MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Wooden bourgeois cliché
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity
DEEPLY UNSYMPATHETIC: Kate Fleetwood (Elena Solness) and Ewan McGregor (Henry Solness) in My Master Builder / Pic: Johan Persson
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My Master Builder
Wyndham’s Theatre, London
★★
THE title of the new play currently showing at Wyndham’s Theatre dangerously invites comparison with the Ibsen classic on which it is loosely based. Comparisons are always odious but here would be a disservice. For, despite all its promise, My Master Builder is a disappointment.
It shouldn’t be. For a start, it’s directed by the highly experienced and accomplished Michael Grandage. Secondly, it stars Ewan McGregor, Kate Fleetwood and Elizabeth Debicki – she of The Crown. Thirdly, it uses a famed Ibsen story as its model. And lastly, it boasts Richard Kent’s stylish design, a glorious, pale steel, slatted set reaching for the stars and letting in light and seascape views to make your spirits soar.
But the difficulty with this play lies in Lila Raicek’s overwritten and somewhat pedestrian script, and in its failure convincingly to bring to life a story supposedly set in the Hamptons in 2025 but actually shaped by a long-gone society.
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