Berkoff’s play hits a hot spot

SIT AND SHIVER
New End Theatre

FIRST things first: I have never seen Hampstead’s New End Theatre quite like this.
Packed to the rafters on a weeknight, graced with the presence of esteemed critics from national newspapers – who plodded in like aristocratic Diplodocuses revisiting their Jurassic Park, and were careful not to clap too enthusiastically when most eyes fixed on them at the curtain.
There was a right old hoo-hah as the lights dimmed. Stephen Berkoff’s Jewish comedy of manners is a real crowd puller. I sat and shivered alright, with anticipation.
So surely, it would be downhill from here. The taller they come, the harder they fall?
But not so – although, to be pernickety, a night that stands on laughs alone does not warrant over two hours in my book.
Sitting Shiva is the name for Judaism’s weeklong period of grief and mourning, usually done sitting down. Based on his own childhood experiences, Berkoff’s cynical eye struck a chord with those in the audience that had been there too. But, despite all the in-house jokes you did not have to be Jewish to enjoy the night.
Born in the East End, Berkoff is best known for his villainous roles in Beverly Hills Cop, The Krays, Rambo and has even played Adolf Hitler. But he has had classical training too and there is the inescapable influence of Shakespeare lurking beneath his comedy.
The blind and enlightened Uncle Sam (Barry Davis) plays a kind of Gloucester from King Lear, who stumbled when he saw. But although Sam is full of maxims – “it is not the mouse, but the hole that is the thief” – he is also a caricature of wisdom. His mangled passages from Coriolanus about the body politic – “gas is the prerogative of the working classes” – will raise a smile with Shakespeare boffins. This is the work of a man at the height of his powers. Like a cryptic crossword, Berkoff’s script operates on several levels.
Sue Kelvin played the garrulous mother Debby – with a mouth larger than the Blackwall Tunnel – with particular glee. But the performance of the night came from Lional Hart as the tailor father, prostrate with a very public prostate. The Australian won whoops and cheers from the adoring crowd. But I fear the slow clap of the Diplodocuses.
Until July 2
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