Review Roundup: What Did the Critics Think of THE MOTIVE AND THE CUE, Starring Mark Gatiss?

Jack Thorne's new play The Motive and the Cue, on the making of Burton and Gielgud's Hamlet, has now opened at The National Theatre.

Directed by Sam Mendes, the play explores the making of Richard Burton and John Gielgud's Hamlet, starring Johnny Flynn as Burton, Mark Gatiss as Gielgud and Tuppence Middleton as Taylor.

What did the critics think?

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Alexander Cohen: BroadwayWorld: Flynn has a sure-fire blast exploring Burton's animalistic allure (and has the voice pitch-perfect). But it's Gatiss that forms the beating heart of the show. Flickering from immense warmth, razor tongued wit, to desperate despondency and in seconds, all as seamless and smooth as spreading warm butter. It's truly a career defining turn.

Sam Marlowe: The Stage: There are hefty questions here about the value and meaning of art, and theatre specifically - some of them a little too bluntly posed. But the great pleasure of Sam Mendes' production is its performances, with Mark Gatiss a glorious Gielgud and Johnny Flynn smoulderingly charismatic and turbulent as Burton. As the rift opens between them and painfully widens, they rebound between the twin mirrors of life and art, which reflect and refract their clashing talents, backgrounds and sensibilities.

Sarah Crompton: WhatsOnStage: In the end, it is Gielgud's play. Thorne gifts him most of the best lines, and Gatiss lands them perfectly. In his gently melancholy performance Gielgud becomes a tragic hero, a man who feels deeply but is incapable of revealing his feelings, a great actor who worries he has been forgotten, a man who dreads the ravages of age and loneliness. It's around him that the empathy of this richly complex play centres.

Arifa Akbar: The Guardian: Fireworks take some time to explode in Sam Mendes's attractive but slightly anaemic production, which splices ego-bound battles between the men with scenes from Hamlet, some of which are evocatively staged. But the proxy father-son psychodrama between the two remains undercharged for too long and is then resolved too neatly.

Nick Curtis: Evening Standard: Those who get all the references and in-jokes and know Hamlet inside out - hardcore theatre nerds like me - will probably love it. Others may find it overly smug and self-referential. It's elegantly put together and acted. Flynn and Gatiss successfully capture Burton's harsh, growling diction and Gielgud's fluting musicality without stooping to outright impersonation. Physically, the former is driven, arrogant, confrontational, stalking the stage with a restless energy, looking for a fight.

Marianka Swain: London Theatre: Thorne's play might have too much theatrical in-joking and navel-gazing for some, with its discussions of whether the creative process matters as much as the product, whether clues to a character lie within the text versus talk of motivation and The Method (the show's title is a Hamlet quote about the reason to do something versus the passion to spur you on), and constant references to "Larry" (aka Laurence Olivier) - the ghost stalking both Gielgud and Burton.

The Motive and the Cue is at The National Theatre until 15 July

Photo Credit: Mark Douet

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