The Knight From Nowhere/The Bells

The bells, the bells: is that the cry of Quasimodo at Notre Dame, or of Henry Irving in the late 19th-century melodrama that made his name? In this instance, the latter, as a resourceful young company called ACS Random has buckled the rarely seen Leopold Lewis melodrama with a biographical whizz through Irving’s life.

Irving, with Ellen Terry, revolutionised British theatre at the Lyceum Theatre in the late 19th century. The Bells in 1871 was his breakthrough, a compelling psychodrama in which the burgomaster Mathias in an Alpine hostelry is haunted by nightmares of murder; Irving, who made his debut in Sunderland and died on tour in Bradford, is ‘the knight from nowhere’ in the evening’s first short play.

So, despite some less than terrific acting, with a lot of bombast and winking at the audience, this is a fascinating glimpse of the British theatre that links the histrionics of Garrick and Kean with those of Olivier and Rylance… a biographical study of artistic emergence followed by an example of psychological disintegration. The author of The Knight From Nowhere, Andrew Shepherd, also plays Irving in that play and then Mathias, Irving’s role in The Bells, and ends up as a statue. He’s very good, in a rat-like, sideways-on sort of a way, never striking the noble profile or vocal magnificence for which Irving was renowned.

If we want to see how the Victorian theatre changed through Ibsen, Shaw and indeed the performances of Irving and Ellen Terry, his great collaborator, into the modern theatre of Pinter, Osborne and David Hare, this is an instructive, as well as an entertaining, evening. The element that none of the modern masters could pick up on was that of spiritualism and magic – in The Bells, mesmerism and hypnosis – which has become the prerogative of Derren Brown.

The Bells harks back to Hamlet. It’s a study in guilt and retribution. And it harks forward to the modern post-Ibsenite drama of blame and victimisation. The Park Theatre production, by Lucy Foster, presents the bio-drama and The Bells in the same atmospheric setting of red plush, swags, falling snow, footlights and back-cloth scenery.

It’s like a seasonal retreat to the old days of the Players Theatre at Charing Cross, where one could see Victorian burlesques alongside music-hall remnants. There’s a place, and an audience, for this production, no question. I had a good time.

Until 19 December at the Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, London N4: 020-7870 6876, www.parktheatre.co.uk