Poliakoff's latest play,the first in over a decade begins when a smartly dressed young man called Richard meets his former primary school headmistress 15 years after leaving the school. The odd thing is that she is lying on a park bench late at night.
It turns out that this dedicated and inspirational teacher – played with a sense of authority, eerie charn and a tadge of menace by Tracey Ullman – hasn’t been reduced to sleeping rough in her retirement. She just likes to spend her nights walking the streets of London and was in need of a rest.she is also in a triangle with 2 former teaching collagues with which she has social outings.There are some key emotional displays which draws the audience in as the story develops
This emerges most movingly through the presence of one of the teachers, Mr Minken, for whom a cherished toy aeroplane evokes memories of his Jewish family's enforced exit from pre-war Vienna. But Minken also becomes an authorial spokesman when he bemoans the lack of grace and style in modern London and suggests equipping schools with 87 closed-circuit cameras and metal detectors is a way of encouraging rather than preventing crime.
As so often in Poiliakoff’s work, there is an edge of mystery. Why does Miss Lambert keep the hours of a vampire and avoid the morning light? Why does she now seem hell bent on telling spooky ghost stories rather than offering the inspiration, information and delight that used to feature in her school assemblies?
As so often in Poiliakoff’s work, there is an edge of mystery. Why does Miss Lambert keep the hours of a vampire and avoid the morning light? Why does she now seem hell bent on telling spooky ghost stories rather than offering the inspiration, information and delight that used to feature in her school assemblies?
Unfortunately, the answers to these questions aren’t nearly as startling as one might have hoped, and nor are the stories told in the course of the play quite as enthralling as one would have wished.There are times when they are lulls which are disappointing and the story has a weird sense of disbelief.
As usual Poliakoff directs his own work, and he has been too indulgent with his somewhat flabby and anti-climactic material.The set design, however, is very evocative, atmospherically conjuring up London by night, Ullman’s star turn as the mesmerisingly enigmatic Miss Lambert is well supported by Sorcha Cusack and the splendidly disconcerting David Troughton as two of her former colleagues, and from Tom Riley and Sian Brooke as their puzzled former pupils.
Nevertheless, by the end a strong feeling of anticlimax hangs over an evening that initially promised to be truly magical. Not one of Almeida's best shows and certainly this latest offering from Poliakoff will disappoint his most dedicated fans.
SC
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