Kim gives her best between the sheets.
The Daily Mail (London, England); 1/28/2005
Byline: QUENTIN LETTS
Whose Life Is It Anyway? (Comedy Theatre, London) Verdict: Dark humour brightens a right-to-die dilemma
ROB an actress of her body, leaving only head movements and voice, and you discover how good she is.
The answer with Hollywood's Kim Cattrall is, well, pretty good. But not a world beater.
Whose Life Is It Anyway?, tweaked to make the lead role female, is a great gut-thumper of a play. Sculptor Claire (Miss Cattrall) has been left a quadriplegic by a car crash.
She decides she would prefer to die rather than remain in hospital being fed salty mince, soapy smiles and the inane blether of an occupational therapist.
The doctors (darkly dishy Alexander Siddig and a nicely priggish William Chubb) are dismayed that anyone should seek the gathering arms of their constant foe, Death. Yet Claire is equally outraged that they will not let her have her way.
A judge (Janet Suzman) is summoned to decide whose life it is, or rather, is not. Are the medics justified in their belief that tranquillisers will help her?
Or are they simply the ones who will derive the tranquillity?
Miss Cattrall, fashionable for her vixen voluptuary role in TV's Sex And The City, accentuates Claire's sardonic rebelliousness. Unfortunately, it becomes hard to avoid thinking of that shallow TV character as Claire the cripple flings round the f-word and talks about sex.
The lighter moments are not marbled with enough despair - or vocal variety. In pace and tone, Miss Cattrall could be more adventurous. There are moments when Sir Peter Hall might have lifted his bottom off the director's chair and offered her more guidance.
Miss Cattrall is on stronger ground in the slow rapport she builds with the strict, but not unemotional, hospital sister
A scene in which the matron's English reserve crumbles, and tears spring to her eyes, is beautifully done.
Miss Suzman also achieves great things with restraint.
With just one choked cough of bitter despair at Claire's plight, this wise old actress brilliantly bottles the essence of human powerlessness.
If the central performance makes the first half a touch light and over-exuberant, Brian Clark's writing restores the balance after the interval.
A description of Claire's elderly parents visiting her in her stricken state makes the eyes prickle. But would a mother really say she was proud of her daughter's decision to end her life if, as here, she was so full of vim and sparky intelligence? We keep on coming back to the problem that Miss Cattrall does not seem badly enough torpedoed by her disaster.
Perhaps drama, on stage or film, is never quite going to capture the full ordeal of spinal paralysis because it inevitably lacks that most striking of elements: the distinctive, pervasive smell of a hospital and of bodily malfunctions. The odour of confinement always strikes me as the worst thing.
It is not Miss Cattrall's fault that such a foolish hoopla has been made about her arrival on the West End, or that the programme for this intense, topical drama features a damn silly snapshot of her as a sex siren. Hype has hindered her.
She gives of her best here, and although a notch short of brilliant, it is still powerful and highly watchable.
The Daily Mail (London, England); 1/28/2005
Byline: QUENTIN LETTS
Whose Life Is It Anyway? (Comedy Theatre, London) Verdict: Dark humour brightens a right-to-die dilemma
ROB an actress of her body, leaving only head movements and voice, and you discover how good she is.
The answer with Hollywood's Kim Cattrall is, well, pretty good. But not a world beater.
Whose Life Is It Anyway?, tweaked to make the lead role female, is a great gut-thumper of a play. Sculptor Claire (Miss Cattrall) has been left a quadriplegic by a car crash.
She decides she would prefer to die rather than remain in hospital being fed salty mince, soapy smiles and the inane blether of an occupational therapist.
The doctors (darkly dishy Alexander Siddig and a nicely priggish William Chubb) are dismayed that anyone should seek the gathering arms of their constant foe, Death. Yet Claire is equally outraged that they will not let her have her way.
A judge (Janet Suzman) is summoned to decide whose life it is, or rather, is not. Are the medics justified in their belief that tranquillisers will help her?
Or are they simply the ones who will derive the tranquillity?
Miss Cattrall, fashionable for her vixen voluptuary role in TV's Sex And The City, accentuates Claire's sardonic rebelliousness. Unfortunately, it becomes hard to avoid thinking of that shallow TV character as Claire the cripple flings round the f-word and talks about sex.
The lighter moments are not marbled with enough despair - or vocal variety. In pace and tone, Miss Cattrall could be more adventurous. There are moments when Sir Peter Hall might have lifted his bottom off the director's chair and offered her more guidance.
Miss Cattrall is on stronger ground in the slow rapport she builds with the strict, but not unemotional, hospital sister
A scene in which the matron's English reserve crumbles, and tears spring to her eyes, is beautifully done.
Miss Suzman also achieves great things with restraint.
With just one choked cough of bitter despair at Claire's plight, this wise old actress brilliantly bottles the essence of human powerlessness.
If the central performance makes the first half a touch light and over-exuberant, Brian Clark's writing restores the balance after the interval.
A description of Claire's elderly parents visiting her in her stricken state makes the eyes prickle. But would a mother really say she was proud of her daughter's decision to end her life if, as here, she was so full of vim and sparky intelligence? We keep on coming back to the problem that Miss Cattrall does not seem badly enough torpedoed by her disaster.
Perhaps drama, on stage or film, is never quite going to capture the full ordeal of spinal paralysis because it inevitably lacks that most striking of elements: the distinctive, pervasive smell of a hospital and of bodily malfunctions. The odour of confinement always strikes me as the worst thing.
It is not Miss Cattrall's fault that such a foolish hoopla has been made about her arrival on the West End, or that the programme for this intense, topical drama features a damn silly snapshot of her as a sex siren. Hype has hindered her.
She gives of her best here, and although a notch short of brilliant, it is still powerful and highly watchable.
From The Evening Standard:
Haunting Cattrall gives this feeble offering the kiss of life; SEX AND THE CITY STAR KIM SAVES CONFUSED AND DATED TRAGICOMEDY ABOUT EUTHANASIA.
The Evening Standard (London, England); 1/26/2005
Byline: NICHOLAS DE JONGH
Whose Life Is It Anyway?
Comedy Theatre
EVEN though Kim Cattrall plays a paraplegic, confined to a hospital bed throughout Whose Life Is It Anyway?, her sex appeal never wilts. Her emotive and vocal powers ultimately prove strong enough to give Brian Clark's feeble tragicomedy about euthanasia the kiss of theatrical life.
Cattrall's Claire Harrison, a sculptor whose career is over, lies there, blonde hair lank and lifeless, unlipsticked face without a trace of the usual Hollywood cosmetic makeover. Yet Cattrall, famous for injecting frequent boosters of sex into TV series Sex And The City, transfers from screen to stage without losing her charisma.
Unable to turn anything more than her neck or to raise anything except smiles for her wisecracking stoicism, she has moved plenty of hearts by the saddening finale. Just once Claire's facade of bravery cracks, and Alexander Siddig's humane Registrar lets her head rest against his chest in a devastating moment of unprofessional tenderness.
As the sculptor, whose ruptured spinal column has left her completely immobile, Cattrall precipitates the play's debate about whether one should have the right to euthanasia in extreme circumstances and to be given the necessary assistance.
Who will help Claire to die if she cannot help herself ? Since, quite unbelievably, Clark contrives that the invalid has persuaded her parents and boyfriend to desert the scene and leave her alone to her own deathly schemings, there is no one to argue forcefully the case for life.
In an age of stem-cell research and Christopher Reeve's inspiring example, of which Clark makes next to nothing in this updated version of his 1978 play, there ought be a sharper cut and thrust of argument. Why are there no attempts to dissuade Claire from a suicidal plan which she devises before beginning any form of therapy?
Rachel Bavidge's occupational therapist, by turns patronising, winsome and ridiculous, is just one of Clark's hospital officials whose gross lack of sympathy beggars belief.
The bawling insensitivity of William Chubb's Consultant and the frigid detachment of Ann Mitchell's sub-Cell-Block-H Sister succumb to caricature.
Janet Suzman's Mrs Justice Millhouse, got up to resemble the retiring, real-life President of the Family Division, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, introduces rare notes of conviction. She presides over a court hearing in hospital to decide whether Claire is of sound mind.
The hearing, without counsel for either side present, was, my solicitor-companion confirmed, a legal travesty of what would have occurred in real life.
It gives, I concede, a shot in the vitals to find the commercial West End stage grappling with matters of life and death. Whose Life Is It Anyway? does not, however, offer a reliable or balanced debate about euthanasia. An energetic production by Sir Peter Hall, offering views of bustling hospital corridors, does not sharpen Clark's blunt comic edges.
Early on Sir Peter allows Cattrall to play Claire as a model of unrelenting perkiness and jocularity, when the role calls for irony and flippancy. Yet once the sculptor launches her campaign of self-destruction the performance takes wing. Charged with the vitality of desperation, voice quaking, face haggard, Cattrall acquires the ghostly, ghastly air of someone fighting to end a life which is not without hope. It is a performance of haunting glory.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Solo Syndication Limited
The Evening Standard (London, England); 1/26/2005
Byline: NICHOLAS DE JONGH
Whose Life Is It Anyway?
Comedy Theatre
EVEN though Kim Cattrall plays a paraplegic, confined to a hospital bed throughout Whose Life Is It Anyway?, her sex appeal never wilts. Her emotive and vocal powers ultimately prove strong enough to give Brian Clark's feeble tragicomedy about euthanasia the kiss of theatrical life.
Cattrall's Claire Harrison, a sculptor whose career is over, lies there, blonde hair lank and lifeless, unlipsticked face without a trace of the usual Hollywood cosmetic makeover. Yet Cattrall, famous for injecting frequent boosters of sex into TV series Sex And The City, transfers from screen to stage without losing her charisma.
Unable to turn anything more than her neck or to raise anything except smiles for her wisecracking stoicism, she has moved plenty of hearts by the saddening finale. Just once Claire's facade of bravery cracks, and Alexander Siddig's humane Registrar lets her head rest against his chest in a devastating moment of unprofessional tenderness.
As the sculptor, whose ruptured spinal column has left her completely immobile, Cattrall precipitates the play's debate about whether one should have the right to euthanasia in extreme circumstances and to be given the necessary assistance.
Who will help Claire to die if she cannot help herself ? Since, quite unbelievably, Clark contrives that the invalid has persuaded her parents and boyfriend to desert the scene and leave her alone to her own deathly schemings, there is no one to argue forcefully the case for life.
In an age of stem-cell research and Christopher Reeve's inspiring example, of which Clark makes next to nothing in this updated version of his 1978 play, there ought be a sharper cut and thrust of argument. Why are there no attempts to dissuade Claire from a suicidal plan which she devises before beginning any form of therapy?
Rachel Bavidge's occupational therapist, by turns patronising, winsome and ridiculous, is just one of Clark's hospital officials whose gross lack of sympathy beggars belief.
The bawling insensitivity of William Chubb's Consultant and the frigid detachment of Ann Mitchell's sub-Cell-Block-H Sister succumb to caricature.
Janet Suzman's Mrs Justice Millhouse, got up to resemble the retiring, real-life President of the Family Division, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, introduces rare notes of conviction. She presides over a court hearing in hospital to decide whether Claire is of sound mind.
The hearing, without counsel for either side present, was, my solicitor-companion confirmed, a legal travesty of what would have occurred in real life.
It gives, I concede, a shot in the vitals to find the commercial West End stage grappling with matters of life and death. Whose Life Is It Anyway? does not, however, offer a reliable or balanced debate about euthanasia. An energetic production by Sir Peter Hall, offering views of bustling hospital corridors, does not sharpen Clark's blunt comic edges.
Early on Sir Peter allows Cattrall to play Claire as a model of unrelenting perkiness and jocularity, when the role calls for irony and flippancy. Yet once the sculptor launches her campaign of self-destruction the performance takes wing. Charged with the vitality of desperation, voice quaking, face haggard, Cattrall acquires the ghostly, ghastly air of someone fighting to end a life which is not without hope. It is a performance of haunting glory.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Solo Syndication Limited