Review: Edward II After Brecht at LIPA ***1/2

For every monarch that has lived to a great age and died peacefully in their beds, there are others who have come to a more…unexpected end.

William II died in a hunting accident (or was it?), while his brother Henry I was said to have expired due to eating a ‘surfeit of lampreys’ (eels), William III never recovered from a fall when his horse stumbled over a mole hill, George II did an Elvis and collapsed on the loo. And, of course, Charles I lost his head outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall.

None however is quite as eye-watering as the reported fate of Edward II. Because if you know nothing else about the Plantagenet king, you’re probably au fait with the story about the red-hot poker.

Happily (for audience and, especially actor!) the graphic end to Edward’s reign is only described, rather than dramatised, in this new adaptation of Brecht’s 100-year-old version of Marlowe’s Edward II, keenly delivered by LIPA third year acting students.

Imagine Velvet Goldmine meets Joan Littlewood (meets Macbeth) and you have some of the measure of writer and director Will Hammond’s striking production being premiered in LIPA’s Paul McCartney Auditorium.

It’s stylishly staged, with salient scenes and plot moments spelt out in bold text projected on to the drapes and curtain of designer Keshi Raghu’s set.

The mercurial Edward II (Tom Browning) accedes to the throne on the death of his father, and immediately engineers the return of his banished favourite – and lover - Piers Gaveston (Lyud Hristov) to court before throwing himself into conflict with both the Church and English nobles, embarking on several ill-advised wars (including a humiliating defeat at the hands of Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn), and finally losing his throne in a humiliating coup engineered by his own wife.

Followed by you-know-what.

It’s quite the warm-up act for the Wars of the Roses and gives the cast plenty to get its teeth into – particularly the impressive Browning and Hristov who give electric performances as the pair who share both a lust for power, and a lust for each other.

We first meet Hristov’s royal favourite as he saunters provocatively and knowingly into a dysfunctional court, an androgynous Brett Anderson figure, bare-chested in leather trousers and jacket - the pop culture reference underscored (quite literally) by a Suede soundtrack.

Browning (hints of Prince John from Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood) carves an equally distinctive and captivating figure as the petulant man-child Edward, lounging on his throne in nothing but a shaggy coat and white Y-fronts.

Above: Queen Isabella (Cerian Owens). Top: Tom Browning's King Edward II. Photos by Andrew AB Photography.

They have real stage presence and the scenes involving the pair – both the ones teetering on Rocky Horror campness and the beleaguered men's earnest soliloquies, have a riveting, raw energy and a compelling draw that is perhaps lacking in some other parts of the production.

To the rest of the court, the jumped up Gaveston is a destructive influence on a weak monarch, and there’s much subdued, backlit plotting among the nobles to have the upstart deposed and disposed of.

Separately, the astute politico Queen Isabella (Cerian Owens), is plotting with her own lover, the Machiavellian Roger Mortimer (Bartley Burke) to put her young son Prince Edward (Dafydd Leonard) on the throne in his father’s place and to rule as regent.

Isabella and Mortimer’s relationship appears more business-like than grand passion, and the performances feel somewhat muted – certainly in comparison to the sparks flying elsewhere, but also to some odd and disconcertingly overwrought hysteria among the nobles.

And also possibly not helped by some lagging sound issues with head mics on opening night.

Saying that, there’s much to enjoy and appreciate in this modern-day reimagining, not least the talent – and the fearlessness – of its young cast.