An Audience With Jimmy Savile

Jimmy Savile: a horrendous reminder that the truth is both stranger and nastier than anything a writer could come up with. This weak production is structured as a This Is Your Life style television show, interlacing tributes from Maggie Thatcher and even the Pope with the stories of the girls he abused. But only the borrowed horrors of Savile's story could allow a show this mediocre to transfer from London runs to sellout Fringe performances.

Jonathan Maitland's script is, whatever its faults, clearly well-intentioned. Leah Whitaker plays Lucy, who can't convince her own family, let alone the police, of what Savile did to her. But her compelling story is lost in Brendan O'Hea's dialled-in directorial decisions, which make the production feel staid and sketchy.

Savile's lure is, predictably, central to the appeal of this production. Alistair McGowan's photo-perfect performance is baroquely grotesque, a foil-wrapped corpse in a metallic tracksuit and limp platinum locks. He nails every tic, and Savile's effortless ability to deflect criticism with a stream of charitable platitudes.

There's a genuinely powerful scene when Lucy confronts Savile on his belief that by becoming a kind of year-round Father Christmas, he'll be protected him from the eyes of God as well as from the eyes of the law.

But Maitland's script is an ill-structured mess: especially when it's been lopped from its original 85 minute running time to a Fringe-friendly hour-long slot. We never see Savile brought to justice. And this production gets away with it too, using Savile's grotesque charisma to hide a multitude of sins.

 

https://www.assemblyfestival.com/event/209/