Theatre Review: Want to watch a great play? Then go for a Burton

The Motive and the Cue
Noël Coward Theatre, London, until March 23

It is generally speaking a mistake to see a play more than once as the second time is invariably a disappointment. Unusually, in the case of Jack Thorne’s new play The Motive and the Cue – an account of how Sir John Gielgud directed Richard Burton in a production of Hamlet in 1964 – I enjoyed it even more than when I first saw it at the National Theatre.

Mark Gatiss’s fey but vulnerable Gielgud remains every bit as potent a theatrical creation as I remember it the first time around, but Johnny Flynn’s Burton has improved immeasurably. It is not easy to communicate charisma, but Flynn has managed to and he gets across, too, a lot more of Burton’s Welshness. Having grown into the part, Flynn now matches Gatiss on stage as the two huge characters battle it out to create their famously successful Hamlet.

The show, directed by Sam Mendes, has a special resonance in the Noël Coward Theatre as it was the very venue that Gielgud himself played the part and it amounts to a great celebration of theatre, traditions and legendary characters.

The supporting players are also on top form – Sarah Woodward has a lot of fun as the grand dame actress Eileen Herlie and Tuppence Middleton, faced with the invidious task of playing Elizabeth Taylor, makes the very best of it. The action shifts between the rehearsal room, the Burton’s palatial hotel suite and Denmark – the setting of Shakespeare’s play – where the actors’ declaim Shakespeare’s words which seem to add a poignant commentary on the proceedings.