20.76°C Take one of our finest actors, with a voice that can add kudos to the phone directory, Anton Lesser, and add equally haunting vocals from Lucis Bonbright. Score the words of Thomas Hardy with beautiful orchestration by David Le Page and the Orchestra of the Swan, and you have a truly magical evening. When I wore a younger man’s clothes, I studied The Return of the Native at A-Level, and devoured all his novels. But the overriding impression I took away from this production at the Mercury Theatre is how beautiful his poetry is. (Much of it written to his first wife after her death, infuriating his new, and much younger second wife, Hardy’s story was a little more complicated than first impressions give!)
The production shimmers with sound and imagination, the readings bringing Hardy’s story to life, along with excerpts from his major works. Diedre Shields’s script takes our hand and leads us through the life and work, and astonishing facts are revealed, not least his burial, his body in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey, and his heart in Dorset. The speaking is beautiful from both performers. Whether illustrating his life or reading from the books, it was very evocative to have characters like Tess, Gabriel Oak, Angel Clare, and Bathsheba Everdene back in my awareness, and to marvel again at their names! You can sense the audience, as I did, basking in the music, with David Le Page’s original works, such as A Beautiful Thread and Hangings, some compositions mixed with traditional music, and excerpts from classic composers, including Holst, whose Air from Brook Green Suite closes the show. Nature was a vital part of Hardy’s writing, and it’s here in the music, you sense the changing of seasons, the blossom, the birds, and the turning of the year.
Beautifully directed by Judy Reeves, it very much felt as though the world outside was switched off as we indulged in traditional work, and the power of words, music, and communication was celebrated. It’s time to dust off those Hardy volumes and recapture the nature and the magic. The outstanding news is that the troupe returns to the Mercury Theatre with Red Sky at Sunrise: Laurie Lee in Words and Music on 12th September. Cider with Rosie, the Spanish Civil War, and more beautiful poetry and text. Do not miss it!
