Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Literary juggler

<strong>Afterlife</strong><br /> <em>Lyttelton</em> <strong>Dickens Unplugged<br /> </strong><em>Comedy</em>

issue 21 June 2008

Afterlife
Lyttelton

Dickens Unplugged

Comedy

Afterlife is pH-neutral. It doesn’t enhance Michael Frayn’s reputation and doesn’t damage it either. Max Reinhardt was one of the great theatrical magicians of the 20th century and it’s easy to see what drew Frayn and his long-standing collaborator, the director Michael Blakemore, to the challenge of putting his life on stage. The result is a grand, beautiful, finely acted and richly imaginative show. One snag. Frayn shouldn’t have written it. Reinhardt is now almost forgotten so first up you need some plain-speaking nuts-and-bolts data entry. Who is he, where’s he from, what did he do? But Frayn the literary juggler wants to create a multilayered text spilling with intellectual delights so he starts the show opaquely with a play within a play. You get hints about the location (1920s Germany) but you need to refer to the programme notes every minute or two to keep abreast.

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