POSH - Duke of York's - July 28, 2012

I'm rather sad POSH is closing so soon after I finally got a chance to see it. I really liked the immediacy of it. If the economy were better, this play by Laura Wade, could easily have been described as “light-hearted, with an edge”. The thing about POSH is that it is complicated and that it is very ‘now’. It has serious bite and the aesthetic pleasure of watching these 10 young men is very much mitigated by the fact that the audience must look beneath the surface that is presented. With times as they are, with views on people in government as they are, with the existence of the “Occupy” movement, this play would not have the impact it does without those circumstances, informing both the playwright and the audience. “Occupy” was about the 98% - this play is about the young and upcoming, Oxford graduating, we’re going to change things, 2%. These people take posh seriously; it is part of their history, culture, blood and sweat of the land – THEIR land, handed down through the generations. There is a joke in the play about Harry Villiers’s family owning half (or was it most?) of Warwickshire and what looks like a cross between mock humility and the correctness of the fact, Harry replies, “Well, not quite.” (or similar). 

The narrative of the play opens with Toby and a young man named Edgar, who Toby has nominated for membership into the Riot Club, and who is very keen. Toby is very anxious because, as it happens, it is his doing that the Club hasn’t been able to meet for two terms as Toby had become very drunk several months ago, began sharing details of the Club to a young woman of his brief acquaintance, who, being less drunk than Toby, recorded the entire conversation and sold it to the Daily Mail. Now that a suitable period of desistance has passed, the Club is to resume meeting, Toby is to be punished for his indiscretion, hopes his protégé will not be the cause of further embarrassment, and waits for the rest of the members to arrive. Spirits are high and during the course of the evening, run even higher. Guy, his diminutive stature making him more eager to prove himself to the group, has sought advice from his uncle and godfather as to how to sufficiently impress the others so as to become the next president. One of the others, Dimitri, has the same ambition and aims to equally impress. To this group, the Club is much more than “posh boys prancing about in tailcoats once a term”. Membership has its privileges, and past membership opens doors to careers in business and government. 

This group is highly educated, sometimes impractically so, in the example of George Balfour advising Steffan Rhodri’s landlord of the redundancy of saying the word ‘Number’ after the acronym ‘PIN’ (as the N in PIN stands for Number). Although he is absolutely correct in the facts, is it actually correct for him to correct the man after so brief an acquaintance? He certainly thought so.

There are a number of lighter moments, most notably in the handful of musical interludes. The first is a handful of cast members ‘coming to life’ from the 17th and 18th century portraits comprising the shallow backdrop at the close of the first scene to the song “I’m sexy and I know it”. “I got the moves” is later and then a further one as well. It is incredibly funny to watch these posh boys rapping about poshness. As Alastair puts it, it’s about “living unapologetically”. The group discuss what it’s like at home, “held to ransom by the National Trust”. Why? To fix the roof. “Why is it always the roof?” James queries, but does admit “mistakes were made” by previous generations. There is a definite disconnect between their world view and that of ordinary mortals. On one side, you have the likes of Hugo telling the landlord “we may not be to your taste, but we’ll always pay our way” and the likes of Alastair who is “sick to death of effing poor people”, which ends the first half and a great speech. Leo Bill’s Alastair is the driving force that gets the group’s already high spirits whipped into a frenzy. His delivery is impressive, his speech impassioned, and his face so red by the end, you’re almost afraid he’s going to go apoplectic. Fantastic! The direct contrast to this is a line by Harry Villiers: “Doctor Doolittle talked to the animals but that didn’t mean they wanted to be friends with him.” Great analogy of class relations. 

At first I was worried about being able to keep all 10 of them apart from one another, but that was unnecessary. Each of the actors brought unique qualities to their respective roles and portray a wide range of personalities. There’s Harry Villiers played by Max Bennett, he’s a good fencer and a bit of a slag; Alastair Ryle played with conviction and fervour by Leo Bill; Hugo Fraser-Tyrwhitt played by Pip Carter, nominator of new member Miles and subscriber to the school of thought that money solves most problems; Toby Maitland played by Jolyon Coy, who nominated Edgar to membership, who was so proud of his own membership he committed the ultimate sin of being indiscrete about it to the uninitiated and man enough to take the disgusting punishment; George Balfour played by Richard Goulding, not a man of too many words, but a solid and reliable one; Miles Richards played by Edward Killingback, a new member but from the onset of the shenanigans belongs to this group, both in tone and in body language; Edgar Montgomery  played by Harry Lister Smith, the youngest of the group in looks and maturity, a new member, eager to belong and sometimes a bit impetuous; Dimitri Mitropoulos played by Henry Lloyd-Hughes, ambitious, different from the others in heritage and dress-sense, but every bit as privileged as the other 9; Guy Bellingfield played by Joshua McGuire, who has to try twice as hard to be noticed, wants desperately to be noticed and plans the dinner menu accordingly; and James Leighton-Masters played by Tom Mison, the president, providing the calming presence of a leader at times and for others is just as willing to be led if it suits. Other cast members include Steffan Rhodri played the role of Chris, the inn’s landlord where the dinner takes place, Jessica Ransom plays his daughter Rachel, down from university in Newcastle where she studies modern languages, including ‘Geordie’ as the Riot Club members joke, Charlotte Lucas plays Charlie, the prostitute who so flummoxes the group by saying no, and Simon Shepherd played Jeremy, Guy’s uncle/godfather, MP, former member of the Riot Club himself as well as Lord Ryott himself.  

What about women? You may well ask: What do they think of women? I don’t believe they think of women much at all, other than in the recreational sense. At one point when the group are trying to persuade the prostitute to stay, they refer to group members as a ‘thoroughbred’, and I think that speaks to their upbringing. There are women for sport and pleasure and then there are the women one marries in order to continue the line. They have difficulty with a woman saying no to them (Rachel) and they have even more difficulty when a prostitute says no to them (Charlie) and no amount of money can persuade her to do what they’re asking her to do. In this they are virtually united. You had a clue of the status of women after the ‘Toast to the Lady Anne’, which served as a history lesson into the Club but elicited an incredulous outburst from Edgar: “Do you mean the Club was founded by a GIRL?”. Acceptance of Hugo’s homosexuality is also par for the course. A few members maintain a sense of the ‘other’ in Dimitri (the only Riot Club member wearing an Ascot), whose family, though wealthy enough to belong to the Oxford set, is not English enough for some. He is accepted as a Riot Club member, but a few (notably Guy, his chief rival) would deny him the presidency of the Club based on his heritage. 

Do not be fooled: this is not a play about ‘genteel’ people, this is a microscope on all things posh. For North Americans (or anyone else) to truly understand what the word means and entails, you need to see this play. It is crass and gross in parts. There is profanity, rather a lot of it. You are watching boys being boys, but ones of privilege. And when the fun and games are suddenly over, there is a rude awakening. In the second half the cast work ever so skilfully at weaving an undercurrent of violence into their hijinx. When I became aware of it, I hoped it was not going to lead to a gang rape of Rachel, but that would’ve been too obvious, and I am glad Wade decided to go a different route. Instead there’s another crime but one at the heart of the class conflict we have been witness to. It may seem that things go horribly wrong, but even that you leave the theatre questioning. POSH is self-aggrandising more than it can be called self-righteous. There was no other possible title for this play in my opinion. Ever.  In the end the audience realises, as the boys do, it’s not about co-existence, but an ability to adapt in order to survive.

For this performance of POSH at the Duke of York’s Theatre I was in the 3rd row (Row B), towards house right. According to the 4 pound programme, it was a new work by Laura Wade first performed for the Royal Court Theatre which then transferred to the West End. The show closes Saturday, August 4, 2012. The stage is high, 3rd row is almost a bit too close.

N.B.: The Underground runs directly below the theatre, but you do forget all about it once the show begins.  

Image from: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/06/25/bullingdon-club-the-politics-of-posh/