Response to live productions seen during the course

THE VORTEX

Nicky Lancaster-Will Young

On Tuesday 20th February 2007 we travelled down to Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre to see the much-anticipated ‘Vortex’ featuring singer turned actor Will Young.  Having not seen any reviews before hand I was very open minded about the play and was looking forward to seeing it.  From the little bit of background work we did and from looking at sections of the script I had the understanding that the play had the key themes of addiction, repression, sexuality and dysfunctional families.  

The play was set in the 1920s after the war had killed many men and left many women as widows who were now entertaining younger lovers. Live music was very popular, parties replaced formal dinners and drug taking became fashionable within fashionable circles of people.  

The main plot line was about Florence Lancaster and the men she entertained and also about her son Nicky Lancaster whose new relationship with his girlfriend he met on his travels end in tears for both Nicky and Florence.  Diana Hardcastle played the part of Florence magnificently and held the whole play together whilst Will Young’s performance as Nicky Lancaster was very weak and he was not suited to the part at all.

In the end act Nicky finds out about his beloved girlfriend going off with one of Florence’s beaus which end in tears for both Nicky and Florence but Nicky also confront his mother about her vanity and we find out about his drug addiction. This ending to the play is supposed to be passionate, filled with anger and sadness and be very emotional. However, from Will Young we saw very little if any emotion portrayed which made the performance less interesting and very frustrating.

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To start off with Will Young’s vocal skills were much weaker than any of the other characters. He failed to portray emotion through his voice which some what hindered our understanding of the play. Will Young does have a slight speech impediment in the form of a lisp which I realise he can do nothing about but I think it would have worked better in other plays but for the character of Nicky Lancaster it was completely wrong. His speech patterns were inconsistent throughout the play. He clipped the end of some words and not others so at some ...

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