Review: TWO HALVES OF GUINNESS, Park Theatre

My father, a big fan - most of his generation were - always said that what set Alec Guinness apart from other actors is that he could play any part with complete conviction, each character fully realised. He would cite in evidence his celebrated multi-rolling in the Ealing comedy, Kind Hearts and Coronets, his searing Academy Award winning Colonel Nicholson in the brutal The Bridge on the River Kwai and his double BAFTA success as the spy, George Smiley.

(I might have added Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars, but I didn’t because, like the man himself, I thought it just wasn’t very good, thinking it childish nonsense when I was still a child myself.)

Zeb Soanes goes some of the way to explaining this precious chameleon quality that granted an escape from typecasting given to few in that era, in this splendid one-man show, rounding off its nationwide tour in London.
 

Alec Guinness was on to his third name before he had completed his education, his father unknown to him, his mother a scrounging alcoholic capable of horrendous neglect, even for those harsher times. Not knowing who he was himself, he was attracted to acting as a profession because he could then be lots of other people, and, thereby, escape his own doubts. 

He wrote to John Gielgud - as you do - and received, if not quite an audience, a tip to visit a tutor and some cash to pay for the lessons. It sounds far-fetched (and this was not the only instance of such generosity) but raw talent and charisma often finds a way to open doors that remain closed to those not so blessed.

Initially, my reaction to Soanes was to check the programme as he looked much more like Derek Jacobi than his fellow thespian knight, but the voice is uncanny, sending me in a Proustian rush back to late nights watching interviews on Parkinson, the not quite upper class not quite drawl, found beautifully. His Gielgud was damn near as good too!

We learn of our hero’s war service on a landing craft on Sicily - no picnic that gig - his long, not always happy, marriage to Merula and how the terrifying polio that afflicted his son, Matthew, inspired Nicholson’s famous walk from solitary to meet the camp commander. We also get a ringside seat at his long, sometimes fraught, relationship with David Lean and then his unexpected late fame, and lucrative contract, with George Lucas. There’s spiritual stuff too concerning his conversion to Catholicism in middle-age and the centring that brought to a life always oscillating between stage and screen, popular and highbrow, London and Hollywood.

Little of this is revelatory - he wrote three volumes of autobiography and an authorised biography was published soon after his death with an extensive archive housed at the British Library - but he is of a time when some matters were not raised in public. Soanes alludes to such without forcing speculation to override evidence.

Under Mark Burgess’s sensitive direction, two hours pass in the blink of an eye, as a life that has material for ten more, is distilled into a marvellously entertaining evening. What makes this show stand out from those appealing to similar audiences for similar reasons (many of which are also excellent - this one for example) is that voice, an instrument of unsurpassed beauty if ever there was one. 

Two Halves of Guinness at Park Theatre until 2 May