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 points it was easy to get confused. On words such as ‘awfully’ he would sometimes pronounce the ‘y’ but at other times he would clip the end of words and we would hear a hard, short ‘e’ on the end of the word instead. As the Vortex was a professional production I expected him to be consistent in his pronunciation throughout.
However, his pronunciation was not the only problem. His accent was also not consistent. He was meant to be playing an aristocratic gentleman in the 1920’s so would speak quite poshly and use Received Pronunciation. Will young managed to talk like that for parts of the play but at other times he would resort to common estuary English which at times wrecked the illusion of him being this well spoken, well turned out gentleman.
Throughout the play he delivered key lines in a rather deadpan way and showed no emotion or feeling. When Bunty is talking to Florence and she tells her she loves this beau, Bunty says about Florence’s husband ‘He needs knowing’ and at that point Nicky Lancaster is meant to burst in and say ‘So do I’. Instead Will Young flounces onto stage and in a high pitched, pathetic and meaningless voice delivers they key line. Pitch wise there was not much intonation in the voice and the pitch mainly stayed the same throughout which made it frankly very dull.
Another key line that was very noticeable was when Bunty and Nicky were talking about their lifestyle in Paris and their lifestyle with Florence Bunty says ‘It probably means we won’t live so long’ and Will Young gave a stilted, emotionless response of ‘Shut up, Shut up!’ Which sounded like he was just saying in a normal voice and was not interested in the play at all.
Will Young’s worst line of the play was when he had found out Bunty and Florence’s Beau had been kissing. Will Young says ‘I’m straining to keep under control’ but indeed it didn’t look or sound like he was straining. He said it like he would if he was talking to someone in the park. There was no feeling behind it. I am not sure whether it could be to do with poorly structured rehearsals and the team not giving him guidance or whether it is purely down to the fact Will Young struggles to act well at all. Whatever the reason it was certainly a very poor performance.
Physically he was also nowhere near as strong as the other actors. He flounced across the stage instead of entering and exiting the stage with meaning. He was very stiff moving around the stage and looked very tense and was not at all relaxed. He didn’t look natural or at ease on the stage. It looked as though it was a real struggle for him and indeed for the audience it became a real struggle to watch.
His facial expressions were mainly non-existent. Where desperation or angriness could have been portrayed in the face it was not and his face was left looking like a blank canvas throughout the play. To make the play come alive he needed to put facial expression in. I accept he may not have been directed as to how to do this but he made no effort what so ever and from someone who is trying to establish himself as an actor this is a pretty basic skill. It made the audience uninterested and at some points confused because we can understand so much from a facial expression, such a pain, anger, joy, sadness but we got nothing.
Baring in mind the production was one month into the run I expected him to be more physically confident. Will Young came across as very a-sexual, which was certainly not how the character of Nicky Lancaster should have been played. Will Young did not seem comfortable in his own skin so was therefore unable to play this role well at all.
We all know Will Young for being musical talent and in the play he got the chance to play the piano on quite a few occasions. I was definitely expecting a more interesting tune than he played. I understand the director may have wanted to get away from Will Young’s music past and establish him as an actor but in my view if he had done some decent piano playing it would have livened up the performance and won him back some much needed praise and support and could have helped boost his confidence.
He seemed to be spouting all of these words out with no emotion and physically he would react to what other people were saying in isolation and his reactions were not at all convincing and frankly at times very confusing. He did not portray relationships between other characters well and spoke to them all in the same manner and tone. We did not know whom Nicky got along with, how he felt about people or which people he was close to other than when it was made obvious by the other actors. At the end he was meant to be neurotic and jittery as this huge secret comes out about his drug abuse. Instead we saw an a-sexual man sitting on stage looking and sounding bored, unconvincing, and frankly fed up. He says ‘I’ve grown up all wrong’ but he says it in a normal, dull, tone with no life to it. He also says ‘I haven’t got the knack to be happy’ which is quite an important line but yet again will young fails to portray that or inject any life into the line.
Overall Will Young’s performance could have been classed as atrocious. He flounced on and off the stage with no motives and what seemed like no purpose. It is possible some of this could have been down to poor direction but even if direction was lacking it is essential he thinks for himself and decides what each line is meaning and why he is doing actions instead of just half-heartedly doing them. He needed to think about what his character was like, how Nicky would react to people and different situations, Nicky’s relationships and his drug addiction. The ending of the play didn’t feel like an end and we were left wanting more not because it was good but because we wanted and end to close the play so we could go away and forget all about. Will Young is trying to establish himself as an actor but this is a very poor start and I think he was completely miss cast for this role, but the company may have thought putting him in it and advertising he was in it would help bring in the large audiences. This was a fatal error and also an error for Will Young. In my view Will Young is not ready for professional plays and frankly people shouldn’t have to watch a potentially fantastic play ruined by one actors painful performance.
Ellen Robinson The Vortex