2007: Talking Heads by Alan Bennett

Talking Heads by Alan Bennett: Her Big Chance performed by Sigrid Thornton and Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet performed by Brenda Blethyn.  Directed by Braham Murray at Canberra Theatre, November 6-7.

Thornton and Blethyn deservedly attracted an almost full house in the big theatre on opening night.  For me the most exciting aspect of the evening was watching these actors live on stage, after having seen them so much on film and television.  Making these intimate 40 minute monologues communicate successfully across a large auditorium was hard work indeed, a challenge which both performers met more than admirably.

From the 1987 BBC TV Talking Heads 1 series, the bit-part but oh so professional actress, Lesley, is I think more difficult to play today than Miss Fozzard from the 1998 Talking Heads 2 series.  Bennett was less forgiving, much less empathetic towards Lesley than Miss Fozzard, and I guess that the decade between writing these characters was a period of developing greater psychological insight and skill at integrating the dark and the comic line by line.  The effect was that Her Big Chance seemed more dated, especially from a woman’s perspective, while Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet remained more universal despite the character belonging to the kind of old-fashioned British suburban culture which I can remember from my childhood there 60 years ago.

It was therefore a good decision to have Thornton play the first half, for which she received applause fully appreciative of her skill in bit by bit revealing the unwillingness of Lesley to recognise her limitations, or how she was actually being used by a sleazy team to make a soft-porn film in contrast to her image of herself as a proper actor.  Thornton, of course, had to create Lesley, Lesley’s idea of the character Travis she plays in the film, and all the members of the film crew from the German director Gunther to the dogsbody roadie Scott, telling a story that possibly is all a lie, maybe entirely Lesley’s fantasy.  There were laughs, but often Lesley’s shallow understanding made us laugh at her, putting her down rather than creating empathy for a sad soul.

In the second half, Blethyn’s Miss Fozzard was a laugh a minute, but we recognised her failings and appreciated that we, like her, often miss the point, don’t quite realise what’s really going on around us.  And so we felt quite uplifted as Miss Fozzard, in a weird way, does find her feet in her relationship with a kinky chiropodist.  This gave us an ending to the evening which was greeted with huge enthusiasm, with both performers, united on stage, receiving several curtain calls, followed by a long queue in the foyer for them to sign programs.  This was excellent celebratory theatre.

© Frank McKone, Canberra