The Code by Michael McKeever. Southwark Playhouse, the Elephant, 1 Dante Place, London SE11 until 11 October 2025, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.
Photo Credit: Photo Credit – Danny Kaan.
The Code by Michael McKeever. Southwark Playhouse, the Elephant, 1 Dante Place, London SE11 until 11 October 2025,
4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.
“Tracie Bennet delights & dazzles.”
Some smart dialogue, Tracie Bennet delivering the best wisecracks as Tallulah Bankhead and the star who gave it all up for love – Billy Haines having a war of words with a nasty star maker, which actually never took place, makes for an entertaining evening. The dazzling Bennet is worth the price of admission alone. Knocking back the booze, distraught after discovering she has not been cast in the film of The Glass Menagerie she delivers a fur coat, and no knickers turn beside which Margo Channing looks like a pussy cat. Faced with Tallulah one needs more than a seat belt. But Michael Mckeever has other fish to fry, apart from spilling a little hardly fresh news about who was gay in Hollywood half a century ago – everyone knows about Cary Grant and Randolph Scott. He has lots to say about how stars are controlled, about how careers are fixed to suit the perceived morality of the time and how lives can be damaged. Billy Haines was a huge MGM star who managed the transition to sound, but he also lived with Jimmy Shields, and had done for years so when L B Meyer told him he had to get married he refused, and bang went his life as a star. But Billy and Jimmy already had an antiques business, and he turned his attention to that, transforming himself into the interior designer for the stars. If Billy had the flair, he certainly had the contacts – Joan Crawford and Bankhead were among his first customers – and arguably Shields had the business acumen, McKeever has chosen a moment when Billy, played with elegant style by John Partridge, is thinking of moving East. Bankhead is aghast. Then round for drinks come agent Henry Wilson, played with just the right Harvey Weinstein skin crawling edge, with his latest protege, Chad Manford, a handsome if somewhat naïve hunk played by Solomon Davy. The boy wants to be a star – but guess what, he is also gay and has a partner. Will he do a Billy or ditch him? Will he accept the code as so many did? Whether he has talent other than looks is hard to fathom, but that is the point. Stars are people the camera loves. The rest can be fixed, and Wilson knows how. The drink fuelled discussions that follow are intense and interesting enough, but the underbelly of Hollywood has been examined before and in fact McKeever has nothing very new to say about it although, as well as using Talulah's much quoted wisecracks, he has minted some choice ones for his characters to deliver. Bennet, who gets all the best lines, delivers them to perfection, but one does wonder, however, about Haines' apartment – if he was the designer to the stars the set by Ethan Cheek it is nothing like what he designed for them. His gown for Tallulah, however, is spot on and allows Bennet opportunities to swish around which she seizes with relish.
Cast
Tracie Bennett – Tallulah Bankhead
John Partridge – Billy Haines
Nick Blakeley – Henry Wilson
Solomon Davy – Chad Manford
Creatives
Director – Christopher Renshaw
Set & Costume Designer – Ethan Cheek
Lighting Designer – Jack Weir
Sound Designer – Yvonne Gilbert
Fight and Intimacy Director – Claire Llewellyn
Dialogue Coach – Caitlin Stegmoller
