Writer and Director: Richard Eyre
It should all have been so good; Richard Eyre, a master director and adapter of stories with an illustrious career writing his first original play after decades in the business. Even the story of a covid health advisor to the government confronting his dysfunctional family at a party has so much potential, but somehow its poor characterisation, unrealistic dialogue and unlikely scenario means The Snail House, which premieres at the Hampstead Theatre, fails to deliver.
Recently awarded a KBE for his lifetime’s work in child health and working as an advisor to Number 10 during the pandemic, Neil is celebrating his 55th birthday with a lavish party and dinner at his son’s old private school. But family resentments get in the way as daughter Sarah refuses to sanctify the father she cannot forgive, particularly when a revelation among the catering staff calls Neil’s integrity into question.
Eyre’s play uses a before and after structure in which a room is first being prepared for a dinner party we never see and then being cleared down while a disco rages in a nearby room filled with friends. Of course, there are revelations and recriminations aplenty, stemming largely from the intervening hours that cast a shadow over the play. Alas, Eyre fails to capitalise on the tension or any of the multiple plots strands he establishes, and in a dramatic no-no looks to a completely separate incident from outside the family for the play’s biggest revelation, one that consumes acres of space in Act Two but is isolated entirely from the family dynamic and its consequences, draining it of emotional impact or, indeed, relevance to the plot.
And plot is rather lacking in a play that seems to exits primarily to complain about how feckless young people are, constantly whining about issues like climate change and inequality but never dong anything practical about them. Shouldn’t they all just stop protesting and get proper jobs? Daughter Sarah is amazingly unrealistic and one-note, but Neil’s attacks on her wokeness, of which there are many as Eyre’s sometime mouthpiece, backfire – he cannot make us like Neil more but these clichéd arguments about and impressions of “young people” don’t make us like Sarah any less either.
There are so many unresolved digressions in The Snail House that there seems to be at least seven slightly more interesting plays trying to get out. There’s the notion of class and power represented by Neil and wife Val’s working-class background that with money allowed them to send their children to private school. There is son Hugo’s work for the Department of Education and how it fits with his dad’s governmental influence as well as the strange neglect that Neil directs at him with no explanation. The catering staff, Wynona and Habeeb, are comedy asides with nothing to do, but what is their perspective on a client they instantly dislike and Wynona disrespects even before she is paid, and most interest of all, just who is Val – the former nurse, turned PA who ignores Neil’s affairs and has the greatest moment in this play when she berates the lot of them for constantly believing they are so clever. Val is amazing. Val needs her own play.
In fact, The Snail House could be vastly improved by taking Neil out of it entirely. The audience sees very little of him, barely hears about his pandemic work and understands even less. After two hours, we are no clearer on his personality than we are on whether Eyre wants us to sympathise with him. How much more interesting could it be to hear the other characters talk, praise, gossip and argue about a man we never see, leaving the viewer to make up their own mind about a mysterious public and private figure.
The cast do their utmost with the material. Patrick Walsh McBride applies all his delivery and physical comedy skills to ring some laughs from his meagre part while Eva Pope creates so much depth to Val that it is possible to believe in her life beyond this room. Amanda Bright also gives a restrained performance as Catering Manager Florence with an axe to grind. Megan McDonnell as the frustratingly unbelievable Wynona and Grace Hogg-Robinson as the relentless Sarah are thankless parts with little credibility, while Vincent Franklin can’t make very much of Neil in the end other than a man refusing to apologise for his wealth and status.
Don’t Look Back in Anger Oasis advise from another room during the party, even though Neil is perhaps a little old to have been a fan, but maybe it is good advice for Eyre too. Writing an original play certainly isn’t easy but this one promised so much more.
Runs until 15 October 2022
