{"id":7796,"date":"2005-09-14T15:41:21","date_gmt":"2005-09-14T15:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=7796"},"modified":"2015-05-11T15:50:56","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T15:50:56","slug":"theatre-review-christopher-hamptons-the-philanthropist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=7796","title":{"rendered":"THEATRE REVIEW: Christopher Hampton&#8217;s &#8216;The Philanthropist&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/09\/philanthropist-x650.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7798\" src=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/09\/philanthropist-x650.jpg\" alt=\"The Philanthropist\" width=\"650\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/09\/philanthropist-x650.jpg 650w, https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/09\/philanthropist-x650-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n<p>LONDON \u2013 Christopher Hampton&#8217;s bland 1970 sex comedy &#8220;The Philanthropist\u201d, revived at the Donmar Warehouse, boasts a wonderfully expressive performance by Simon Russell Beale but its story of a blinkered, shy and uncritical English professor who is inept with women splutters where it should sparkle.<\/p>\n<p>Beale&#8217;s character, Phillip, apparently was written to be the opposite of the hate-filled Alceste in &#8220;The Misanthrope&#8221; by Moliere but his genial goodwill to all things and all people has left him every bit as alone.<\/p>\n<p>Phillip is a philologist who takes pleasure in words for their own sake rather than their meaning and is a wizard at anagrams. This characterization seems as if would be entertaining but Hampton gives the professor only two anagrams in the whole play.<\/p>\n<p>Simon Russell Beale, however, makes it memorable despite the flaws in the play.<\/p>\n<p>Venue: Donmar Warehouse, runs through Oct. 15; Cast: Philip: Simon Russell Beale, Danny Webb, Anna Madeley, Simon Day, Siobhan Hewlett, Simon Bubb, Bernadette Russell; Playwright: Christopher Hampton; Director: David Grindley; Designer: Tim Shortall; Lighting designer: Rick Fisher; Sound designer: Gregory Clarke; Produced by Donmar Warehouse in association with Ian Fricker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013 Christopher Hampton&#8217;s bland 1970 sex comedy &#8220;The Philanthropist\u201d, revived at the Donmar Warehouse, boasts a wonderfully expressive performance by Simon Russell Beale but its story of a blinkered, shy and uncritical English professor who is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=7796\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,16],"tags":[3876,3024,520,1093],"class_list":["post-7796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-theatre","tag-the-philanthropist","tag-christopher-hampton","tag-donmar-warehouse","tag-simon-russell-beale"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7796"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7799,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7796\/revisions\/7799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}