BWW Reviews: LIZZIE SIDDAL, Arcola Theatre, November 22 2013

Artists then, eh? Rules unto themselves, egos the size of galleries and fiercely competitive, for all the branding (as we would say today) of the mid-nineteenth century's Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. All men too. And not just men - alpha males, of the kind that Michael Lewis would call "Big Swinging Dicks" in his stories of another testosterone soaked, closed world - Wall Street. Women were allowed entry on condition that they be silent, be beautiful and be in need of the money. Most, inevitably, were also part-time prostitutes from London's seedier back streets and were treated as such by the artists, who would agonise over the representation of a hand or a face, but barely acknowledge the person - a piece of meat to be hired and fired.

Lizzie Siddal was the model who broke the mould. She had a job (albeit as a lowly seamstress), but she could recite poetry and converse on the Classics. And she looked all wrong - willowy with a great mass of red hair, not at all the ideal beauty of the time. This shock of the new emerging woman fascinated the Brotherhood, and floored its most mercurial member. Ultimately, it floored Lizzie too.

Jeremy Green's brilliant new play tells Lizzie's story. No longer is she the model, the muse and the victim, but a fully rounded human being, an artist in her own right, brought spectacularly to life by Emma West. Of course, Ms West has to look right, but this performance is no mere impersonation, for little detail is known of the real Lizzie - this is a reconstruction of what it was to be this exotic, tragic creature in the chaos of that oh so male world. Mr Green had worked previously with Ms West and wrote the part "for her" - and he has been repaid handsomely.

So dazzling was Lizzie and so captivating is Ms West's portrayal that it would be easy for the rest of the cast to disappear from view whenever Lizzie's eyes burn on the stage. They do not. Tom Bateman is magnificent as Dante Gabriel Rossetti evoking all his energy, his falling - nay, crashing - in love with Lizzie, his hideous cruelty. Rarely have I heard an audience gasp repeatedly in disapproval of a character's actions as they did at Rossetti's. It would not have surprised me at all if someone had risen from their seat and poured a paint pot over Mr Bateman's head - I very near did so myself!

The lovers get tremendous support from Simon Darwen as William Holman Hunt, every bit as much of a bastard towards his lover, Annie Miller (Jayne Wisener), as Rossetti is to his - but Annie is made of rather sterner stuff than poor Lizzie. Teetering on The Edge of caricature (but just staying on the right side) Daniel Crossley is a smug John Ruskin, whose every good intention is wrapped up in his own insatiable desire to boost himself at the expense of others - critics, eh? James Northcote is a suave John Everett Millais, the most stable, most careerist of the artists - it's not difficult to see why he was the one who ended up with the baronetcy.

To appreciate this play fully, it helps to know a little about the art (and, for once on the Fringe, the programme is very good value in providing context) but it's not necessary, since this is drama of the highest order, by turns funny, clever, provocative, infuriating, sad and enlightening. These characters may have turned up in films and on television plenty of times, but seldom can they have been presented with such depth and such brio. And, most importantly of all, Lizzie is given centre-stage, as she was in the pictures and as she was denied, so cruelly, by convention throughout her short, blazing, life. She lives on.

Lizzie Siddal continues at the Arcola Theatre until 21 December.

To post a comment, you must register and login.