Review by Northings
Cyprus
23 Nov 2005 in Argyll & the Islands, Dance & Drama
Trafalgar Studios 2, London, 22 November 2005
Beth Marshall and Sandy Neilson in Cyprus.
IT IS A TRIBUTE to the vitality of Scottish theatre in general, and the Mull Theatre company in particular, that Peter Arnott’s timely play about a spymaster in retirement should have been chosen to launch this new theatre space carved out of the old Whitehall Theatre.
Studio 1 has been in operation for over a year, but the 100-seat Studio 2 is brand new, one of those versatile rectangular spaces in which the seating layout can be changed to suit the needs of the play.
Cyprus proved very much an “in your face” affair – for both audience and players – because of the physical limitations of the space. Not that this worries the Mull Theatre players, who are accustomed to working under such restraints, and the intimacy added to the play’s impact.
Directed by Arnott, Cyprus is set on Mull where Brian Traquair, a retired intelligence official, played with weary charm and great authority by Sandy Neilson, is living with his dogs. His daughter Alison (an impressive Beth Marshall), an impassioned, edgy and ultimately quite chillingly single minded woman, has come to visit.
The play is more than just an accomplished thriller.
She is furious that her father has returned from London with an old colleague in tow, Michael Griffen (Alasdair McCrone), a blustering, ramshackle figure, who appears to be either on the run from something, or up to something.
Her annoyance is partly, we later discover, caused by the fact that Griffen once seduced her, but also because she knows he is not what he seems. But there is more going on than that. Arnott has several surprises to deliver, which it would be a pity to spoil, and, after a rather talky first act, he duly does so most effectively.
The play is, however, more than just an accomplished thriller. It is about how our security services have been corrupted by the way politicians exploit what spies do, about how events are, as one of the characters says, timed to coincide with the television news bulletins, how their work has become part of the world of political spin, how the days of honest men like Robert Bruce Lockhart or Colonel Bailey are over. The spectre of David Kelly also looms over the evening.
Traquair and Griffen have been involved in many secret wars, notably in Oman and Afghanistan, but it is the events in Iraq on which Arnott focuses, using the war there to show how these honourable, if duplicitous men, have been corrupted. They no longer serve just the Crown, or their masters in government, but all sorts of other outside interests.
Has Griffen come to kill Traquair? Is Traquair really retired? Was their meeting in Whitehall an accident? Was it planned? What does Traquair’s computer conceal? Why does Alison throw herself at her one time seducer, whom she professes to dislike? And why Cyprus?
Arnott’s title is more than just a fanciful link between Mull and the Mediterranean island. Cyprus, where British spies have long plotted, is also home to a massive British base and “listening post” at Akrotiri from which all kinds of activities directed at the Middle East are initiated.
The chances of the people down the road – Tony and Cherie – popping in for an evening at their neighbourhood theatre are probably slight, but if they did it might be an illuminating, if uncomfortable experience for one or both.
William Russell is the former London editor of the Glasgow Herald, and is Chair of the Critics Circle Awards
© William Russell, 2005
