The Wizard the Goat and The Man Who Won the War |
| D. J. Britton , Taliesin Theatre, Swansea , November 11, 2011 |
There were in fact three wizards dazzling us with their exciting and heartfelt Welsh theatrical sorcery. Writer and director D. J. Britton has explored and revealed almost every aspect of Llanystumdwy’s famous son, David Lloyd George, the first Welsh celebrity to win a world-wide audience. The writer is a master of the arresting, beautiful and succinct metaphors and allegories and they are all given full and captivating weight by the gentle charismatic performance of actor Richard Elfyn.Having already having established a thriving legal practice in North Wales, at 27 Lloyd George became the youngest member of the House of Commons where he stayed, embracing a spectacular career for the next fifty five years. His legacy remains something of an enigma, how could a Welsh-speaking chapel boy become the steely statesman who saw Britain through the Great War? How could the champion of non-conformist Christianity become a womaniser living a double life? How could this protector of the poor risk so much in the pursuit of wealth? As we watch and listen to Richard Elfyn’s superbly engaging performance we suspect much of it was achieved by charm and the quick-silver mind that lay behind it. We meet the man who won the First World War on the brink of the second. He is sitting in a quiet and uncharacteristically, unassuming manner on a bench looking out to sea on the beach at Antibes. He is there with his wife Margaret to celebrate the fiftieth year of their marriage. As had happened many times over those years he has slipped away leaving his wife at their hotel with his daughter, Megan. The actor is so sensitive and convincing as he describes his love for his wife and the other love in his life, his long close association with his secretary Frances Stevenson, who he did eventually marry aged 80 after the death of his first wife, that we almost begin to feel that we are talking to the great man himself. But here even after fifty years of marriage he is still operating his wandering eye. He is hoping the young girl he has engaged with at a perfume shop will join him shortly on the beach. His friend Winston Churchill is also staying at the same Antibes hotel and he is also anticipating a call to return to the cabinet to help preparations to win the war that was then just looming. Elfyn continues to hold us spell bound as he takes us through his triumphs and self admitted weaknesses. He is so moving as he talks about his talented daughter Mair whose death at seventeen almost broke his heart. He is quite circumspect about his ‘wicked’ ways ever justifying them with a wicked twinkle in his eye. There is an even bigger twinkle as he twirls his walking stick and bursts into song in the Music Hall style of the time. He laughs at himself inviting us to join in the laughter with him. We are totally drawn into the life of this man. He knows there has been much joy in his life so that as the poetry ends we are not concerned that neither the perfume girl nor the message from Churchill fail to arrive and neither is he. An exquisite and rewarding entertainment. |
Reviewed by: Michael Kelligan |
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