'The Standard of Living' review — economics, bohemians, and a passionate case for the value of art

Read our review of James Graham's new play The Standard of Living, now in performances at Theatre Royal Haymarket to 12 December.

Summary

• James Graham's play The Standard of Living premieres at Theatre Royal Haymarket
• It centres on the influential economist John Maynard Keynes and his colourful personal life
• Rory Kinnear and Natalia Osipova are superb as Keynes and his Russian ballerina wife
• Nicholas Hytner's slick production features vivid design and dance interludes

In the witty opening to James Graham’s latest modern history play, economist John Maynard Keynes observes that some of us may be “feeling daunted by this subject matter”. That acknowledgement tackles any potential audience trepidation head on, while assuring us that this production will offer up far more than graphs and equations in its exploration of what makes a good life and a good society.

Keynes, the hugely influential 20th-century thinker, is also far from a stuffy academic. Graham vividly depicts a man who straddled two contrasting worlds: the drab suits of the Treasury and the colourful bohemian artists of the Bloomsbury Group. He also shocked everyone by swapping a copious succession of male lovers for marriage to the Ballets Russes star Lydia Lopokova.

There is a wealth of material here as we gallop through Keynes’s eventful life, from his (unsuccessful) argument for less punitive terms in the Treaty of Versailles at the end of the First World War through to his role in establishing the International Monetary Fund and the Arts Council. Throughout, Keynes makes a fervent case for government intervention and public spending to turbocharge economic recovery and social growth, challenging the established policy of “laissez-faire”.

It is rather a barrage of information, so some advance reading helps. The bed-hopping Bloomsbury lot are also so compelling that it’s tricky to relegate them to supporting characters. They have the most interesting dynamic with misfit Keynes: he values them as a found family, but this rather insufferably snobbish cabal judge him for his worldly activities – even though he funds much of their lifestyle.

Keynes’s ideas are best expressed dramatically when he has an opponent, the Austrian economic Friedrich Hayek. They don’t quite enter into Hamilton-esque rap battles, but one of their duels is dynamically staged as a tango (choreographed by James Cousins). Nicholas Hytner’s slick, stylish production also makes clever use of sliding panels which swoop in with archival photographs and striking period artwork (set by Bob Crowley and projections by Luke Halls).

Rory Kinnear brings typically deft nuance to Keynes, a man who gleefully tots up sexual conquests in his little black book (he even flirted with Albert Einstein) but is felled by his surprising love for Lydia: “I’m unmoored,” he confesses. In fact, the whole play is enjoyably upended by Lydia, played by Royal Ballet principal Natalia Osipova in her terrific acting debut. The Russian dancer is hilariously blunt (“You must finish” is her assessment of Vanessa Bell’s modernist painting), but, in palpably loving fashion, also supports and fuels Keynes’s revolutionary mission. We get the added bonus, too, of some beautiful dance interludes from Osipova.

There are also strong supporting turns from Pip Carter as Keynes’s petulant ex Lytton Strachey, Naomi Frederick as a razor-sharp Virginia Woolf, Thomas Flynn as a languid Duncan Grant, and Laurie Kynaston as the dogged Hayek.

The potent resonance of this historical drama becomes all too clear as Keynes articulates the danger of leaving a vacuum for populist demagogues proffering easy solutions to desperate people. This is also a passionate and much-needed argument for the value of culture: economic, social, emotional, and spiritual (Keynes founded a theatre in Cambridge as well as the Arts Council). That, both Keynes and Graham rightly proclaim, is vital for a good life.

The Standard of Living is at Theatre Royal Haymarket to 12 December. Book The Standard of Living tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: The Standard of Living (Photos by Manuel Harlan)