1991<\/p>\n
Boswell for the Defence
\nby Patrick Edgeworth
\nLeo McKern
\nHer Majesty’s Theatre, January, 1991. <\/p>\n
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n
The story of Mary Bryant nee Broad has been back in prominence lately. Documented in Robert Hughes’ book The Fatal Shore, described by Thomas Keneally in the Playmaker and dramatised in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good, Mary Bryant’s intrepid escape from Sydney Cove to Timor and subsequent return to England is a post-colonial ripping yarn. That the famous James Boswell, biographer of Johnson and journal-keeper ad infinitum, should have taken up her cause gives an added literary dimension to the saga.<\/p>\n
No wonder then that writer Patrick Edgeworth could see further nautical mileage in the story. But instead of writing a two-hander for Boswell and Broad – man of letters and woman of action – he has focused on Boswell alone. Not a bad idea either. James Boswell is the most voluminously documented human being of the entire 18th Century. Even as recently as the 1940’s barrowloads of his papers were still turning up in haybarns at Malahide Castle, the home of his descendents, near Dublin. Apart from immortalising Johnson, Reynolds and Goldsmith, Boswell was also an inveterate writer about himself. He wrote about his early life, his life in London, what he did on his holidays and what he did in bed. <\/p>\n
With so much source material to choose from it is unfathomable that Patrick Edgeworth could have found so little substance for his monodrama. The portrait of a rake in his declining years is by now a virtual cliche and old codgers grumbling about their prostates have wandered the solo stage often since Roy Dotrice’s Brief Lives and Max Gillies in A Stretch of the Imagination. One has a sense with Boswell For the Defence of a melange of anecdotes and reveries which the writer hopes the actor will ignite and the audience will make meaning of.<\/p>\n
The play is undoubtedly a vehicle for Leo McKern who whether in Man For All Seasons, Monsignor Quixote or as the redoubtable Horace Rumpole, is an irresistible character actor. But there are problems for the performance when his Rumpole identity is so frequently pressed into action for Boswell. The fulminations against stuffy, repressed judges, the fanciful versifying and love of plonk that are the hallmarks of the Mortimer character are transferred wholesale to the present work. Bospole For the Defence would probably be a better title. <\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Leo McKern is an engaging actor bringing his best to a text which gives him only fleeting opportunity for any focus and intensity of meaning. The first half introduces the writer in digs which are perhaps unnecessarily grungy in Kristian Fredrikson’s rumpled set- Boswell wasn’t quite that Grubb Street, this room looked like Chatterton had just died in it. His journals also indicate he was fastidious about his collars and wigs whereas in matters of hygiene Edgeworth prefers to model him on Harold Steptoe’s father. In Act One Boswell shows us his franger and ruminates on his buried life, his faithless marriage and failing health . It is, perhaps, difficult to imagine that he died at fifty five when McKern looks so robust at seventy-one. His putative subject, Mary Broad, is the occasion for some contrived asides but nothing of substance till after interval.<\/p>\n
As far as I know James Boswell didn’t write for The Rambler but his inability to keep on any subject of interest in Edgeworth’s version might suggest otherwise. The encounter with Lord Dundas, rival from Boswell’s youth, is amusingly told even if windy in comparison with those inevitable Rumpole clashes with the Beak. But, tellingly, it is only when Boswell describes the extraordinary exploits of Mary Broad and her ill-fated family that McKern, the script and the audience really form any kind of dramatic conjunction. Director Frank Hauser also recognises that if the play is going to hit any revs this is the point. Leo McKern’s delivery is compelling -which is just as well because from there it is a fast slide to a graceless exit. <\/p>\n
Boswell For the Defence has already found admiring audiences and anyone with a fondness for Leo McKern’s mock-imperious comedy will enjoy moments of it here. But he is an actor with talent and vigour to burn. It is a shame that he is stuck in a play that can hardly get out of second gear.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry Tale\u201d The Adelaide Review, February, 1991, p.20. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1991 Boswell for the Defence by Patrick Edgeworth Leo McKern Her Majesty’s Theatre, January, 1991. Reviewed by Murray Bramwell The story of Mary Bryant nee Broad has been back in prominence lately. Documented in Robert Hughes’ book The Fatal Shore, described by Thomas Keneally in the Playmaker and dramatised in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good, Mary Bryant’s intrepid escape from Sydney Cove to Timor and subsequent return to England is a post-colonial ripping yarn. That the famous James Boswell, biographer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,19,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","category-international","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1027,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions\/1027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}