People review, The Lyttelton

Alan Bennett's new play asks serious questions about the nature of preservation and the meaning of history. Is a 16th century rosary of any value to those who do not recognise its provenance?  Is the use of a stately home as a backdrop for pornographic film shoots any less legitimate than the prostitution of a family's life to a paying public who have no real idea what they are looking at and why it is important?

Driving the debate is Lady Dorothy Stacpoole, who is locked in a battle with her saintly sister, June, over a stately pile they can no longer support. Dotty wants to hold onto the place; June to bequeath it to the National Trust in return for grace and favour accommodation. Frozen into submission after a winter in which she and her retainer, Iris, have not had heating or hot water, Dotty lets the rooms to an old boyfriend making hard core DVDs while considering alternative options - selling the contents piecemeal, or selling to a club for super-rich recluses.

Arty facts

The pieces are in place for a lively debate, but there is so much whimsy, so many easy laughs from having the old ladies singing and dressing up and fighting, that the themes get lost. Nicholas Hytner is a director who enjoys the opportunity for sentiment and here, in what feels like a love song between writer and director, he traps his audience in a sumo suit of saccharine. The syrup level is heightened by the return of their muse from The History Boys and The Habit of Art  - Frances de la Tour. As Dotty, she is charming, but too Hinge and Bracket, undermining the ballast in a script that is not one of Bennett's more robust.

In conclusion: The pornography shoot is very funny. A star cast including Linda Bassett, Selina Caddell, Nicholas le Provost and Peter Egan, is on top form. Bennett at 78 is still brilliant. Rightly or wrongly, this production will be forgiven.

References
Lyttelton Theatre, tickets
Quentin Letts review in The Daily Mail