Lingua Franca

Lingua Franca, Peter Nichols’ play at the Finborough theatre until 7th August, follows the fortunes of Steven Flowers (antihero of Privates on Parade) in fifties Florence. Flowers (played with venomous zeal by Chris New) has taken a job at Lingua Franca, a sausage factory language school under the direction of womanising Gennaro (Enzo Cilenti). Anyone who has ever worked in what is now called the TEFL industry will enjoy many a moment of wry recognition of the collection of eccentrics Nichols – drawing on personal experience – conjures into the crowded common room setting: exiles, lost souls, bombshells, wise old (and angry young) men and an English rose, fading on her stem.

Flowers finds himself caught between naively anti-Semitic Heidi (Natalie Walter) and needy Peggy (Charlotte Randle), neither of whom he really cares for, while ageing E.M.Forsterphile Jestin Overton (played by Ian Gelder who was the original Steven Flowers in the 70s) tries in vain to save Steven’s soul – or at least his morals – by means of Florence’s art and architecture. When the lust triangle finally collapses, the consequences are disastrous for all concerned.

Nichols has a gift for rendering the political personal: his characters’ dialogue is a discourse in early post-war European prejudices, politics and intergenerational conflicts but it never approaches the clumsiness of this sentence. Flowers’ snarling sarcasm seems less shocking than Heidi’s naivety about the Nazis or Peggy’s engrained xenophobia; perhaps because cynical selfishness is so familiar to a 21st century audience. Pathos is added by Rula Lenska’s melancholic performance, her rich voice lamenting a life lost to a displaced, widowed Russian Jewess.

Director Michael Gielata gets uniformly compelling performances from his seven strong cast and does remarkably well in establishing the city of Florence as an eighth character on the Finborough’s stifling stage. A lucrative, and totally merited, transfer to the Lyttleton might just fill up the air-conditioning appeal collecting buckets that appear at the interval.

Lingua FrancaLINGUA FRANCA

Cast: Enzo Cilenti. Ian Gelder. Rula Lenska. Abigail McKern. Chris New. Charlotte Randle. Natalie Walter.