Christopher O’Dea-Giordano
Disclosure: I have been a performing member of the Tower Theatre since 2016, and am associated with some of those cast in the play.
First produced at Brighton’s Theatre Royal for the Festival of Britain in 1951, self-proclaimed super-fan Cecil Beaton’s passion project on the life and times of the renowned 18th-century society portraitist Thomas Gainsborough has languished unperformed until now, with director David Taylor’s Tower Theatre production bringing the work to gloriously sartorial life.
Telling the story of the Gainsborough family’s move to London in 1774 for the great man to make his living producing fine portraits for high society, his seeming success is marred by a constant frustration that he is failing to be true to his artistic spirit, which longs to go back to painting the landscapes of his native Suffolk much to the chagrin of the others in his life, who insist it will never make his family any money. Meanwhile, his beautiful daughters each move to ingratiate themselves into the upper echelons of London society by marriage, with disastrous results for the whole family.
With Beaton’s writing zeroing in on the experience of the great man’s daughters in the course of events, Gainsborough, fittingly enough, finds himself made a background subject in a landscape portrait of high society London; a grim and melancholy tableau of bourgeois brinkmanship, bitter sibling rivalry, duplicity, love, betrayal, and maddening heartbreak, with Gainsborough’s own fearsome tussles over artistic integrity with his harried agent forming an artful undercurrent of tension on the fundamental question of how best to make one’s living and remain true to oneself in spirit in the face of a hostile and uncaring society, whether as an ambitious artist, or indeed, a pair of ambitious, eligible young ladies.
By far the production’s biggest highlight is Kathleen Morrison and Sue Carling’s breath-taking costume design replete with wigs by Doris Designs and hair and accessories by Mark-Louis Anderson-Fisher and Nikki Diggins, with every member of the capable and talented cast adorned in sumptuous Georgian gowns and waistcoats that must be seen to be truly appreciated, making Taylor’s production an impeccably well-dressed treat for the sartorially-minded theatregoer. Giving the beautiful tailoring on display its finer detail is Peter Foster’s ingeniously minimalist set, ably accompanied by Stephen Ley and Alan Wilkinson’s capable, immersive sound and lighting work, making for an aesthetically bold and pleasingly confident production.
Though the oftentimes languid, introspective writing and Taylor’s accompanying slow-paced, meditative direction might make it something of an acquired taste akin to Ibsen-like realist drama or Chekov-ist modernism, for those drawn to theatre of its kind, the two-act play makes for a compelling and interesting tale full of fascinating characters and standout performances from a very capable cast - Simon Lee performs an authoritative lead as Tom Gainsborough, and Janet South cuts a sympathetic figure as his wife. The two Emilys, Deane and McCormick, are each their own commanding presence, imbuing daughters Margaret and Mary with distinct, clashing and compelling personalities, and McCormick in particular proving capable of creating genuinely intense and shocking moments. Anthony Rhodes ably compounds themes of divided loyalties and double lives in his turn as bachelor Lord Angus, with his stage mother Amanda Waggott adeptly performing a stiflingly snobbish Lady Codlington, whilst rounding out a fine cast is Matthew Ibbotson as the Gainsborough family’s endearingly loyal butler Luke, Jonathan Norris as Tom’s exasperated agent Alderman Bundy, and Joanna Coulton in an amusing comic turn as working girl Dolly.
All in all, a gorgeously presented, well performed, worthwhile production with compelling drama and comedy aplenty. Doubtless, die-hard fans of Georgian fashion will be pleased.
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