The Constituent
Old Vic Theatre, London
Following his showdown over an egg salad in a chi-chi New York restaurant, James Corden has acquired a bit of a reputation.
But, whether you consider this portly Uxbridge man to be hair-triggered or hilarious, he brings all that and more to bear in a startling and moving return to the stage at London’s Old Vic — opposite Anna Maxwell Martin as a stressed-out ‘opposition’ MP.
Corden plays Alec, a British army veteran who’s turned to fitting security alarms after serving in Afghanistan. This brings him to the surgery of ex-school mate, now MP, Monica (Maxwell Martin).
As they get chatting, he hopes she can help him in the custody battle for his children, which is being settled in a family court.
She refuses to take sides, and when he returns with a box of live ammunition, warns him ‘there are certain things I cannot help you with…one of them is firearms’.
In The Constituent, James Corden plays Alec, a British army veteran who’s turned to fitting security alarms after serving in Afghanistan . This brings him to the surgery of ex-school mate, now MP, Monica, played by Anna Maxwell Martin
His life, in short, is in freefall.
The magic of Corden’s performance is that it is, in part, that of the comedian once unambiguously loved in Gavin And Stacey on TV. But he also taps into memories of the murdered MPs David Amess and Jo Cox.
Joe Penhall’s excellent script toys subtly with paranoid expectations — including over the security camera Alec fits in Monica’s office at the start.
It’s a thoroughly researched piece of work, confidently covering the subjects of family law, military regulations, psycho-pharmaceutical preparations and the diverse actions of shotgun cartridges.
Corden himself is slightly manic, as if in a hurry to leave — without ever making any real moves to do so. His voice is a little too loud. His diction a little too quick. Every speech is a surrogate cry for help, wrapped in the form of a Talk Radio phone-in tirade.
But every now and then there are great gags that reconnect him with his gift for comic timing. ‘My wife is very formidable’, he says, ‘like Lady Macbeth on a bender.’
Maxwell Martin is no less impressive. Bringing to bear her own reputation as the frazzled mum in the BBC’s Motherland, she protects herself from Alec with the prophylaxis of folded arms and a cold professional smile.
She nails the bottomless condescension of an Yvette Cooper, but gradually comes to understand that Alec needs not so much to be helped, as to be heard.
There are niggles in Matthew Warchus’s characteristically slick production, which frames the audience either side of the stage, to make it clear this is a story about us, now.
One is that well-meaning Zachary Hart, as Monica’s Police Protection Officer, is played for laughs as a foolish Brummie.
Another is that we are subjected to Billy Bragg caterwauling about social justice during a scene change.
But there is still terrific acting and writing, reminding us that some of our problems, as human beings, can be solved only by compassion, not politics.
