JOHN MORTIMER calls the trio at the core of this play Son, Father and Mother, but, no, he isn’t writing a solemn Strindbergian piece about universal archetypes in grim Nordic combat. Quite the contrary. As the dramatist has cheerfully conceded, the characters are himself and his parents, and pretty much everything we see or hear actually happened.
Thirty-five years ago, when Voyage first appeared, it was as if he was publishing his auto- biography onstage. And a thoroughly entertaining autobiography it was and is, thanks to the title character, a blind barrister played in 1971 by Alec Guinness and now by a white-haired Derek Jacobi.
True, we watch John, or Son, being obscurely lectured about onanism by a prep-school headmaster abstrusely called Noah, working in a film studio, marrying a strong, spiky girl very like his first wife, going into the law and botching a cross-examination, and getting a play performed. But though Dominic Rowan brings warmth and sensitivity to the role, Son’s main function is to observe Old Mortimer, or Father.
He’s the sort of person who gets commemorated as “the most unforgettable character I ever knew”, and, for better or worse, or both, he works hard to ensure that this remains the case.
He interrupts a Remembrance Day service by singing Little Polly Perkins of Paddington Green. He sends his small son résumés of his saucier divorce cases: “a vital bit of evidence consisted of upside- down footprints on the car dashboard”. He goes on obsessive earwig hunts in his beloved garden. He maddens his daughter-in-law with pronouncements such as “nothing narrows the mind so much as foreign travel”.
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Natasha Little, who plays the role, accuses both him and her husband of a wilful lack of seriousness, and perhaps she’s right.
Jacobi certainly catches Father’s infectious sense of mischief, wayward exhibitionism and almost aggressive facetiousness. But note the play’s title. This is a voyage round a man who remains elusive, not a voyage to his centre. Maybe Old Mortimer’s flippancy was defensive, a way of preserving his privacy. Maybe it was his response to a world he thought essentially absurd. Or maybe it was a sign that he had no centre at all.
The play leaves us guessing and manages to stay funny and intelligent in the process. You can see why John fell under the spell of this charismatic, cantankerous, affectionate old boy. You feel he’s right when he criticises himself for being overinfluenced by him. And you can’t miss the touching truth: A Voyage Round My Father is a confession of posthumous love.
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