The script is side-splittingly funny, and Mayall seemed very comfortable having fun with one of his better characters. But things didn't go according to plan, last night, as the audience soon discovered. The first act was delightful, and flawless, if not for a few occasions where the actors seemed to stumble over a line. I've previously noticed this sort of thing during previews of a new show, and it is to be expected, I guess. But, I remembered, this show has been running for weeks. It was then, during the performance, that I recalled having read a flyer on the way in, announcing the replacement of a supporting actor - due to illness - and thought that might be to blame. Alas, it was not.
The second act began much as the first ended, before quickly unravelling. It became apparent, very apparent indeed, that Mayall was forgetting his lines. At first, just a word here and there (eg referring to the Deputy Prime Minister as "Gordon" Prescott, instead of John). Then it was the occasional phrase, and soon whole lines were forgotten, replaced with an interminable pause, before another actor hastily fed him his lines (eg Mayall: "I was going to ask you something"...
Mind you, the material was still very funny, but that just served to make things even more disastrous. How could Mayall have forgotten, one wondered, one of the funniest jokes in the play...
Mayall: Who's running the country?
Actor: John Prescott
Mayall: Prescott? He can't run the country. He can't even run a bath... he couldn't get into a bath... let alone get out of one."
Mayall delivered these sequential punchlines with excruciating difficulty. By now it was clear that he was choking under pressure.
Later, when the line-feeding wasn't working and it became apparent he couldn't keep running backstage, he broke out of character, and addressed the audience directly. He started by profusely apologising for his perfomance, then told us he'd had three teeth pulled that day. He said he was suffering from tremendous pain, which was making it hard to perform, and although he was very embarrassed by the situation, he said he had to go backstage to get the script. So for the next few minutes, Rik Mayall read from the script. It really was quite odd, and rather like viewing a rehearsal, which is most probably the case given the script changes. Things briefly returned to normal after that, but the mood in the theatre was not comfortable. Every time Mayall stumbled over a word, I got this horrible feeling that things would start to unravel again... and I couldn't help but feel that Mayall was thinking the same thing too.
The situation reached a climax in a breathtakingly short period of time. After a good run of things, Mayall started to forget his lines again, and for a moment there, it was actually rather annoying as, by now, the audience seemed to be exasperated with the drawn-out proceedings. An actor actually handed Mayall the script, and they tried to go on, but this time it made little difference. He didn't seem to know what page he was on, what paragraph, or what to say... even though he was looking right at the script. His face turned ashen. The audience was mute. I actually wondered if I was witnessing someone have a heart attack. As he struggled to find his way he seemed frozen to the spot where he stood, no doubt panicking... until his fellow actor said "come with me" leading him by the hand to a set door. Mayall resisted, saying "it's just the dentist"... "no", she replied, "it's the morphine"... "it's the dentist", "no, it's the morphine". This repartee repeated a few times more. The scene was so very, very sad. We watched in horrified silence as Mayall was lead off stage.
Most of the audience stayed in their seats. Indeed, it was a few minutes before the house lights came on. A few minutes more after that, a well-dressed man (perhaps the theater owner, or director, or stage manager) walked on to the stage, with Mayall in tow. The well-dressed man apologised for ending the performance early, again blaming the dentist's appointment for what came of the evening. Mayall seemed distraught, but eager to please. He said that there were only four or five minutes of the show left, and he was happy to try and continue but would no doubt forget his lines because his "head is so fucked", presumably from pain, or the painkillers. Someone in the audience shouted out "we love you Rick", and that signalled a lot of cheering, and what evolved into a curtain call. Most of the audience rose to their feet, myself included, to deliver a standing ovation - perhaps not so much for the performances (which admittedly were very funny and lots of fun), but more for the courage of everyone to march on just the same.
The peculiar nature of the night's proceedings was the subject among the audience, as we shuffled out of the theatre. I listened in where I could. Some people thought he was ill, others thought he was choking, and a lot just seemed very sorry for him. Then there were the handful of people at the box office who I think were trying to snag some replacement tickets, or perhaps a refund. Cheap insensitive bastards, I thought.
On my way home, I thought about all the times that I've choked up, while giving a speech, or trying to fill some other "unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run". At the time, I always feel like the worst thing in the world is happening, and from which I will never recover, let alone be able to attempt again. I thought a lot about Rik Mayall last night, wondering whether he was going home thinking about the same things. Did he think he did his best, under the circumstances? Or perhaps he felt that he had failed in some way? We so often do when disaster strikes. Eventually my thoughts lead to a realisation, that I hope Rik Mayall might also come to understand.
We, the audience, had all paid for theatre. We ventured out on a winter's night to see some drama. And it must be said that, Mr Mayall's anguish aside, there is nothing on the London stage that is more thrilling, more sad, more comical, more engrossing, more real, or more outstanding than what we, a few privileged theatregoers, witnessed for one-night-only in Whitehall last night.
