Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, part 1

"I suspect [Jeffrey] Bernard, like most chronic drunks, was selfish, emotionally illiterate, vile-tempered and prone to panic attacks and dreadful depression. The portrait of alcoholism on offer here, full of tipsy hilarity and comic incident, is a seductive lie... That feeling is magnified in the theatre, with the audience laughing uproariously at a man most of them would probably have despised had they got to know him even moderately well".

The above nugget arrives at your eyes courtesy of Charles Spencer from the Telegraph. He was reviewing a revival of Keith Waterhouse's play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, starring Tom Conti, which opened recently (and which I am going to see on August 12th). Spencer's piece is disingenuous for several reasons and in arguing with it I shall attempt to construct a defence for the play's re-appearance and provide a general outline of it for the uninitiated. Part 2 of this article will appear in the guise of a review of the current production in two weeks.

Let us begin at the bitter end, on the 7th of September, 1997 one Jeffrey Bernard died in a diabetic stupor in his bed having already had his right leg amputated. His careers had been lively and varied - stagehand at Covent Garden, barman, doorman at a boxing tent - but he was best remembered as a columnist, which function he fulfilled variously for The Spectator, The New Statesman and Sporting Life. The columns offered his well-to-do readership a voyeuristic glimpse into the Soho bohemia of the 60's and 70's where Bernard was popular figure with such luminaries as Francis Bacon and Dylan Thomas.

Married four times and divorced four times, Bernard perpetuated an archetypically troubled existence: The misanthropic man of letters, the difference being that he never wrote anything of more substance than his columns (as Bernard composes his own obituary in the play he adds "He leaves two unwritten books"). What he did write was/is loved for its visceral recreation of a troubled yet alluring lifestyle and its inclination toward comic absurdity. The play is named for the banner The Spectator would run when Bernard could dredge nothing up that week. Occasionally it would read: Jeffrey Bernard's column does not appear this week because it is remarkably similar to that which he wrote last week.

Which brings us (with but a slight shunt in time to 1989) to the play. First performed at the Apollo theatre with a sensational turn from Peter O' Toole at its centre, it was a hit of sizable, if not seismic, proportions. It was revived twice in the 1990's and a run at the Old Vic in 1999 was another, similarly proportioned success. The plot is simple: Bernard awakens from an alcoholic fug at 5 in the morning to find himself locked in his local - The Coach and Horses - with nothing to do but drink and think he leads the audience on a meander around his past both recent and distant. A supporting cast of four appear to aid him in a series of vignettes to illustrate his monologue. The ebullience and verve with which these sketches appear are key to the play's success. In one scene, for example, Bernard recalls his mother's appearance in court for non-payment of a debt. She appears behind him, as does a be-wigged judge. "If you continue in that vein Mrs. Bernard", says the judge "I shall have to commit you for contempt of court" to which Mother Bernard replies "Make that utter contempt".

The supporting cast for the current incarnation includes (as has every other West-End production of the play) the incomparable Royce Mills. Watching him dispatch killer line after killer line with timing honed by decades is one of the nearest sensations you can have to joy whilst seated and immobile. His turn as character actor Dennis Shaw is the play's comic centre-piece and has probably launched as much spittle into West-End aisles as any other.

Now then, let us return to the critical and moralistic prescriptions of the Telegraph's Charles Spencer. Firstly it seems a touch patronising to arrive at any unilateral judgement about "the audience"- be it their class, their attitude or their reason for attending the play. As a 21 year old to whom "the theatre" is 2 words, 10 letters and not much else I have never seen the play performed before. I first encountered it when a taped performance from 1999 was played on BBC2 in the same year. A DVD copy of the same performance has been floating around Richmond branch library (where I used to work) and I have made thorough use of this over the years. So, part of the pleasure of a West-End revival is simple enough - people who haven't seen it before can, at last, get a look at the bloody thing in its natural habitat. Spencer presumes that it is being done for the money and cites the unchanging set and direction as proof of this and he may have a point. However, I would contest that the whole process is too much fun for avarice to outweigh the pleasure. Artistic stagnancy only happens to comedies when the jokes lose their lustre - surely the only otiose comedy is an unfunny one.

Spencer too, attacks Waterhouse's satirical and affectionate martyrdom of his dissolute friend. Again I would take issue and suggest that Englishmen have a grand history of monumentalising the everyday flaws and extravagant follies of people we should never care to meet socially. Imagine going out for a meal with Charles Pooter, Bertie Wooster and William Boot and you will hopefully see my point. The comedic distillation of a questionable life functions because, by necessity, the audience is willingly deluded into believing humour to be its essential matter. We see edited highlights of a life where even depression is reduced to a dull, comforting haze.

A glance around the popular press shows that disapprobatory attitudes toward the revival abound to various degrees. The Guardian's Michael Billington took a swipe by questioning its thematic relevance:

"Stroll through Soho today and you see nothing but mobile-phones and boorish, deeply un-Bohemian binge-drinkers. Waterhouse's play is a love letter to a long vanished world[...] something in the climate has changed. In a world that oscillates uneasily between moral puritanism and sanctioned hedonism, Jeffrey Bernard now seems less a defiant nonconformist than a dated anachronism".

Now, Billington should be wary about starting trends for slapping "dated anachronism" stickers on things, his world could fast develop into a septuagenarian Logan's Run if such a practice ever caught on. As you may have guessed, I feel rather protective towards the play. A comedy is an emotionally fragile thing, a drama can scowl and claim that it is misunderstood but not a comedy. It is rather defenceless if people decide to start picking on it. True the new Soho is nothing like the one that Bernard recalls, but then since the play is an ode upon its demise (with Bernard, as he puts it: "sitting by dying Soho and taking her pulse but wondering if it mightn't be kinder to just switch off the life-support") then surely Soho's current state merely heightens the elegiac potency of the thing? No? Well, perhaps not, but it's still fucking funny.

Which brings us neatly, of course, to O' Toole. He delivered a performance of inestimable quality to which there is a monumentality that suggests that any observer could identify it as being great. His intonations are exquisite ("I once worked in a pub and the landlord was one of those dreadful people who call you squire and think of themselves as your genial host"). O' Toole's voice bounces muscularly around the Old Vic and his pronunciations wax and wane in accordance with the ebb and flow of vodka and bloody Mary's. It is, in short, a thing to behold, and I recommend, if you have not already, that you behold it at the nearest opportunity.

But, of course, you won't behold it if you go the Garrick theatre between now and September, there you shall see Tom Conti in the role and presumably finishing an honourable second. This is where I shall end part one of my musings on the subject of Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell. The second part shall be predominantly be a review of Conti's interpretation which, I understand, differs in several areas from O' Toole. Less visceral I hear, but funnier, we shall see.

By J.L. Cranfield

Copyright August 2006