Swift
British Theatre Guide **** review
Dean Jonathan Swift was a famous satirist of the early Eighteenth Century. This solo performance by Jeffrey Mayhew starts with an extract from his most famous work, Gulliver's Travels, and returns to the much-loved novel again and again.
This fresh look at Gulliver and so much other work proves that in political matters, the passage of 300 years makes little difference. Rivalries and infighting today are remarkably similar to those in Swift's time, if far more public.
In a little over an hour, we get extracts from poetry, prose, plays and even Swift's will. The surprise for those who imagine that the 1960s created the permissive society is that the writer, though a churchman, could be bawdy with the best of them and some of the diseases from which he suffered are commonly believed to be transmitted sexually.
This is far more than a memoir of the pessimistic Swift's life as it was drawing to a close. He was a man who was constantly quipping and name-dropping. The play therefore also covers the times in which he lived with anecdotes about his protege, Gay, Pope (who had the idea that eventually became Gulliver) and even the Queen.
Under Guy Masterson's direction, Jeffrey Mayhew demonstrates great acting skill and sympathetically portrays a tremendous historical and literary figure.
Philip Fisher