REVIEW: captivating portrayal of conscience at all costs in A Man For All Seasons

A Man For All Seasons (contributed pic)A Man For All Seasons (contributed pic)
A Man For All Seasons (contributed pic)
A Man for All Seasons, Chichester Festival Theatre until Saturday, February 1.

A magnificent performance from Martin Shaw embodies the central, endlessly-fascinating question at the heart of Robert Bolt’s classic A Man for All Seasons: just how far are we prepared to go to keep our conscience pure.

Surely there comes a point fairly quickly, when it’s clear your own death is the only possible outcome, where you give in and say “Oh, alright then.” Clearly not for Sir Thomas More – scholar, ambassador, Lord Chancellor and former friend to King Henry VIII. Sir Thomas simply cannot approve the King’s undispensing of the dispensation which allowed Henry to marry Catherine of Aragon. It goes against every fibre of his belief – and of his being.

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He won’t do it for his friend Norfolk (a fine performance from Timothy Watson); he won’t do it for his daughter (touching from Annie Kingsnorth) who urges him to guard the thoughts of his heart above any words he might have to utter in necessity. And nor will he do it at trial when he is repeatedly told it is not too late to pledge his oath to the king (ie approve the king’s actions) and so save his life.

In his More, Martin Shaw creates an admirable monster, an aggravating man – all the more admirable, all the more aggravating for his utter intransigence, his complete refusal to betray perhaps above all himself. It is a riveting performance. Do we progress when people sacrifice themselves on the altar of principle. Probably. But would you do it?

Excellent too from Edward Bennett as Thomas Cromwell, driven to distraction by a prisoner who insists that silence isn’t refusal and tormented by the knowledge that the king absolutely must have capitulation one way or another.

The first half is perhaps just a touch leisurely at times, deliberately slow in its build-up – but that’s all part of the preparation for a second half which races with a tautness which compels. Perhaps the heavily-accented Spanish ambassador, however authentic, is a little bit unwittingly Pink Panther meets Blackadder at times – though it’s difficult to see a way round this. Far more successful is Gary Wilmot’s multi-roling as The Common Man, everyone from servant to jailor, often with the leavening of humour which is part of the production’s depth.

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Jonathan Church, ten years artistic director of Chichester Festival Theatre, is the director tonight, and it is another fine moment in his career. This is a good play to do given everyone’s Tudor obsessions these days, but you have still got to deliver – and Church does so memorably, breathing fresh, insistent life into a play many of us won’t have seen for years and years.

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