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Review: Flat Phil offers little passion
by George Dodds17/ 6/2005
Larkin with women
Library Theatre, until July 2
WRITER Ben Brown gives away few clues as to how it was that poet
Philip Larkin came to dominate the lives of three intelligent,
attractive and otherwise normal women.
Cold, vain, manipulative and self-centred, Cameron Stewart's
portrayal of Hull's greatest literary talent could have been the
template for the Charmless Man immortalised by Blur's classic 1996
song.
Surely there was more to the man who wooed his way through the Hull
University library staff.
Unfortunately the short, sharp, episodic nature of Brown's play
makes it nigh on impossible for the four characters to create any
on-stage chemistry with the result that while Larkin's rants
against life, Hull, Ted Hughes, Margaret Thatcher and the office of
Poet Laureate contain some wickedly funny lines, the setpieces with
his "women" are weak.
A prime example is Maeve (Sherry Baines) whose strict Catholic
upbringing means no bedding without a wedding but a few lines of
poetry, lights out and voila - mortal sin.
The passing of 30 years brings barely a grey hair to Maeve, the
long-suffering Monica (Cate Hamer) or faithful Betty (Meriel
Scholfield) as Larkin's death - aged 63 as he predicted - or much
passion at all.
Larkin's third career as a music critic for the Daily Telegraph is
featured with some classic jazz which links the scenes but all in
all this is a play which gently entertains without informing or
exciting.
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