I don’t know whether Count Arthur Strong saw the original 2017 production of Prism at Hampstead Theatre. Or whether the show’s writer and director Terry Johnson saw the Doncastrian doyen of light entertainment’s The Sound of Mucus the same year.

For both shows start in the same comedic manner with a curtain/garage door rising, in fits and starts, to reveal three pairs of legs (or six one-legged characters) engaging in a heated debate. Or as The Count described it: “a conversation at the top of their voices”.

But similarities with The Count don’t end there for in addition to the constant stream of malapropisms, both principal characters are prone to “When I were a lad…” anecdotes about a distant past which is thinning out to the point of flatlining in their memory.

The Count’s shortcomings may be the product of too many pints of bitter at The Shoulder of Mutton, but those of Jack Cardiff (Robert Lindsay) – the Oscar-winning cinematographer of Black Narcissus whose job, as he saw it, was to “flatter” his female stars through a combination of light, angle and the “ingenious prism” of a Technicolor camera – are down to dementia.

And the theme of loss is very much at the heart of the play and each its characters. The loss of a golden age of cinema and the legends who (courtesy of Cardiff) lit up our screens such as Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Katharine Hepburn. All three of whom make an enchanting guest appearance at the start of the second act.

And on a more personal level, the loss of a child, the loss of a parent, the loss of a lover and, ultimately, the loss of self. And in the case of Cardiff’s son Mason (Oliver Hembrough), the loss of a lucrative dream as he tries to cajole his father into finishing his memoir so that he can step out of his shadow and have a crack at adapting it for the screen.

But what troubles Cardiff the most – apart from his unrequited love for Hepburn, brought to life in a beautiful economy of “verbal and emotional” exchanges between Lindsay and Tara Fitzgerald (who also plays his “hippy strumpet” wife Nicola) – is not death or dying, but the loss of his sight which was so integral to his career as a cinematographer and later director of “three very fine” and “eleven piss poor” movies.

Given the subject matter, you’d be forgiven for reaching for a razor. Or Cardiff’s drink of choice, a scotch and soda. But Johnson’s script is hugely entertaining thanks to a liberal sprinkling of twinkly-eyed one-liners (“I’ll just shake a few dew drops off the lily”) which are counterbalanced by a litany of Wildean epigrams, knowingly referenced by Nicola as “another fucking life metaphor”.

Lindsay is the star draw (the play was, after all, written with him in mind) and his commanding performance is worthy of such an accolade. Though his fellow cast members are equally impressive, particularly Victoria Blunt who glides effortlessly from Cardiff’s slow-thinking and even slower-typing carer-cum-PA Lucy to the hot-to-trot Lauren Bacall (“I need the kind of nap I need help with”) and the shimmering Marilyn Monroe who is said to have described Cardiff as “the best in the world”.

Johnson’s touring production for Hampstead Theatre and Birmingham Repertory Theatre may not reach such giddy heights, but the dialogue sparkles like Cardiff’s prized prism and the structure is of an equally fine cut. As is the set by Tim Shortall (Rita, Sue and Bob Too) which together with the lighting of Ben Ormerod (The Duchess [of Malfi]) and video design of William Galloway transports us from a double garage in the sleepy village of Denham to the banks of the Congo on the set of The African Queen. As the dismissive chiropodist said to a foul-smelling customer: No mean feat!

Peter Callaghan
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