The Priory at the Royal Court Theatre

The Priory at the Royal Court Theatre

04 December, 2009
by: Tom Cameron

Michael Wynne's latest offering – a tale of successful 30-somethings retreating to the country for New Year's Eve – leaves Tom Cameron ultimately disapointed.



Wouldn't it be nice to leave London's bustle behind over the New Year and just spend some time in the country with friends? Well, I thought so, at least until I saw what happened in new play, The Priory, by Michael Wynne (his eighth) at the Royal Court Theatre.

Its main character, Kate (Jessica Hynes), has much the same idea – though her friends are successful 30-somethings rather than in their more or less aspiring mid-20s – and hires a country pad for the period, a former monastery (hence the play's title, which also allows rehab jokes aplenty). Yet her best laid plans go rather awry as her lover Carl (Rupert Penry-Jones) turns up with his uninvited wife, Rebecca (Rachael Stirling), her friend Ben (Alastair Mackenzie) brings his fiancée Laura (Charlotte Riley), whom he met the previous day, and even Daniel, her closest friend, has a tryst planned. Her hopes of a cosy weekend are also dashed by Carl, Rebecca and Ben embarking on a drug-fuelled bender, out of which the group's secrets emerge.

Yet if this synopsis sounds potentially colourful, it would misrepresent Wynne's play, which remains all too predictable. The script is achingly contemporary, punctuated with iPhone worship and squabbles about the sat nav, but beyond the rather trite observation that worldly success isn't all that it seems, it doesn't have much to say. Characterisation is too often sacrificed for caricature: beyond the facts that he is flighty in love, but devoted to his iPhone and pills, I couldn't tell you anything about Ben, which prevents a scene where he cries in Kate's arms from eliciting much emotion, whilst Carl is little more than the clichéd husband assuring Kate he would leave his wife were it not for the children. The play is presumably intended as a comment on the vacuousness of their lives (and modern times), but since this point is obvious so early in proceedings, it feels a very laboured one.

Jeremy Herrin's production is well paced, though, and the actors make the best of things, though they are not, for the most part, challenged much. Stirling and Penry-Jones bicker well, and the latter is entertainingly grumpy ("For fuck's sake" his reaction when told that Laura doesn't drink), while Riley is fantastically ghastly as the utterly vacuous Laura, with her cornucopia of outfits ("hanging out, pre-dinner casual") and catchphrase "I love the gays". Joseph Millson's Daniel is an unusually nuanced character, not fitting the promiscuous, over-the-top gay stereotype imposed on him by Rebecca as well as Laura, but finding it hard to be 'gay' without embracing that role. Millson moves well from charmingly laidback to angry and insecure, and his character's relationship with Kate is the play's saving grace. Hynes holds the play together with a fine performance as the well-meaning Kate, with a warmth to her that stands out sharply amidst the bitterness.

The set – a vast oak-panelled living room with huge arched windows, a stone fireplace and a stag's head (draped in fairy lights - an apt touch of kitsch) – works well in creating an eerie atmosphere, especially as various dark-hooded figures creep past the windows. The Grim Reaper symbolism, though, seems overly weighty for this rather slight play, which ultimately disappoints despite some good lines.

'The Priory' is at the Royal Court Theatre until 9th January 2010.

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Tom Cameron