Watters reviews the Bennett double helping at Pitlochry.
Alan Bennett's double bill treats of two meetings—one real, one imagined—involving two members of the Cambridge Spies. The first, An Englishman Abroad, first seen on TV, tells of actress Coral Browne, on tour to Moscow in 1958, meeting exiled agent Guy Burgess. A Question of Attribution focusses on Anthony Blunt, eminent art historian and Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures. Granted immunity from prosecution for telling all, Blunt is shown being questioned by the security services and by chance encountering the Queen.
Of both chamber works, thoughtfully directed by Richard Baron, the first is a much more engaging piece of work, funny and sad, primarily since Burgess was much more of an extrovert.
Greg Wagland and Basienka Blake excel as Burgess and Browne in this real-life tale. Wagland captures the contradictory nature of the man living in limbo in a seedy flat far from the country he betrayed. He still loves the gossip and trappings of his native land, beseeching the actress for both. Blake beautifully conveys the older woman, turning from soigne to Aussie twang when Burgess becomes particularly annoying.
In the companion piece, Blunt presents as a self-regarding academic rather reserved and removed from reality. A Question of Attribution shows Blunt revealing the existence of another man in one of the Royal Titians, a character that has been hidden, just as Blunt himself was initially unseen in the spy ring.
Much more cerebral than An Englishman, it does not have the same mixture of emotion and intellect, humour and poignancy at which Bennett particularly excels. Dougal Lee captures the insularity and self-regarding nature of the academic, quietly pleased with himself. Lee leavens the piece in his approach as the theme, comparing hidden agent and hidden figure in painting, is rather overstated in the writing. Also the female catalyst in the second play, Basienka Blake is admirably regal and intelligent.
Runs in repertoire at Pitlochry until October
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