REVIEWS: EVENTS & STORIES

Once again it is that time of year, when the kindred spirit of goodwill between the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre is well and truly displayed for the ‘sham’ it is. Instead we are privileged to witness the true rivalry and bloodletting that takes place between these two National Theatrical Institutions. Never is this at its most blood-chilling climax then at the annual “Theatre Quiz”.

This year - as it has been for the last four - the contestants are competing for Ian Charleston crutch from "Cat on A Hot Tin Roof" performed at the Lyttleton. Whichever team wins the quiz three years in a row is allowed permanent ownership of the crutch. The RSC won the competition last year and so the pressure was on the RNT to prevent them from winning again this year, especially since Anthony Sher's crutch had been won by the RSC in 1996.

Fighting to protect the RSC honour were Marty Cruickshank, Alan David, Guy Henry (Team Captain), and Lindsay Posner. Whilst seeking requite for the RNT were Francis de la Tour, Christopher Holt, Genista McIntosh (Team Captain) and Corin Redgrave. Quiz mistress was the delightful Emma Freud who, as usual, made it clear to the contestants and the audience that she was in charge. There was only going to be one rule that would be consistent throughout, which was that she would make up the rules and would be the only adjudicator.

As the Quiz mistress introduced the teams she jokingly thanked Francis de la Tour for stepping in at the last moment for Martine McCutcheon. (The joke being that McCutcheon missed many performances in the RNT’s production of My Fair Lady!!)

The job of keeping the score this year was performed by the whole of “The National Theatre of Brent”, also known as Desmond Dingle and Raymond Box. That this should cause alarm for any hope of accuracy was quickly revealed when Raymond Box asked the audience if anyone had a calculator they could borrow.

The first round was a general knowledge quiz based on events in London Theatre that had taken place within the last twelve months. The RSC did amazingly well at this round I thought, and answered far more questions than the RNT. However, I like most of the audience were mistaken as according to Dingle and Box the RNT easily came ahead. We were then treated to some Shakespearian quotes by Dingle and Box. The quotations were all from Royal Characters in Shakespeare’s plays. The teams had to name the character and the play. Both Dingle and Box enjoyed this tremendously and were terribly perturbed when the eager buzzers of the contestants kept interrupting them. Dingles look of distain towards the Quiz mistress when he thought he was not going to be allowed to finish quoting King John was milk curdling. And Box rendered the audience to fits of uncontrollable laughter by insisting on pronouncing “Titus” as Tit-us”.

The second round was “Name the playwright and the plays”. For this we were treated to Francis de la Tour and Corin Redgrave reading a short dialogue. Their characters were a married American couple staying at a hotel. Contained within the dialogue were the names of eight plays. The RSC had to recognise all eight plays and name the playwright. This part of the quiz was fairly easy. I ask you, how could one not recognise plays such as “A View from a Bridge” “All My Sons” “Broken Glass” etc? However, the RSC did insist more than once that “Death of a Salesman” was one of the titles hidden amongst the dialogue. It is an Arthur Miller play, but not one named within the dialogue, and despite their protestations the Quiz mistress refused to give them any extra points.

Guy Henry and Alan David read a dialogue in which they were acting as playwrights in the middle ages, chatting over mugs of beer in an inn. The playwright that the RNT was looking for was Tom Stoppard, and again with such plays as “Indian Ink”, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD”, and “The Real Thing” this should have been an easy accomplishment, but to the shame of the RNT they could only name seven of the plays.

It was here that a member of the audience intervened and shared some knowledge with the quiz mistress. Unfortunately from where I was sat I could not hear what the man said, but whatever it was it made an impression because Dingle awarded him a hundred and ten points. When Corin Redgrave suggested the man looked like Richard Attenborough, Dingle give him a further 10 points for having the perceptiveness to come imitating a famous knight of the realm.

The next round was based on the surprising number of former Soap stars who are presently appearing or have appeared on the West End Stage this year. However, on this particular round Lindsay Posner attempted to answer before any question was even asked. He knew that Linda Gray was a soap star and so seemed over eager to share that knowledge. The quiz mistress had to remind him that in a quiz it is customary for the contestants to answer after the question had been asked and not before. Dingle suggested that maybe this was possibly a psychic round and quickly quipped “Question number six is?”

The RNT easily won this round due to the amazingly vast knowledge of ‘soaps’ possessed by Christopher Holt who easily answered most of the questions asked of the RNT. He obviously subscribes to digital TV, or videos lots of programmes’, otherwise how could a busy actor find the time to watch so much evening TV. Maybe he watches them for acting tips? Genista McIntosh however had to hold her head in shame when she could not name the play Paul Bradley appeared in. Considering the play was “The Relapse” which was a RNT production, and she is the National Executive Director for the RNT one wonders how much interaction she has with RNT actors?

We finally came to the costume round. The RSC were shown a costume used in a RNT production, and had to name the character who had worn the costume, the play the character was from, and the name of the actor who played the role. Since the costume was an outrageous mockery of the Statue of Liberty, from the “South Pacific” that had recently opened at the Olivier it was no surprise that the RSC answered this easily enough. However, the RNT team had a more difficult time guessing the non-descriptive costume from a RSC production.

Francis de la Tour had to leave at this point since she wanted to prepare for her performance in the “The Good Hope”. She obviously felt that her skills were no longer needed, as it was clear by this time that the RNT had won the 2001 theatre quiz.

The Quiz could not end without the RNT having a final stab at Martine McCutcheon. And for this purpose a further round was introduced to this years quiz “Feel the actor”. For this Genista McIntosh (RNT) and Alan David were blindfolded and told that they would have to feel a guest actor and name who they were. Genista McIntosh looked horrified at the thought of having to ‘grope’ some unfortunate individual. At this point a cardboard cut-out of McCutcheon was brought on to the stage, no doubt she was not able to make it in person and so the cardboard cut-out was some understudy who was taken her place!! As soon as Genista McIntosh touched the cut-out she guessed who the actor was. The RNT was awarded 10 points. However, this round made no difference to the overall result.

Desmond Dingle was able to read out the score, which revealed that the RNT had 55 points and the RSC 41. So the battle had come to an end for another year and once again harmony and friendship had returned to the relationship between the RNT and the RSC, until next year that is!

(Alan Bird) alan@londontheatre.co.uk