It Happened to Me
Old Red Lion
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆
 

PETER LAWFORD is the subject of the one-man show currently playing at the Old Red Lion Islington. And if you’re wondering who Peter Lawford is, you can be forgiven. For despite a life of fame, his name seems now assigned to obscurity.

Peter Lawford was once synonymous with Hollywood, and in it from its ascendancy from low budget, experimental cinema to worldwide dominance of people’s money and dreams. He appeared in no less than 57 films, with many further TV appearances. The first of his four wives was President Kennedy’s sister, Patricia. He was romantically linked with numerous hot Hollywood legends and a close friend of Marilyn Monroe. Oh and he was a member of the Rat Pack alongside Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Junior. In other words, in the eyes of celebrity worshippers, he had it all.

This hour-long play sets out to disabuse us of our envy. And, in so doing, connects us precisely and fundamentally with the ubiquitous also-ran.

It’s a kind of confessional, told to us by Lawford from the intimacy of his private room in rehab. It’s Christmas Eve 1983. That he is only exactly a year from death seems inevitable, even though he is still pulsing with life. Indeed, even though he is alone and in penury, what the evening brings us is the full character of the man: not only his charm, wry self-awareness and intense fascination with the extraordinary serendipity of his own narrative, but also his essential puzzlement at his own behavioural aspects he can’t explain.

And he communicates so much: that he was three-times divorced, potentially a closet-gay, often on the wrong side of fate (he turned down James Bond, judging the proposed first film doomed to failure), a high-level social operator who in the end was used and abused by the Kennedys and Sinatra alike, and – inevitably – a victim of free-flowing drink and drugs.  

What is excellent here is the gripping unfolding – and enacting – of the story, the first-hand, personal take on this world of such intrigue and heightened glamour, but most of all – and much more engrossing than any straight tale of the stars – is the close and open access to the soul of a man who is a loser even as he wins. That speaks to all of us. And it’s awash with wit and humour.

Writer Peter Briffa crafts this bijou tale superbly, telling it with a lightness and self-deprecation that connects directly with the audience. It’s a hard look at the grime behind the glamour and at the power structures in America in 1983 that seem like a portent of what we have now.

The play is a splendid showcase for actor Jonathan Hansler who easily engages our empathy while playing an array of characters, male and female, and almost exclusively famous. A heartfelt tour de force. And Owain Rose’s skilled direction ensures pace, variety and purposeful momentum to keep us riveted.

An easy and rewarding evening.

Runs until December 20. Box Office: oldredliontheatre.co.uk