Review: THE BOOK OF WILL, Queen's Theatre Hornchurch

Men arguing over a beer or two is hardly news, but, noticing the beautiful 17th century costumes (excellent work from Carla Goodman throughout) we're transported back to Shakespeare's times, to a world both like ours and also very much not.

Shakey himself has shuffled off this mortal coil and his plays are being bastardised by cash-in merchants - an amusing cameo from Tarek Slater demonstrates that you don't need to do much to the text to sound like you're falling down a staircase. For the company he left behind, The Kingsmen, there's a legacy - and a cash cow - to protect.

So begins Lauren Gunderson's 2017 comedy, brought to these shores for the first time. It's a conceit that will be familiar to fans of Ben Elton's hugely successful Upstart Crow, and even those who enjoyed Shakespeare In Love a generation earlier. As is the case for both those productions, it helps to know a little of the canon, but it's not really necessary - the jokes, and the comforting warmth of affectionate comedy, keep coming.

Russell Richardson as John Heminges (effectively CEO of The Kingsmen) anchors the narrative, all trepidatious at first about the expensive and difficult project, but won over by his colleagues. Chief amongst them is Bill Ward as a swashbuckling Henry Condell, a believer in his playwright, committed to preserving the one true faith in The Bard's plays. There's super work from Jessica Ellis as Heminges' wise daughter, Alice and a tremendous Falstaffian turn from Andrew Whitehead as a pissed-up Ben Jonson, late to lay down his rivalry with his frenemy from Stratford Upon Avon, but crucially won round by the end.

If there's a little too much exposition on the difficulties of sourcing accurate texts (prompt books, pirated copies and clandestinely transcribed versions are knitted together to give us what we have now) and Zach Lee's duplicitous printer, Jaggard, is played a little too broad as the villain, much is forgiven in a joyous coda that plays as a kind of greatest hits collection, underlining both the genius and the timelessness of what was so laboriously recorded and then handed down through the centuries.

Director, Lotte Wakeham, knows how to land a laugh line, but, despite the slightly shouty, slightly dizzying staging (the in-the-round set up brings an pleasing intimacy but the actors too often appear to be pirouetting), the play would be tighter by losing 20 minutes or so, especially the somewhat schmaltzy reflections on death. Post the explosion in video capture of performances post-lockdown (a not unknown phenomenon, for a variety of reasons, in Shakespeare's time) there's probably a subtext about how we capture 21st Century Theatre for posterity that goes unexplored too.

Sitting somewhere between the redtop raucousness of the Carry Ons and the broadsheet high-mindedness of a Stoppard, this co-production of Queen's Theatre Hornchurch, Octagon Theatre Bolton and Shakespeare North Playhouse is unlikely to be staged 400 years or so from now, but it's perfectly pleasant entertainment, delivered with great gusto. It also acts a tribute to the forgotten men and women who rescued words destined only to be spoken into thin air to make a bit of cash and then gone forever. To them, we are all grateful.

The Book Of Will is at Queen's Theatre Hornchurch until 13 May

Photo Credit: Pamela Raith

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