David Suchet plays Gregor Antonescu, an international financier and businessman caught in a massive loss of confidence during the 1930s. Pursued by the press, and later the FBI, he seeks shelter in the basement flat of his estranged son Basil, played by Ben Silverstone. As in all matters, Gregor is accompanied by his assistant Sven Johnson (David Yelland) and it is really around these three characters that the play revolves. It transpires that Gregor and his associates are really rather nasty pieces of work both in the macro sense, defrauding national banks and stealing money, and in the micro sense to their immediate colleagues, friends (if they had any) and, mostly, families. These characters need to be strongly, and believably, played – fortunately this production has no problems there with credible and at times powerful performances from all three.
Gregor’s current crisis has been caused by the failure of a merger deal which comes about when a young accountant finds evidence of fraud. Gregor invites the Director of the company (played by Colin Stinton) and the accountant (Will Huggins) to the flat in order to win a second chance at the merger which he does through a mixture of charm, rudeness, manipulation and a charade that his son is actually his rent boy. Gregor really is not a nice man, we are not surprised that he is unredeemable despite the love of his son.
Terrence Ratitgan did not give the women of this piece, Basil’s girlfriend played by Jennifer Lee Jellicorse and Gregor’s latest wife played by Emma Ferguson, particularly well-rounded roles so it is not really surprising that they failed to convince.
The staging of this production is very effective though I suspect it was built for a wider stage than the one I saw it on as some action got near enough to the wings for me to miss bits. The pace and attack seemed to lack variety but if you like Rattigan, you’ll certainly enjoy this production.
