Review Round-Up: GRACE PREVADES at Theatre Royal Haymarket

What are critics saying about Grace Pervades?

WhatsOnStage

"A love letter to theatre itself"

★★★★

Reviewer: Sarah Crompton

"[Fiennes] is commanding throughout, both awkward and arrogant, full of the weight that reviewers of the time noticed in Irving’s performances. “I have a heavy leg,” he says, mournfully. Seeing both him and Raison give a Victorian-style performance of Shakespeare is fascinating, a tribute both to their talent and to the manner of the times. Grace Pervades, Hare’s 32nd play, is in many ways unexpected, an insight into a semi-forgotten time. Playing at the same moment in the West End as his early play Teeth ‘n’ Smiles, it’s a reminder of what a varied writer he is, with a remarkable ability to portray Englishness in all its multi-faceted strands, and to understand both the cost of art and its importance."

Read the review here.

London Box Office

"An interesting biographical insight"

★★★★

Reviewer: Stuart King

"The mannered and self-conscious stiltedness in Ralph Fiennes’ delivery of Sir Henry Irving, is a credit to the actor and the great actor manager of the Victoria era whom he portrays, rendering him watchable, if not entirely likeable. Dour, dark and brooding, he was naturally drawn to the more tragic figures, being most renowned for his death scenes. Miranda Raison as Ellen Terry, attempts to steer the great man to a wider variety of plays and especially covets the chance to play Rosalind in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Outside of his comfort zone, the comedy proves too daunting a prospect for him to ever mount a production for her. He also eschews the modern dramatists such as George Bernard Shaw with whom he shared a mutual dislike. These disappointments aside Terry remained loyal, playing leading ladies to his male lead roles at the Lyceum for decades, and on protracted tours to America. It is during this time that they moved the dial of public opinion in respect of theatre, considerably, developing its high-art status which continues to this day."

Read the review here.

The Times

"A quirky, anecdotal gem"

★★★★

Reviewer: Marc Brenner

"And with Ralph Fiennes bringing Irving so effortlessly to life, a quirky series of tableaux weaves a droll account of an actor who turned the Lyceum into his own fiefdom and saw it as his mission to put theatre at the centre of British culture. It’s a quirky, anecdotal piece which, at its best, is much more amusing than you might expect. If you’re an admirer of that Edwardian classic The Diary of a Nobody, you’ll recall that dear old Mr Pooter has to endure a series of exhausting Irving impersonations by a bumptious young thespian who inveigles his way into his home. Grace Pervades — which was premiered in Fiennes’s mini-season at Bath’s Theatre Royal last year — ambles along at a similarly jaunty tempo."

Read the review here.

Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison in Grace Pervades. Photo by Marc Brenner.

The Evening Standard

"Ralph Fiennes sends himself up delightfully"

★★★

Reviewer: Nick Curtis

"Hare’s play is heavy on exposition. Jordan Metcalfe’s fussy “Teddy” and Ruby Ashbourne Serkis’s insouciant “Edy” explain who they are at the start. The dialogue is as full of scene-setting as the title cards over the stage that tell us we are in Boston in 1883, Hamburg in 1904 or Kent in 1922. Grace Pervades is also stuffed with in-jokes and insider allusions that will be meat and drink to theatre nerds (like me). There’s an amusing expression of the grandstanding, declamatory Victorian style from which Terry tried to dislodge Irving, and a chance to see Fiennes in tights and cloak as Hamlet, and not one but two wigs as Malvolio. There are lots of references to The Bells, the now-forgotten melodrama that made Irving’s name and which he performed in Wolverhampton, the night before he died in 1905."

Read the review here.

TimeOut

"A smart, sweet, self-referential drama about two titans of the English stage"

★★★

Reviewer: Tim Bano

"The opening moment sets the tone perfectly: director Jeremy Herrin has a grand tableau of a dozen actors appear backlit and framed by a proscenium arch, who then take their places on stage to tell the story of the stage. There are clipped vowels and lavish costumes – Fiennes looks great in tights and a brocade cape – and it all looks rather lovely, with stuff on the stage cluttering the wings (costume rails, props) while painted backdrops are projected onto a screen upstage. Fotini Dimou’s lighting is made up of bright spotlight beams thrown across the stage at angles, again accenting that heightened world of performance that we are being invited into. Fiennes pulls those same awkward angles into his performance as Irving. To begin with he stands stiff and awkward, leg cocked, arms strangely twisted against his body. As he learns from Miranda Raison’s Terry, he loosens. He really looks like he’s having a great deal of fun as this pale, sour-faced man who by many accounts gave the greatest tragic performances of all time."

Read the review here.

The Independent

"A dreadfully dull theatrical hatchet job"

★★

Reviewer: Alice Saville

"Ralph Fiennes offers a dignified but uncompelling portrait of Victorian actor-impresario Henry Irving, illicitly romancing his famous leading lady Ellen Terry during their lavish theatricals at the grand Lyceum Theatre. Meanwhile, her two children are battling to sweep away the clutter and inequalities of the 19th century stage – on her dime. Hare does his best to represent them as brattish upstarts, but on this show’s turgid evidence, change couldn’t come soon enough. Hare’s play takes the form of vignettes, taking us from Victorian theatre’s 1870s heyday right up to its bitter, protracted end in the 20th century. That means that necessarily, everyone in this play spends an awful lot of time telling you who they are and what they’ve done. “I’ve always lived in my sister’s shadow... I’ve never regarded myself as a serious actress,” explains Ellen Terry on her first appearance, Miranda Raison bringing welcome fire and likeability to the part of this reluctant tragedian. "

Read the review here.

There's plenty more exciting shows opening across London this month. Check out our list of the 8 best new London theatre openings in May for more inspiration on what to see next. And stay up to date with all the breaking news across the West End from April with our monthly round-up.

Grace Pervades Tickets