Dr Who and his Mum

I decided it was a sign of my triviality that my thoughts on the casting of Helen at the Globe kept heading back to Dr Who with Paul McGann (the eighth Doctor)as Menelaus and Penny Downie as Helen (last seen by me as Gertrude to David Tennant’s Hamlet). Penny Downie owned the stage from the moment she dashed in, and if there was a lot of unnecessary rushing from one side of the stage to the other, a sign I always think that the director doesn’t have faith in his actors ability to hold the attention of the audience, it didn’t matter because clearly Downie and McGann knew exactly what they were about, and I think I would have been as impressed if they had been rooted to a single spot throughout.

Unlike Alls Well that Ends Well, this really was a fairytale, with a reimagining of the story of Helen of Troy, on the basis that the Helen that ended up in Troy was just a trick of the gods, and that the real Helen instead spent the Trojan Wars in Egypt pining for her husband, making the Trojan Wars a complete waste of time. I particularly liked the way that although the parallel with recent British military adventures was hanging in the air, they left it there, for the audience to take or leave as they chose.

Penny Downie was light, passionate and her Helen felt real, as did McGann's Menelaus. It was a shame that the baddie was straight out of panto, but suprisingly it didn't make that much difference overall. This was a joyous riot, a real treat with a lovely fairytale ending that I was glad to suspend my disbelief for.