114) Glengarry Glen Ross, Apollo

In spite of David Mamet's standing as a playwright, I think most people are more familiar with his work on screen rather than on stage. Take for example Wag the Dog (released around the time of the Lewinsky scandal) or the film version of Glengarry Glen Ross which came out back in the mid-1990s. The latter boasted a stellar cast, an actor's Who's Who spanning several generations of Hollywood star power - Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, as well as Alan Arkin and Britain's own Jonathan Pryce. A quick check reveals six acting Oscars right there. The film made a fairly big splash back in the day, and it is this version of Glengarry that is probably the standard in most people's minds.

So imagine my surprise when I went to see the current revival of Glengarry at the Apollo over the weekend, and realized at one point in the proceedings that the Alec Baldwin character who delivered such a blistering speech in the movie to his demoralized band of real estate hucksters (a speech complete with swinging brass balls) - that character simply did not exist in the play! There were other, more subtle changes - Mamet's staccato rhythm had been moderated in the film version but it comes across much more effectively in the play. I was also somewhat surprised by the brevity of the script, its two halves adding up to no more than 80 minutes, and yet this is undoubtedly one of the great American plays of the postwar era, and as bitter an evisceration of the American dream in the age of Ronald Reagan as you could possibly hope for.

The question then being - did this version at the Apollo come up to scratch? If you are unfamiliar with the movie, then this revival does very well indeed. Jonathan Pryce is back, only this time instead of playing the hapless Lingk, he's playing 'The Machine' Levene, just as hapless but on the other side of the table. Pryce heads up the cast, continuing the recent trend of at least one household name to draw in the punters to see a straight play in the West End. However, I have to say that if you have seen Jack Lemmon's towering performance as Levene in the movie version, then Pryce suffers by comparison. Lemmon embodied perfectly the pathetic desperation of the aging salesman, he scrabbled for survival in his brutal world in a way that Pryce never quite manages to do.

Instead, the most fluent performance of the night comes from Aidan Gillen in the role of Ricky Roma, the golden boy of the firm, closing out deals with an ease that The Machine can only remember from his bygone prime. More good work comes from Peter McDonald in the role of the impassive lackey Williamson and Shane Attwooll playing the red-faced snarling cop Baylen. All in all, a very good show, but I'd be wary of paying too much for it. The lastminute.com deal that I got was priced just about right.