REVIEW: The Bargain

10:08am Friday 16th March 2007

Until Saturday, March 24, Theatre Royal Bath.

AFTER a shaky opening with a few pauses and false starts, the play begins in Robert Maxwell's Thameside apartment and develops to tell the story of the extraordinary meeting between the publishing magnate and Mother Teresa.

Directed by Ian Curteis, this two-act play tells the fictionalised account of what happened during that meeting and how Maxwell came to donate large sums of money to Mother Teresa's good causes - money that he left alone even when embezzling funds.

The play is littered with unexpected comic moments and dry, sly humour, such as when Maxwell's sidekick (referred to as Sidekick) suggests that Maxwell use Mother Teresa's response of "I gave it to the poor" when talking to the Inland Revenue about his finances.

Comic moments later give way to a darker study of Mother Teresa's motives and Maxwell's Czech childhood, building to a dramatic final scene.

Michael Pennington blusters around the stage as a booming Maxwell who looks scarily like John Prescott with his padding and well-crafted make-up and Susan Hampshire plays Sister with a knowing and light touch.

Anna Calder-Marshall is convincing as the tough yet wise Mother Teresa and Jonathan Coy puts in a strong performance as the harried Sidekick.

The play is an interesting study of what might have happened and is not afraid to challenge assumptions of Maxwell as a money-mad tyrant or Mother Teresa as a saint.

Like the meeting between Maxwell and Mother Teresa, this play is a strange mix of comedy, drama and good old fashioned bargaining.

Amy Watkins