David Suchet stars in Tom Littler and Francesca Ellis's staging of T.S. Eliot's 1935 verse drama about the killing of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket in 1170, performed at the Orange Tree in its neighbouring church. The production transforms the play's perceived flaws into virtues, with the ritualised language and moral questioning well suited to the Victorian church setting.
A daring staging in a sacred space
The play, which features a Christmas sermon, a biblical scene of temptation, and wordy speeches of self-justification by the four knights who killed Becket, resonates with contemporary echoes of the time of gathering fascism when Eliot was writing. The knights are likened to far-right thugs who threatened the vicar of Doncaster Minster in August, acting under a veil of religiosity and patriotism.
Designer Robert Jones has laid a crucifix-catwalk down the central nave, flanked by banks of lighting that paint the ceiling in blue, celestial white or a sudden wash of red. Incense drifts and a single drum thuds as the chorus of "ordinary women" gather, singing of Becket's return after seven years' exile in France.
Suchet's commanding presence
Suchet, a venerable Shakespearean and a man of faith who has recorded and studied the bible, speaks the language beautifully and is a spellbinding presence. He portrays Becket as complacently fluent and beakily authoritative until beset by doubt or galvanised by a sudden squirt of fear. The production explores whether Becket, who rose from poverty in Cheapside and was formerly Henry's compliant chancellor, set himself against the king out of genuine religious devotion or out of pride.
The sung passages are among the most atmospheric and moving moments, alongside Becket's speeches. "Wash the air, clean the sky," the women keen after the murder, as if the whole world is bloodstained. "Humankind cannot take very much reality," Suchet's Becket observes – a line that later resurfaced in Burnt Norton in Eliot's Four Quartets.
Supporting cast and atmosphere
Among the supporting cast, Jyuddah Jaymes is swaggering and laddish as the first Knight, Reginald Fitz Urse, and David Yelland suave and lawyerly as the fourth, Richard Brito. A core of four professional actor-singers is surrounded by an ensemble of locals marshalled by Francesca Ellis, the Orange Tree's community director.
The production runs to 7 Nov at the Orange Tree theatre.
