Mourning Glory reviews

Can any of the shows about the death of the Princess of Wales be worth seeing? Yes, says Dan Glaister

Here’s why...

Dan Glaister. The Guardian - Wednesday August 12th 1998

"I wish to discuss something that happened last year," David Benson tells his audience at the Observer Assembly Rooms. For Benson, last year was something of a triumph; the year in which he became the Fringe's Golden Boy, his one-man remembrance of Kenneth Williams going from church hall to main venue, to national tour to, gasp, the West End. But he doesn't want to discuss that. Instead, Benson has decided this year to exhume a different set of memories by delivering a vivid re-enactment of the funeral of Diana. Yes, that Diana.

Benson is not alone in wishing to tackle Diana. The National Theatre of Brent is staging a conspiracy-fest in Love Upon The Throne, which has already attracted the ire of the more publicity-conscious members of Edinburgh City Council, while Flowers In The Park "a thought-provoking experience offering moments of light relief to the grief" sees ordinary folk pay tribute to the Queen of Hearts before leaving a floral tribute on the stage. Very touching.

Bensons proposition is more sophisticated. Avoiding much of the waspishness that could be visited on such an easy target, Benson delivers a touching, sometimes despairing rendition of the funeral in Nothing But Pleasure.

Reliving that afternoon last September, he introduces the celebrity cast one by one: Elton John and George Michael; the two Toms, Hanks and Cruise; Messrs Branson and Barrymore. It is a ghoulish collection, but all are upstaged by the presence of the Queen Mother, triumphant over her adversary. The rest of the Royal Family are portrayed as a sad collection of bewildered onlookers, sitting silent and nonplussed as first Earl Spencer delivers his onslaught and then the audience outside the church sets off a response that eventually infects all but the Royals.

It was, in Benson's telling, a moment of almost Revolutionary import. "Everybody sensed that something irrevocable had changed and yet nothing really had. I was interested in the healing power of laughter," he says. "Ken Dodd always said that he was like a healer because he was in the business of giving people a good laugh. The sort of humour I like is the sort where you go 'Ha-ha' and then you go 'Oh no’" He reels of a litany of disasters – Hillsborough, Bosnia, Lockerbie – recounting the role the role of humour in allowing people to come to terms with their grief. He tells me of visiting a Bosnian family in Denmark who were living in misery. "We started to laugh. They loved to laugh but they'd been robbed of their laughter." He read a report into the Hillsborough disaster by a Liverpool academic. "Those families can't laugh about it. They've been deprived of it because they feel guilty."

The core of Nothing But Pleasure was written during a two-week break on the Greek island of Lesbos, where he had gone to try to clear his mind. "I was the only homosexual there," he says, outraged, "but it meant I had a lot of time to think." The skit on the Diana funeral was what emerged. "I knew early on that it would make something. I was with a friend in the kitchen about a week after it had all happened. He'd avoided the whole thing deliberately, so I told him about it and by the time I'd finished he was on the edge of his seat. It's got a narrative of its own, its got high-points, its got humour, its got a great story and its never been told. "I'm just trying to tell it like it is, but put an ironic spin on it. We all saw it but we didn't really know what was going on. When I tell people I'm doing a story about Diana, everyone remembers where they were. It's like kids love to be told the same story over and over again. That's what I'm doing. Its a real-life fable."

The effect of familiarity is aided by Benson's excursions into impressions, which range from Frankie Howerd to a wonderful take on Tony Blair's Olivier-like funeral delivery of Corinthians: "The impressions relax the audience, it makes them trust me."

With his show now unveiled, Benson waits to see how the Diana fable, and our responses to it, develop as the anniversary nears. "I'm not sure there's anything new to say about it," he says. "The structure of the show won't change, but it could incorporate current events as they happen."

He is still, one suspects, rather envious of the more direct approach of one of his heroes, Quentin Crisp. "I remember he said, 'Diana was trash and she got what she deserved. How dare she divorce the heir to the throne and try to marry an Arab?'" But that's a stand-up line, and David Benson doesn't do stand-up.

Nothing But Pleasure runs till September 5 at the Observer Assembly Rooms.

Dangerous to know. Edinburgh Fringe

Benedict Nightingale - The Times, 11/08/98

Nobody knew for sure what David Benson, whose solo show about Kenneth Williams was a hit last year, planned to offer as a sequel; but within the first moments of Nothing But Pleasure at the Assembly Rooms, it was clear he hoped to pre-empt an attack by the Edinburgh vigilantes. First an elderly lady with a genteel Morningside accent came on stage to declare that he was a very nice boy who didn't want to offend anyone. And a little later he himself was telling us, via an anecdote, about a bloody suicide and the friend who dared to wonder if the dead man had cashed the large cheque he had just given him, about the humour that helps us to cope with horror. So what was his subject?

Paedophilia, cannibalism, serial murder, genocide? No, something far touchier. He talked and wryly mimed his way through his memories of the death and funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales – and said the things many of us felt, but given the emotional fascism sweeping the nation at the time, few dared confess. Were you troubled by the sight of the PM reading Corinthians so hammily you thought he might break into a tap-dance to the accompaniment of words by St Paul?

Benson went further. He was put in mind of a bright new Hitler implicitly proclaiming "I am the new millennium", and was almost as repelled by the celeb swank around him: Pavarotti,"his face a mask of operatic grief"; Elton John "a terrible old queen - singing this ghastly song in an American accent"; and, upstaging them all, "the entrance of the star herself, almost audibly saying 'Beat that, you old bat' to the Queen Mother from inside her coffin". Benson displayed some sympathy for the Royal Family, "frozen in terror" as a wealthy, expatriate earl harangued them for being out of touch, and especially for Diana's sons. What would the younger have felt as he bravely followed a coffin with a handwritten "Mummy" on it if he had looked to the side and seen a sign reading "William and Harry, Please Cry"? Myself, I found Benson's show sensitive and liberating and, often, dangerously funny. At one point he asked if anyone in the audience had signed the Book of Remembrance. One had, in Belfast Why? 'The queue wasn't very long." she innocently replied.

Sharp act to follow

David Benson - Nothing but pleasure. Assembly Rooms

Colin Somerville - The Stage

Firmly laying the ghost of Kenneth Williams - pardon the expression, but he was the inspiration for this award-winning Fringe show of the past two years - Edinburgh-based David Benson confirms his status as a considerable comic talent. The controversy will arise from the show's majoring on the funeral of Diana, Princess Of Wales.

Praise should be forthcoming for sharp comic observation and Benson's increasingly impressive stage presence. His take-off of Tony Blair's funeral speech was almost scary, and his ability to interact with the audience strangely comforting. In the hands of the less accomplished, much of this material could prove clumsy and tasteless.

But Benson judges the mood in the room cleverly, and has the ability to respond accordingly. As the run progesses, this show will also evolve to become even more impressive, and provide another feather in the cap of an engaging performer. Until September 5.

Camp take on the Queen of Hearts

David Benson - Nothing but pleasure.

Mark Wilson - The Independent 11/08/98

"I HOPE you're not expecting Frankie Howerd," titters David Benson. "Impersonating dead camp comedians is all very well but you don't want to get stuck in a cul-de-sac."

As if he should be worried. Yes, he had a big hit last year with his Kenneth William reminiscences, and yes, his take on the (oh so alive) Graham Norton ("a man totally without gravity - he floats on stage") makes a cameo appearance in this year's show. But Benson's playful story-telling is never arch for arch's sake. Instead, he weaves wry, bitter-sweet tales that explore the comic potential of the darkest places. In one story, he recounts how the death of a "beautiful but troubled boy" left his circle of drama student friends disconsolate and uncommunicative. A few days later, one of them remembered that they'd written him a cheque the day before he died: "I wonder if he cashed it?"

At last they could talk about it: the spell was broken. But some subjects are taboo. Surely nobody could make the national psychic trauma that was the death of our beloved Queen of Hearts anything other than the most ghoulish joke? David Benson could. In his skilled hands we learn of the real meaning of the day - "it took our minds off the boredom of our lives"; we learn why people lined up in Belfast to sign the book of condolences - "the queue was short"; and who the most nervous person in Britain was that sunny day in August - "It was Liz [simulates crown]. She was bricking it." For the sheer range of his performance, the tautness and vitality of his language, and the masterful comic insight, David Benson has few peers. And he can sing, the swine. Miss him at your peril.

David Benson - Nothing But Pleasure
Assembly Theatre ***

Douglas Fraser - The Scotsman, 18/08/98

For years, television executives have struggled to move on from the chat-show format and only now has David Benson struck upon the answer - simply dispense with the interviewer and leave the loquacious guest to indulge in 75 minutes of observation, wit and barely scripted bar stool philosophy.

Benson is that guest, whose reputation is founded on an exquisite impersonation of Kenneth Williams, that king of Parky's chat-show comfy chair. Following Think No Evil Of Us, he was under pressure to keep up the link to dead, camp comedians such as Frankie Howerd, but he opted, rightly, to break free of typecasting. So we have a show which moves from his school playground to the night of Diana's death and on to a detailed commentary of that shared national experience.

The targets are easy - the Royal family, Tony Blair, hysterical mourners - treating the dead princess with so much deference as to make this too safe, too comfortable, too familiar. The show doesn't amount to stand-up comedy, though it can be funny. Nor does it make theatre, leaving the impression of Benson as a sad clown, still entwined with Williams (down to the dropped "h"s and the extravagantly rolled "r"s), still trying to find out what to do next, in need of an editor and director. He has great presence and an astonishingly powerful voice, but this show does not realise his potential.

No hedges in Benson's way. Assembly Rooms. David Benson - Nothing but Pleasure.

Phil Gibb - The Stage, 13/O8/98

This is David Benson's supposedly "difficult" second solo show but, no longer burdened by the ghost of Kenneth Williams, he relaxes into being himself and forging his own reputation as an all-round entertainer with considerable success.

He opens and closes the performance with a couple of big numbers, Stardust and Come Away, Death (both arranged and played by David Paul Jones) and throws in a few lukewarm impressions - Julian Clary and Ronnie Barker good, Graham Norton questionable. But the heart of the show is Benson, the camp raconteur, and very good it is too. Inevitably, it is the death of Diana, Princess of Wales - the source of so much material for so many at this year's Fringe - which consumes Benson, but his success is simply in the recounting of events on the funeral day. He tells his story in his trademark, knowing and slightly confidential manner, gossiping in the style of the "terrible old queen" he professes to be. There are no great coups de theatre, no shocking revelations, just a personal memoir, skilfully told.

There is little more to be said, other than that the audience genuinely adored it and if Benson's aim is, as I suspect, to forge a mainstream career in the vein of Mike Yarwood or Des O'Connor, then there are a lot of worse ways of going about it than this. Kenneth Williams swiftly exorcised, methinks.