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the complete review - drama

Balmoral

by
Michael Frayn

general information | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : good fun, though a bit simple

See our review for fuller assessment.

The complete review's Review:

       Balmoral takes place in 1937 -- but one in which history took a different turn back in 1917. It wasn't a Russian Revolution that toppled a monarchy and established a workers' state -- it was a British one. Former royal residence Balmoral is now a writers' retreat, while conditions everywhere in England are fairly ... Soviet.
       A B-list of British writers are in residence at Balmoral (the better-known names come in the more comfortable summer months): Warwick Deeping, Godfrey Winn, Enid Blyton, and Hugh Walpole. Around them, the place is going to pieces. The indoor temperature is forty-eight degrees, and every last item of any value (down to the ping-pong balls) is being pilfered.
       On top of that, an inspector is expected, which could mean the end of the warden's career. Someone arrives -- but it turns out to be a Russian journalist (i.e. from the capitalist press), eager to see what Soviet life is like. The problem is that the author he's most eager to meet is Walpole, who seems to have disappeared.
       The other writers naturally assume Walpole has been made to disappear: arrested, shot, officially taken away in any case -- a common enough occurrence, apparently ("I suppose it might only be ten years" Winn cheerfully suggests).
       Things get more complicated when Walpole reappears, but events then necessitate the Scottish butler (in this classless society) posing as Walpole for the journalist while a big secret is kept from the newspaperman in a trunk in the same room. It becomes a comedy of confusion, not only regarding personal identities but also class roles in this workers paradise. The butler as Walpole -- a proletarian dressed up as a writer -- is a great hit with the journalist, and much of the fun is in seeing how the characters keep up the ruse (and what roles some of the others (notably the warden) are forced to adopt). But it's all just pretend of course, and the truth will out .....

       Frayn's play is amusing enough, offering everything from simple farce to a bit of clever political commentary. Class is, of course, an odd British obsession, and it gets covered quite well here. Other potential in the Russian-English role reversal isn't quite as well realized, and ultimately it does all seem a bit too simple. Still, it's clever and fun, and no doubt plays well on the stage.

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Links:

• NCPR
• The Stranger
• Wiltshire Times

• Michael Frayn at Literature Matters
• Interview in BOMB Magazine
• Interview in The Paris Review
• Profile from The Guardian

• Celia's Secret (US title: The Copenhagen Papers)
• Copenhagen
• Democracy
• Headlong
• Matchbox Theatre
• Skios
• Spies

• See the index of Drama at the complete review

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About the Author:

       British author Michael Frayn was born in 1933. He is best known as a playwright. He has also written several acclaimed novels.

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