The One I Didn’t Like: Birdsong

I really really enjoy the Sebastian Faulks novel Birdsong — it’s a bit Madame Bovary, a bit Proust, a bit Dickensian. Plus a dollop of doomed disillusioned First World War poets and some D H Lawrence.

Sadly, I just couldn’t get on with the stage adaptation by Rachel Wagstaff currently touring the UK. I love Charlie Russell in Mischief productions and was looking forward to seeing her in a serious acting role.

What went wrong for me? Partly it was the directional signage to the venue. Walking a short distance from Alexandra Palace to Alexandra Palace theatre was miserable. The clear signage to the Palace at the station throws you over a foot bridge out onto a street and then abandons you. There is another another sign on a further bridge — all of which pushes you away from where you want to go. Taxis are also promised at the front of the station- which aren’t there.

Once I’d figured out that I needed to walk away from the sign and go uphill — all was well, until I was on site. Again there was no visible directional signage to the theatre and I blundered all around until I found it — 10 minutes late. Partly the building works are obscuring the big sign on the front of the theatre, but as you walk through the car park to get there, you really need a lot more signs on the way. Especially in the evenings.

But staff were efficient and let me in pretty soon so I didn’t miss too much (though not as nice as the Donmar Warehouse staff) and agreed that signage was abysmal. Having arrived, I found myself really not engaging with the play — no matter how much I tried. I’ve had awful late arrivals before and been able to get into whatever I’m watching before. Partly because the cast rattled around the cavernous stage, although they’d done their best to fill it. Partly because the material itself felt oddly stilted. I’m not sure why this was — the cast were acting with gusto, the play had a pacey flow and had even improved on some of the characterisations and the more cringey bits of the novel’s writing.

The central relationships just didn’t quite gel. Whilst the adopted daughter’s obvious crush on the Englishman convinced, I wasn’t so sure about Isobel and Stephen, the young visitor to her husband’s business from England. (Though they kept telling me that they were, and Max Bowman as Stephen Wraysford bubbled with passion). Nor did Isobel’s horrible husband convince — he blustered and shouted a lot — but there wasn’t much more to him. Again, the other cast members kept telling me how nasty he was — but you never got a sense of that. Isobel’s sister (and her brief visit) did convince — we got a sense of the sisters’ deep affection and shared predicament in having a money grubbing father who was marrying them off like lottery wins. Plus the horror in finding out that your sister is in a coercive and controlling marriage — and trapped — and can’t tell you about it because her beastly husband reads her mail. We also got a deep sense of Isobel’s predicament in trying to make the best of a difficult situation as step-mother to a girl very close to her own age and a husband who treated her like a prize breeding cow. As well as her trying to remain conscious of her position at all times and stifle her growing feelings.

All being said, it got very sexy Noel Coward very quickly. After some more shouting from the husband (who only seemed to be able to converse in eye popping rage decibels), Isobel and her Englishman neatly ran off, hand-in-hand, exiting the stage, leaving everyone else frozen in horror. Cue the audience standing to applaud and cheer: (only we didn’t).

At nearly 3 hours, I couldn’t sit through any more and departed — I just didn’t care enough about any of the characters to see what happened in Act Two. Even though I knew that there was a storm coming. Nor was I certain that the tunnels under the trenches would be effectively rendered in such a stagey vacuum.

It’s rare I really don’t engage with a work — and this was it. Still a puzzle. Actors were acting marvelously and doing their best. There’s some mysterious distracting steam throughout in the background. I did enjoy the strikers appearing breaking the very fixed class barriers of the novel and the world quite literally exploding at the end of Act One. Maybe it’s because Isobel and Stephen don’t really get time together before they’re acting very explicitly indeed. The random older guy in a white suit who talked a lot was a bit distracting to the plot. The costumes and hair were well done and give a great sense of period. There’s dramatic tension, such as a moment where you think Stephen might run off with the older sister instead. Or in my case, hope that you can run off. Part of me also thinks that this play would work better in an intimate smaller theatre space such as the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Alexandra Palace theatre is a fabulous space, but it made this production feel very overshadowed — and not by the presentiments of impending global conflict.

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