“Aut Visum Aut
Non: You either see it, or you don’t”
Just around the
corner from one of London’s busiest modern day transport hubs sits a quiet
house in a stately street. The old
lantern outside the door hints at what lies inside: an historical time capsule
that is worlds away from Liverpool Street’s hustle and bustle. Behind its
doors, 18 Folgate Street holds an imaginative still life drama without any
visible actors – except for the resident black cat.
Dennis Severs, a
Californian obsessed with English history, moved into the property in 1979 and
set about restoring each of the ten rooms to represent a different historical
period, from the 1700s to the early 20th century. Three generations
of the fictitious Jervis family are woven through the portraits and armchairs,
bedspreads and knick-knacks that litter the place. But this is not a museum,
and its contents aren’t preserved with glass cases or placards. This is a lived
in house, whose inhabitants have supposedly just left the room, and their
presence can be felt throughout a visit there.
Payment is taken
on the doorstep, along with a finger to the lips and a heartfelt request to be
as quiet as possible. Once inside, the candlelight reveals steaming teapots,
freshly sliced boiled eggs, half eaten bread on the kitchen table and soapy
water in the sink. Tiptoeing past rumpled sheets in the bedrooms and ducking
under wet washing hung across the stairwell gives the strong impression you’re
trespassing in someone else’s home, but frankly its too fascinating to feel
guilty. As the family’s wealth rises and falls through the centuries, the
quality of their lifestyle changes too; moving further into the house introduces
peeling wallpaper, thinner carpets and an accumulation of dust and cobwebs.
The scent of
cloves and oranges, the flickering candlelight and an array of background
sounds guide your senses in building an image of the unseen inhabitants’ lives,
from the clothes they wear to the letters they’ve written. If you’ve ever
imagined yourself stepping into a painting, this is the place to experience it
for real.
The museum opens
every Sunday afternoon & Monday lunchtime and costs £10. For more info,
visit www.dennissevershouse.co.uk
Take a group of young offenders. Dress them
in orange jumpsuits. Place them on a grimy South London estate, tell them to
get on with their community service, and leave them outside during an
electrical storm. The result? Five superhero Londoners with a penchant for accidentally
killing people and burying them in concrete.
I’ve been watching E4’s Misfits since it
first started in 2009. The script is often brash, and certainly
inappropriate for those of a sensitive disposition (think a great deal of
swearing and allusions to sexual positions, preferences, graphic anatomical
details… if its rude, you name it, they’ve got it) but is also hilarious pretty
much every step of the way, and is absolutely filled with sharply witty comedy
gold. A great deal of this wit and wonder is down
to the cast, a group of young British actors who should be reaping the rewards
of their hard work with film roles and red carpets before the year is out. Misfits
itself has already won a BAFTA for Best Drama Series in 2010, and if the
progression of the current third season is anything to go by, they’ll be
collecting a few more at next year’s ceremony.
Sadly, for many Misfits lovers out there,
in this third season we had to say goodbye to a dearly beloved character with a
mouth like a drug fuelled ashtray and a sexual voracity only eclipsed by Hugh
Heffner. I am talking, of course, about Nathan. Played superbly by Robert Sheehan, this character often dominated each episode by playing the comedy role
against whatever slightly more serious situation there was at the time. While
every Misfits character is wonderfully performed, there was something really
special about Nathan, and fans duly rallied against his departure from the
show. But when the third season opened, he had indeed been replaced by (I have
to say) another actor equally capable of playing the necessary comedic role, by the name
of Joseph Gilgun – but however funny he may be, he’s still no Nathan.
Sheehan’s decision to leave a show so
clearly on the path to greatness could be criticised by some, but according to
interviews, Sheehan was set on developing his acting talents in other mediums;
first in film, where he starred in ‘Cherrybomb’ alongside Rupert Grint , and then in his first
theatrical role, as the titular playboy Christie Mahon in J. M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World. Some friends and I decided to check out our favourite misfit in the flesh, and headed down to the bright lights of the Old Vic in the final week of the play's run.
The theatre was packed when we
arrived in Waterloo. Gaggles of school groups thronged the Old Vic's stately staircase, evidently a result of teenage girls badgering their GCSE drama teachers into taking them to see a relatively unknown Irish play. We headed up, and up, to the Upper Circle, where we squashed ourselves into seats directly relative in size to the amount we'd paid. There was also a sudden flurry in the shedding of clothing; while preparing for a chilly November evening, most seemed to have forgotten that heat, in fact, rises. More so in a packed auditorium. Even more so when over half of said auditorium is comprised of young girls with rising flush levels. The curtain went up and the play began; no sign of E4's favourite rising star until a good ten minutes in. People shuffled. Currents of whispering around our (relatively) cheap seats; the Irish accents appropriate for the Irish play were evidently proving a tough nut to crack for young London ears. And then Sheehan stumbled through the onstage door, to a collective gasp of girlish breath, with an overly audible amount of high pitched squealing mixed in. Luckily, these noises weren't repeated much over the rest of the performance, as I'm a stickler for appropriate behaviour in the theatre (call it a result of being brought up in a very theatrical family). A comedy of heroism and romance in equal parts, the play details the story of a young man who arrives in a sleepy Irish village, claiming he has killed his father. and run away. He is lauded as a hero by the villagers, and captures the attention of the innkeeper's young daughter, Pegeen. They are about to be married when a sudden twist changes the outcome of the plot.
Sheehan's performance was commendable; despite
resorting at times to a very similar characterisation as the one that's
made him famous, he nonetheless conveyed a seriousness and depth to the
role, and kept his comic timing. One personal gripe of mine was his
apparent need to clutch his back - after many drama classes, its one of
the main things I've always retained: never hold a limb to convey pain! The play overall was enjoyable, but sadly missed the mark it could have made, which I think was owing to the cast's slight unease and discomfort with the language.
There's certainly no doubt that a large portion of the tickets for this production were sold purely on the value of Sheehan's name. However, that fame has managed to push a gently amusing play into the forefront, and made theatre as a genre perhaps slightly more accessible to people who would normally choose to watch a TV show instead. Even if it's only some giggling girls ogling a celebrity face right now, that's still a group of people who may discover later on that they really enjoy the theatre. In which case, Robert Sheehan deserves congratulation for stepping outside his familiar acting zone, and trying something new.
