Pi Newspaper | December 2011 encore@pimedia.org.uk


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Literary corner: A Void (La disparition)


by Milton, Rimbaud and Edgar Allen Poe (‘quoth that Black Bird, “Not again!”’) are rewritten without the letter ‘e’, yet keeping to the original rhythm and rhyme scheme. Shorter passages in French, German and Italian showcase the author’s dexterity in multiple languages. There is also much clever exploitation of the reader’s superior knowledge for ironic and comedic effect, which I did enjoy. Impressive? Yes, very... But


John Hodgkinson as Chris Mullin and Hywel Morgan as Tony Blair at the Soho Theatre.


Candid guide to a mad world


John Hodgkinson stars as a crumpled Chris Mullin in a new stage adaptation of the MP’s diaries


THEATRE


A Walk On Part Soho Theatre Until Dec 10


WHEN in January I interviewed Chris Mullin, the former Labour MP whose diaries have provided for so many readers such an engaging snapshot of the New Labour years, he let slip that a dramatisation of the diaries was at that moment being worked upon up in Newcastle. Proving our good ear for a


scoop, his revelation appeared nowhere in my subsequent write- up for Pi Newspaper. Despite this shocking lack of support from London’s student press, A Walk On Part – Michael Chaplin’s adaptation of Mullin’s three volumes of diaries – has now made the transfer down the A1 to the Soho Theatre, where I was lucky enough to see its opening night. It is a funny and fast-paced


production that captures well the lively mood of Mullin’s books. Like the diaries of Samuel Pepys, an earlier Member of Parliament who as Secretary to the Admiralty rose higher up the foothills than Mullin


ever did, the appeal of Mullin’s diaries is the way in which they juxtapose public and private life. Affairs of state, parliamentary folly and intrigue, and momentous events such as 9/11 and the Iraq war stand alongside closer-to-earth, more human dramas: the deaths of Mullin’s parents and the infancy and adolescence of his daughters. The contrast is perhaps more


contrived than it at first appears. Unlike Pepys, who wrote in a shorthand which was decoded only after his death, Mullin always intended to publish, and since leaving Parliament in 2010 no longer keeps a diary. But Chaplin’s play captures


these tensions fantastically well. He has condensed a narrative of 16 years, from Tony Blair’s election as leader of the Labour Party in 1994 to Gordon Brown’s fall from power in 2010, into a rattling and frenetic two hours. Each of the four actors


supporting John Hodgkinson’s Chris Mullin, a crumpled and somewhat Pooterish rock of common sense in a mad world, takes on many different parts. They suggest changes in time and place in the twinkling of an eye simply through different voices,


postures and demeanours. Hywel Morgan has Blair’s


salesman insincerity and long- distance eyes down perfectly, while impressively managing to steer clear of previous portrayals by Rory Bremner and Michael Sheen. Jim Kitson as Gordon Brown and John Prescott also got big laughs from an audience that recognised these figures that are now safely of the past and was amused to be reminded of them. The show is a cross between


comedy revue and the sort of Berlin satire suggested by the Soho Theatre’s café-style basement, in which the audience sits around coffee tables rather than in rows. By treating grand events in such whistle-stop fashion, we are shown the folly of political ambition and the ultimate vanity of human wishes. John Hodgkinson has caught


Mullin’s high-pitched, slightly querulous but fundamentally honest tone of voice uncannily well. As in the diaries, and indeed from my own brief meeting with him, the character emerges as a hospitable, candid and empathetic guide to a world that all too often seems anything but.


Samuel Johnson


THIS lengthy lipogram, original title La Disparition (The Disappearance), was written entirely without using the letter ‘e’, and then translated under the same constraints; no mean feat of expression in either French or English. George Perec, enthusiast of words and word games, wrote a murder mystery with a very elaborate plot which begins with the strange visions and sudden disappearance of Anton Vowl (his name just one of hundreds of little winks and nudges towards the missing letter that haunts the reader and torments the characters throughout the book). We follow the protagonists as they uncover pieces of a greater and more troubling story that centres around, but never quite pins down, the absence of a certain unnameable something. As crazy as the original


idea may sound, as much recognition should go to Adair for his version; it’s incredible that anyone could translate over 250 pages of narrative with this additional technical difficulty. The storyline is a loopy doodle which cuts across itself, and parodies many features of the traditional whodunit; extensive family histories, which take entire chapters to relate, reveal surprise relations and shared affinities. When Vowl’s diary is


discovered, his friends pour over his unexplained reworkings of famous writers, hoping to find a clue to his whereabouts. A good chunk of his transcriptions are included in the novel; that famous monologue from Hamlet, poetry


having battled through reading the damn thing, I’m not entirely sure why Adair did it. Perhaps he shares Perec’s compulsion to problematize the act of writing, which the latter explains as acting as “a spur to [his] imagination” (included in the back of the book, written and then translated, of course, sans ‘e’). This may be the case in the


act of writing, but reading it is laboured. Seemingly unnecessary description and long strings of nouns occur often, along with drawn out asides and expansions


The story-line is a loopy doodle which cuts across itself


to the plot with no obvious purpose. The latter may be a consequence of the limited range of vocabulary available to the narrator, but it all feels a bit like showing off, as though a slavish adherence to form undermined what was potentially engrossing content. Having read and enjoyed


many of George Perec’s other more personal works (which are available in translation), my response to this piece was much cooler; I would recommend A Void for its technical brilliance only, but to read Perec at his emotive and thought-provoking best then go for Things: A Story of the Sixties or watch his beautiful and frightening film Un homme qui dort.


If you would like to write an


appreciation of a poem, book or play for Literary Corner in future issues, please contact Cristine Li at encore@pimedia.org.uk


Rosy Ross


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