James McAvoy says Sixties satire has much to say about modern Britain

McAvoy falls off of his unicycle but lords it on stage in The Ruling Class
Provocative satire: McAvoy with Drysdale and Serena Evans in The Ruling Class (Picture: Johan Persson)
Johan Persson
Louise Jury29 January 2015
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

James McAvoy had to learn to ride a unicycle for his latest West End stage role. And it did not start off well as he fell off in front of the critics.

But the actor recovered to make his mark on an all-singing, all-dancing revival of “subversive and provocative” Sixties play The Ruling Class.

He learned to unicycle for the role of Jack, 14th Earl of Gurney, who thinks he is Jesus Christ but is welcomed into the House of Lords.

Of his stage fall, he said: “It was the worst performance. But I do like making things as physical as possible.”

The Ruling Class

1/5

Circus skills were vital for the piece, which satirises the upper classes and has not been produced in London since 1968.

The star of The Last King Of Scotland and Atonement told how Peter Barnes’s four-decade-old satire still had much to say about modern Britain.

“This play is not exactly about today’s Britain,” he said. “But when you’re talking about not just a ruling class but a boarding-class elite, the number of boarders that went to Eton, Harrow, Rugby who happen to sit in the Cabinet, you are talking about today’s Britain.”

There was a problem with so much of government enjoying “such a very different education to the rest of the country ... the system which put them in place, from which they’ve formed their nest of government, they don’t want the rest of the world to have”.

The characters’ pronouncements on immigrants and homosexuals were on a par with those made by some members of Ukip, he said.

Audiences will be entertained: “But remember, these buffoons that we sometimes take for granted are toting horrible violent rhetoric that will turn into something real before we finish laughing. That’s [Nigel] Farage and all those guys.”

The play, at Trafalgar Studios in Whitehall, is directed by Jamie Lloyd, who worked with McAvoy on Macbeth in 2013.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in