Are London's latest plays worth seeing? REVIEWS of The Standard of Living and Hay Fever

MickeyJoTheatre

Mickey-Jo provides detailed reviews of two contrasting London West End productions: James Graham's historical drama 'The Standard of Living' and Noel Coward's classic comedy revival 'Hay Fever.' He examines the thematic depth,

Key takeaways

• James Graham's 'The Standard of Living' centers on economist John Maynard Keynes and explores the intersection of economic theory, art patronage, and early 20th-century history.
• Rory Kinnear delivers a strong, charming performance as Keynes, though he occasionally stumbles over lines and lacks physical aging cues across the play's decades-spanning timeline.

Main topics

• West End theatre reviews
• James Graham plays

Notable quotes

James Graham normally delivers Friday night theatre.

Conclusion

The episode offers a balanced, actor-focused critique that encourages

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Oh my god, hay fever! And also, the standard of living. These are two of the plays that I have seen at the theatre this week, and I would like to tell you about both of them. One is a brand new play from the very celebrated playwright James Graham, exploring 20th century economics through its protagonist John Maynard Keynes. Its story spanning decades and beginning just ahead of the 1920s, which is when this play, Hay Fever, written by Noel Coward, first premiered. Noel Coward's such a celebrated playwright that he has a theatre named after him in the West End, though this happens to be playing at the one behind it, the Wyndhams. has been revived many a time, often as a star vehicle, as it arrives now, starring Christine Baranski and Richard E. Grant. The Standard of Living, meanwhile, plays at Theatre Royal Haymarket and stars Rory Kinnear and Natalia Osipova, the superstar prima ballerina. And beyond the fact that they celebrated their opening nights in London's West End days apart, there is very little that connects these two plays. However, I'm going to review both of them for you now. And as always, while you're listening to my thoughts, if you have seen either of these for yourself, I would love to know what you thought of them in the comments section. down below. Please share your reviews. Meanwhile, if you enjoy listening to these and would like to hear even more of my theatre reviews, then you can find others wherever you might be seeing my face or hearing my voice, and you can also look forward to many more coming soon. Make sure to subscribe here on YouTube or follow me on podcast platforms so that you don't miss them. For now, though, we have two plays to talk about, beginning with the one that I saw first, which is James Graham's The Standard of Living. Speaker 1 (1:31) Now I'd like to begin by considering the context in which this is arriving into the West End, and that is the recent celebrated success of James Graham, who is becoming the foremost state-of-the-nation playwright. He has been bagging Olivier's, his works for the stage have been receiving screen adaptations, his most celebrated have included the recent successes Punch and Dear England. But he has become known for identifying these intriguing moments in history and these turning points in history and excavating them for their theatrical potential. I'm thinking about the play This House. I'm also thinking about Best of Enemies, even more recent history like Quiz. And in so much of his work, there is this through line of how we engage with one another, the ways in which we communicate, the ways in which that can shape society in the wider world. Intriguingly, The Sad End of Living isn't the first time that James Graham is writing about economic history. I saw another of his plays at the Edinburgh International Festival make it happen last year, a play which depicted the notable collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland alongside interpretations of the work of the father of economics, Adam Smith, who is also referenced a couple times in the second act of this play. Now, this one depicts John Maynard Keynes, celebrated economic mind and lifelong lover of the arts, which eventually, by the end of the play, and I mean by the very end, emerged. as its raison d'etre. To begin with, he is rehearsing a speech inviting contemplation on the notion of what it is that makes a good life and whether or not that can be calculated. He considers this in an already changed world which within the last 48 hours finds itself for the first time in global war, this in the early part of the 20th century, and he offers the notion of economics as a moral science and how we may live better together. And it's a delicate entrance into what turns out to be simultaneously a very ambitious ambitious and also narrowly focused play from James Graham. It feels as though there's an interesting historical story to tell here, as there is in so much of his other work, but that it may have become sidetracked by a fascination with this man's life. And when it comes to Graham's plays, I think the most interesting character that he writes consistently is history itself rather than individuals, because there are a few different subplots at play here. One is this ideological battle that Keynes enters into with a young economist. who is initially inspired by his work but comes to oppose him during the Second World War. He is Friedrich Hayek, played by Laurie Kiniston, and the collision of these two men only really comes at the very end of the first act, setting us up for slightly more intrigue in the second, which I think is the better half of the play. It also began to address my principal concern as I was sitting there starting to wonder why we were telling the story at all, why in 2026 we ought to be considering economic principles. that took shape a hundred years ago, what is the relevance of this to us today, when in the second act, the two men in a remarkably true story found themselves together, stood in the midst of the night on the roof of, I believe, the King's College Chapel in Cambridge. By chance, both of them volunteered fire marshals ready to neutralize any imminently dropped bombs. And this serendipitous scene sees Graham etching a blistering clear line from the descent into fascism of then right through to the government neglect, opportunistic false promises, desperation and division of now. with the whole thing finally finding significance. However, it isn't really placed as the play's climax. There is more to come with Keynes in the wake of the Second World War and its outcome, trying to shape the relationship between Britain and America financially. And all of this is just one of the strands that is being woven together here because there is also a romantic plot happening between Keynes and his somewhat unexpected wife, a Russian ballerina who he becomes deeply enamored with in spite of being, I'm going to call him a