Reviews

Until 01.12.07  |  Windsor Theatre Royal  | Thames Street | Windsor | 8pm | Weds 14th Nov to Sat 1st Dec  | Box Office 01753 853 888

Noel Coward’s play The Vortex hits the boards of Windsor Theatre Royal this month. Directed by Peter Hall (The Camomile Lawn and The Homecoming) The Vortex is a flying glimpse into the flamboyant, glamorous yet superficial life of those living the days (and nights) of the 1920s.

Felicity Kendal (The Good Life, Rosemary and Thyme) stars as Florence Lancaster and boy is she a star. Kendal has a star quality and a fabulous stage presence. She is full of energy and never fails to light up the stage. Kendall adds a quality to the play that instantly creates a 1920s that is both recognisable and relative.

Florence Lancaster is the flamboyant, superficial and, in modern terminology, sad mother of Nicky Lancaster played by Dan Stevens. Stevens creates a Nicky who is loveable and energetic. He instantly wins the audiences empathy as the apparent mother son relationship unravels itself to unveil a lost boy whose need for his mother’s affection eventually gives him the strength to defeat his deepest problems as well as waking his mother from her vacuous take on life.

The bond between mother and son is not era specific and can be as true today as back in the 1920s. The needs, emotions and dis-functionality are timeless. Kendall and Stevens are well cast together and carry you through an emotional journey, with relative ease, leading up to an emotionally charged climax which even brought me to tears.

The Vortex has a strong cast of ten players including a very natural Phoebe Nicholls (Foyle’s War and Brideshead Revisited), Barry Stanton (King Lear and Nostradamus) and Annette Badland (Bad Girls and Cutting It) as Clara Hibbert.

This version of Noel Coward’s The Vortex is an excellent portrayal of the 1920’s philosophy “Eat, drink and be merry, tomorrow we may die”.  As in the words of Bunty Mainwaring (Cressida Trew) Peter Hall’s The Vortex is full of “glamour, personality and magnetism”. This play of three fast paced acts is a Windsor must see!