Select Committee Donmar ON SONG

Review: Committee at the Donmar Warehouse

24 JUNE - 12 AUGUST 2017

It’s complicated: Sally Hales reviews the world premiere of a chamber musical based on Kids Company.

Only the biggest personalities in the room take any shape. Paul Flynn (Anthony O’Donnell), MP for Newport West, a veteran Labour man who has literally written the book on how be a pain in the arse from the backbenches, gets air-time via his determination to say whenever he smells bullshit. Conservative committee chairman Bernard Jenkin is played with perfectly affected flair by Alexander Hanson, but with the rest of the politicos there are scant pickings, despite as an ensemble being largely flawless.

Yentob and Batmanghelidjh offer far more. There’s as much creativity in the latter’s ‘verbal ectoplasm’ (™ Paul Flynn, MP) as there is in her outfit, while Omar Ebrahim injects some levity in proceedings with Alan Yentob’s essential Yentobness, all name-dropping pomposity. Sensational singing from Sandra Marvin makes Batmanghelidjh unforgettable, giving passionate voice to her commitment and slipperiness, which makes it even more frustrating that the depths of her character remain hidden. Things heat up when questions reveal – or try to – the perplexing relationship between Yentob and Batmanghelidjh. But this simmering suggestion of a faulty power balance between the ego-driven pair is similarly prevented from really being explored.

 

Adam Penford’s production, while skilfully executed, reinforces the point that we are watching the British equivalent of the Soviet politburo. When Paul Flynn reasonably asks why £150 was spent on a pair of shoes, his colleagues suddenly produce samples of extravagant footwear from under their desks. It wouldn’t have happened in reality, but it clinches the show’s anti-politics argument: that the committee is more interested in exercising its power than addressing the plight of deprived children.

All the performers do a good job. Sandra Marvin is excellent as the defensive Batmanghelidjh and Omar Ebrahim is touchily unapologetic as Yentob. Alexander Hanson as the crisply authoritative Jenkin and Rosemary Ashe as the inquisitorial Hoey stand out from the committee. But eventually it is a case of means and ends. The aim is clearly to make us ask how Britain is governed and whether our institutions genuinely serve the people. For all the good intentions, however, music distorts the issue by making it look as if Kids Company was a victim of parliamentary arrogance. A musical can do many things but not, I would suggest, capture the humdrum detail of a committee at work.

Adam Penford’s production, while skilfully executed, reinforces the point that we are watching the British equivalent of the Soviet politburo. When Paul Flynn reasonably asks why £150 was spent on a pair of shoes, his colleagues suddenly produce samples of extravagant footwear from under their desks. It wouldn’t have happened in reality, but it clinches the show’s anti-politics argument: that the committee is more interested in exercising its power than addressing the plight of deprived children.

It is above all served by a remarkable ensemble company, who grippingly bring each of these characters to utterly believable life. The intimidating and powerful Batjanghelidjh is embodied with fierce and ferocious command by the formidable Sandra Marvin; Omar Ebrahim's Yentob, on the other hand, wears an expression of perplexed, defensive befuddlement that their good intentions have come to this. The MPs, led by Alexander Hanson as Bernard Jenkin, are also strongly differentiated and keenly brought to life by Liz Robertson (as Cheryl Gillan), Robert Hands (David Jones), Anthony O'Donnell (Paul Flynn) and Rosemary Ashe (Kate Hooey).

The Donmar, who have done remarkable work in recent years in illuminating real-life events from the formation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Steve Waters's Limehouse and testing the value of notions of privacy in the internet age with James Graham's Privacy, have once again gone behind-the-scenes with a startling, keenly felt version of a story that needs to be told -- and thanks to this memorable treatment, will help it to be remembered.

 

It is a fascinating and still unresolved story, not least because of the exuberant, eccentric figure of Camila herself; and the way a select committee works is actually not undramatic, especially when made surreal as the panel rise up, sing choruses (“We want to learn! This is not a show trial, we want to learn!” ) or read written statements from outside witnesses. The interrogators are all pitch-perfect, with that characteristic MP-mixture of earnest administrator and “showbiz-for-ugly-people”. Notably there is Alexander Hanson’s urbanely civil Jenkin, Liz Robertson’s sarky Cheryl Gillan, Rosemary Ashe as the maverick Kate Hoey and the Welsh terrier Paul Flynn (Anthony O’Donnell).

But of course the focus is on the odd couple who sit before them (and are seen up on screens, and occasionally rise to pace the floor, singing) . Sandra Marvin is unnervingly like Camila in multicoloured dress and turban, gait, high-pitched speech, and unnerving smile: when she sings the sincerity of both the woman’s good intentions and her dangerous self-belief are gloriously magnified. As Yentob, Omar Ebrahim is not quite the cornered-rat one remembers from the TV relay (possibly because he’s a splendid baritone, which gives a Verdiesque dignity even to his absurdities, like the notorious claim he signed off that without more money London would see “riots and looting”) . But he does often catch the pompous worry of a man addicted to citing powerful friends and colleagues who approve of him: the PM, Michael Gove, the “Chairman of WH Smith”, big banks, whoever….
 

So it’s all there: the Camila flakiness, the Chairman’s complacency, the dark unseen hinterland of tragic young lives, and the clash between idealism and safe administrative procedure. You reflect, watching and listening to Batmanghelidjh,, that giving – financially and emotionally – is a satisfying addiction, and can if imprudent bring you down. As for Yentob, the reflection is that thinking well of yourself and collecting plaudits from grand friends is probably another addictive behaviour. So what we had here was a kind of folie-a-deux. If the Chair had been some tough, clever, unimpressable terrier of a manager, we might still have the charity.

 

Comments

[Paul Flynn]

It will get better. The Tories are sett explode when they festering internal hatreds hit boiling point.

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Paul's efforts in select committee set to music :) Whats not to like! Everyone doing their bit.

My only note is that our enemies are waging war most brutally and we better react. How? Using whatever skills we have and a little bit of time. It should be a walkover if we keep this momentum up. Take their weapons away from them in the first instance, which is what SHOULD be done.

Honestly, they look feeble. I expected a lot more fight. Even if they do get it together they are naked now and the momentum has turned against them. People have started to get their belief and self-respect back. Those that try to destroy the soul are on the run. I won't expand. Ok. As with the devil when you resist him, they are more afraid of us etc.

Not me personally but the cause and all those who are attracted to it are invincible at the moment. The right wing press, cowed by their own shitness, their politicians incompetent politically, socially are the examples that spring to mind. Buffoons like Johnson and Rees-Mogg looking like the candidates to replace the robotic May.

Their calumnies and those of their media servants? We can beat them. I thought the reaction would be fierce. Its limp. Even if I do provoke them they are ruined.

So, keep arguing and winning. Ignore the mud slingers. Stop being exploited/ripped off.