A reviews round-up for Theatre Royal Bath’s revival of A Voyage Round My Father, starring Rupert Everett.
Directed by multi award-winning director, and former National Theatre artistic director, Richard Eyre, A Voyage Round My Father played at the Theatre Royal Bath to 7 October 2023, and is now on tour.
John Mortimer’s celebrated autobiographical play stars BAFTA and Golden Globe nominee Rupert Everett, alongside Jack Bardoe, Eleanor David, Allegra Marland, Julian Wadham, Heather Bleasdale, Zena Carswell, John Dougall, Calum Finlay and Richard Hodder, with Leoni Kibbey and Rob Pomfret.
The play’s creative team also includes Bob Crowley (Designer), Hugh Vanstone and Sam Waddington (Co-Lighting Designers), John Leonard (Sound Designer), Stephen Warbeck (Composer), Gilly Schiller CDG (Casting Director) and Abigail Pickard Price (Assistant Director).
This highly autobiographical play shines a light on the delicate relationship between a young man and his father, a man who adored his garden and hated visitors, and whose blindness was never mentioned.
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A Voyage Round My Father reviews
"Laurence Olivier would have loved him"
"The main course, however, is the second half which the 64-year-old Everett dominates in a touching portrait of decline, gilded with wit at home and clowning in court."
"There's nothing startling about Richard Eyre's rose-tinted production, or Bob Crowley's design, enclosed in projections of green glades and staged on an AstroTurf sward with a procession of roll-on antiques for other locations. But Everett's performance is a combination of spikiness, wit and tenderness that even Olivier might have admired."
"Rupert Everett brings soft focus to John Mortimer’s play"
"Richard Eyre’s production of the father-and-son drama has some strong performances but is too light to probe the play’s plaintive depths"
"Bardoe’s impression of a young boy is winning, yet brings laughs, which makes it less a hard-edged study of father and son, more a nostalgic snapshot of bygone Englishness"
"There is a lovely, overt theatricality to it all nonetheless, and Bob Crowley’s set design immerses us in the arboreal splendour of the father’s beloved garden."
"It remains eminently watchable for these universal themes but lacks the emotional intensity to become anything more, and its elements conspire to leave this story, this version of Englishness, far removed from our times."
"Rupert Everett impresses – but this voyage lacks zip"
"Even the Bafta nominee can't stop Richard Eyre's staging of John Mortimer's autobiographical play from drifting towards listlessness"
"Rupert Everett is the headline attraction in an evening that is amiable but aimless."
"For all its enjoyable moments – there’s a lively episode in which Julian Wadham as a prep school headmaster gives an amusingly obscure circumlocution on matters of sex and sexuality – Richard Eyre’s production remains stubbornly flat and lifeless, failing to convince us of the necessity of spending two hours in the company of these characters."
"Even Everett can do nothing to prevent this drift towards listlessness. He cuts an imposing figure and convincingly traces the arc of ageing, becoming gaunt and cadaverous before our eyes."
"Rupert Everett shines in Mortimer’s autumnal drama"
"Those of us who first saw Rupert Everett as a cynical public schoolboy in Another Country four decades ago will find it hard to accept that he is old enough to be raging against the dying of the light. But here he is, at the age of 64, giving an unshowy central performance that makes you more aware of the rebellious boy lurking inside the tyrannical paterfamilias."
"This stolid Richard Eyre production does have a faintly musty air to it, though, in spite of the designer Bob Crowley’s evocative bucolic backdrop"
"Whenever Everett is at the centre of attention, you hang on his every word. It’s when Mortimer sketches in background about his schooldays and apprenticeship as a writer that things tend to flag."
"Rupert Everett is blustering and volatile"
"Rupert Everett delivers a memorable performance in Richard Eyre’s fond revival of his lost friend’s story"
"Here, Rupert Everett is blustering and volatile, like a pressure cooker that could explode at any moment. Mastering the stare of someone whose eyes cannot focus, he barks demands in the home, despite his increasingly decrepit state."
"Under Eyre’s direction, tensions soften between Father and Son towards the end, as Father becomes more bumbling and reliant on support. It’s a smoothing of relations that brings peace to the story, while reducing its bite."
"The action unfolds against Bob Crowley’s gorgeous backdrop screen of English trees in fulgent high summer."
"Eyre’s solid, stately production is worth seeing for Everett’s beautifully judged central performance. Lovely support comes from Julian Wadham (whose roles include a schoolmaster offering awkward advice on sex avoidance), Jack Bardoe as the Tiggerish son and Eleanor David and Allegra Marland as long-suffering spouses."
