The Motive and the Cue
Noel Coward Theatre, London

JACK THORNE’s The Motive and the Cue is a monumental crowd pleaser; it is also a play that dabbles in greatness: a combination that has ensured the production’s confident transfer from the National to the West End stage. 

Based on the letters of actor William Redfield, who also features as a character in the play, the drama transports us back in time to 1964 when John Gielgud directed Richard Burton as Hamlet in a Broadway box office triumph. Tracking the intimate detail of the 25-day rehearsal period, the play ostensibly charts the almighty clash between two theatrical giants while at the same time exposing the tender and vulnerable core of each.

It’s a feast for celebrity-watchers and, as astutely observed in this paper’s original review in May, as reliant on the audience’s knee-trembling weakness for luvviedom as with the greater investigation into artistic creation.

However, this doesn’t prevent an illusion at least of profundity. Firstly, Mark Gattis’s performance as Gielgud is sensational, allowing him not only to inhabit the man but also to lay out before our eyes his inner genius; secondly, a hefty proportion of the script includes some of the greatest words ever written by Shakespeare; thirdly the dialogue as expertly orchestrated by director Sam Mendes is self-consciously witty and zips along; and lastly, the play culminates with a rip-roaring version of Handel’s Zadok the Priest: a stirring substitute for Burton’s actual performance which is illustrated only through a posed image of the actor with a skull. 

And here is the production’s limitation. While Gielgud fills the stage, Burton — and indeed Taylor (Elizabeth) — remain unrealised. And though Johnny Flynn and Tuppence Middleton perform these parts with perfect aplomb, the play itself can’t rise to greatness if the towering charisma of this golden couple is only talked about, but never seen.

In reality, Burton was a highly intelligent but hollow man, sloughing off his humble Port Talbot origins to adopt a bitter arrogance. No working-class hero he, but a man lost in the kind of vanity that brings only self-loathing. Thus, the play’s half-hearted attempt to earth the actor’s brilliant Hamlet in his softer and grittier side falls flat and we don’t fully feel its truth. 

That Burton was a shit to work with is evident; what escapes us is the beauty of that wonderful actor and the glory of his theatrical presence. And at the end, we are still in the dark about how such defining artistic achievement comes into being.  

The play, though, does scatter stardust, which — together with Gattis’s landmark performance — is reason enough for this transfer. It’s just that too much is about promise and too little realisable when the point about Burton was his unparalleled magnetism. 

There’s some great new casting, especially Sarah Woodward who delivers Gertrude’s sensational Ophelia speech with spine-tingling power. 

Overall, though, too much about star worship and not enough substance.

Runs until March 23. Box Office: 0344 482-5151, noelcowardtheatre.co.uk.