Theatre is not all one thing....

One of the shortest interviews in Richard Eyre's book of them (Talking Theatre, Interviews with Theatre People) is with Cameron Mackintosh, the extraordinary entrepreneurial producer of shows like Les Mis, Phantom, Miss Saigon and more.

In this interview there's no talk of Brecht, or Beckett, or Joan Littlewood - people who dominate the questions in many of the other interviews. Here the name of Andrew Lloyd Webber isn't temporarily forgotten by the interviewee (as it is in the preceding interview with John McGrath); in this interview, of course, it's celebrated.

There's one brief question and answer I'd like to quote - it comes from page 278 of the book.

Eyre: Do you accept some sort of hierarchy of art by whichpeople talk about operetta as sort of second-rate are and, as it were, Verdi and Mozart as first-rate art?

Mackintosh: I always thought the best defence of that was a wonderful critic in the Sunday Times called Harold Hobson, who wrote about a Ray Cooney farce saying: 'This is on an equal part with Hamlet.' Because, you know, whatever the art is, as long as it is absolutley of the best and true to what it is trying to do, then it is a marvellous piece of work. To me, there is absolutely no difference.

Through the rest of the book we've had the 'intellectual' theatre people saying some wonderful things, but also seemingly focused on political, physical, metaphysical, out on the edge theatre. Mackintosh is quite refreshing. Pity there's no more of him in the book!

Great Expectations

I watched David Lean's version of Great Expectations on DVD, last night. The DVD presented the film in an excellent condition, and it was a joy to watch.

Lean's film is one of his earliest, and all the better for it. (From Lawrence of Arabia onwards, his films became long-winded and had the filmic version of verbosity. I talk about it in this article.)
It tells Dickens' wonderful story with economy, but doesn't stint on details (although one surprising omission is the murder of Mrs Jo (Gargery); in the film she just dies rather suddenly.)

And the photography is wonderful, atmospheric and equally detailed. The cast are top-notch, and John Mills, who ages from around 18 to his late twenties was actually 38 at the time it was filmed. I'd never have guessed it. Jean Simmons is superb as the man-hating Estella; unfortunately, even though Simmons could have played the older version of Estella with ease, the 'adult' role is given to Valerie Hobson, who's rather lacklustre by comparison.

Hobson apart, the rest of the cast has that wonderful Dickensian feeling about them that only the British can portray.

I reckon it's more than fifty years since I last saw this movie; and it's stood up to the test of time easily. In fact, it's been voted as one of the top ten films of all time on some list.

That's Simmons with Martita Hunt in the picture on the top right: as you can see, even at 17 she was mature enough to play an adult. 32-year-old Alec Guinness plays Herbert Pocket in the other photo: he was also supposed to be a teenager at this point.