Catherine Bardrick experiences the bizarre and densely-packed life story of flamboyant amputee actor Samuel Foote, brought to the stage of the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London until January 23
How many of you had heard of Samuel Foote before this play rescued him from the relative obscurity of 18th century historical “footenotes” and restored him to the limelight?
Christened Foote, and destined to lose one after a riding accident, the eponymous actor capitalized upon his grisly amputation on-stage, in plays such as The Lame Lover and The Devil with Two Sticks. There, the puns queued up thick and fast. No matter how often he was “stumped” and “hacked off”, Foote had to “find his feet” and “put his best foot forward”. After all, “the show must hop on”.
Ian Kelly wrote this fascinating figure’s biography, and subsequently adapted this play from it – he also stars in the show as Prince George.
Mr Foote’s Other Leg tells the bizarre life story of the outrageously eccentric Foote, who was not only an actor but also a mimic, satirist, dramatist, improv pioneer, theatre manager and crossdresser! It’s difficult to make the details of Foote’s escapades sound the least bit plausible – on stage, we witness him staging Othello as a comedy, presenting his plays as ‘tea-parties’ in order to circumvent the rigid censorship of the 1737 Licensing Act, and brushing up against the law as he lampoons the politicians, scientists, and society ladies of his day.
The lead role is tailor-made for the acclaimed Simon Russell Beale, who visibly relishes the sheer flamboyance of Foote as he stomps around the stage on his various wooden legs delivering the coarsest expletives in a series of astonishingly towering frocks (complete with built-in heaving bosoms). His performance is a wickedly mischievous comic tour de force, complemented by an ensemble cast playing other historical figures.
Dervla Kirwan is deliciously bawdy as actress Peg Woffington, Joseph Millson appropriately pompous as rival actor David Garrick, Micah Balfour sufficiently starstruck as the freed slave-turned-manservant Francis Barber, but it is often left to Jenny Galloway as the undervalued stage manager Mrs Garner to steal the show with her witty and withering one-liners.
Most of the action takes place backstage in the dressing room, that hazy hinterland between performer and audience, punctuated with stand-out scenes – the farcical face-off between two blacked-up Othellos, or the amputation scene itself (complete with sounds of sawing for the especially squeamish) which closes Act One with the challenge “How can we possibly top that in the second half?”
Act Two answers by turning decidedly darker becoming a more somber tragicomedy as death and disease strike and Foote himself rapidly unravels like a demented Lear as charges stack up against him.
There are undoubtedly flaws in Richard Eyre’s production. It crams so much into itself that it runs the risk of becoming ramshackle, too disjointed in places that perhaps required stricter editing and tighter direction to maintain structure and focus.
It is, however, a fascinating night out at the theatre – the very theatre for which Foote managed to secure the Royal Charter. The audience is left with the rather poignant image of him as today’s celebrity turned tomorrow’s unknown – a cautionary reminder, perhaps, for our own times.
