The Alchemist - Hampstead Parish Church

Atmospheric bubbling flasks & globe

I enjoyed Ben Jonson's comedy The Alchemist when I studied it at university, so was excited to see it performed for the first time. Unlike Shakepeare's plays, which usually involve multiple different settings - sometimes different countries, even - The Alchemist takes place within (and on the doorstep of) a single London house. 

Amoral and inscrutable butler Jeremy takes advantage of his master's absence to use his house as the headquarters for a variety of fraudulent acts. With the help of two other con-people - Subtle (the titular alchemist) and Doll Common - Jeremy aka Face carries out a series of elaborate cons on a number of diverse and gullible characters.

The set contained everything one could wish from a production of The Alchemist: audibly bubbling, lit-up flasks, test tubes containing different coloured liquids, a globe and a board displaying alchemical equations. I was pleased that the set remained traditionally alchemical, given that the production included modern music and dress - which, incidentally, I thought worked well. I particularly enjoyed the music, which really added to the humour. The costumes were good, although I wasn't completely convinced by Drugger's 70s hippy-inspired outfit...I mean, when the drug in question is tobacco, I'm not sure the flower-power imagery works. Or maybe therein lay the joke?

Barney Lyons as Jeremy/Face and Roderick O'Grady as Subtle made an excellent comic pairing. Their swift transformations into different characters for different 'gulls' were impressive and entertaining; some of Subtle's reactions and mannerisms made me laugh out loud. Barney Lyons' Jeremy had a calm and impassive intensity when he wasn't playing 'Captain Face' (apart from during the argument at the beginning), which was almost chilling, especially towards the end, just before he pulled the gun on Subtle and Doll. Margaret Pritchard Houston as Doll was equally funny and engaging in her transformations and in her interactions with Face and Subtle - and, of course, with the ambitious and lecherous Sir Epicure Mammon (Malcolm Stern).

The creative, clever, highly amusing staging of The Alchemist successfully conveyed the bustling, hectic nature of London and captured the audience's interest from the outset. The play opened with all the characters going about their business to the accompaniment of 'London Calling' by The Clash. I loved the bit after the interval when the audience was drawn back into the action with some of the characters crossing the stage, again going about their business in an amusing way. For example, Drugger (Sarah Day) walking by, delightedly clutching her new shop sign, and Kastril (Nicolas Holzapfel) taking an ostentatious drag on a cigar only to dissolve into a coughing fit. 

Other parts of the play that I found particularly entertaining were...:

• Subtle emerging in a blue robe from the pulpit in order to appear religious to Sir Epicure.
• Drugger's shop sign!
• The 'elves' frisking Dapper (Catherine Martin) to ensure she wasn't concealing money.
• The entrance of Doll as the Queen of Fairy, with suitable music, fairy wings and bubbles.
• The very end bit, where Lovewit (Simon Malpas) presents Jeremy with jewels and Subtle and Doll appear - to music - on the run, looking for their next swindle. Very cinematic!

For a completely cynical play in which good in no way overcame evil, The Alchemist made me feel surprisingly uplifted.

Next: The Mikado