Novecento

A bold and intentionally actorly performance from Mark Bonnar animates the three principal characters in this Italian-devised monologue, a tale of jazz musicians set aboard the SS Virginian, plying the Atlantic passenger routes in the last century.

An unusually subtle combination of setting, lighting and sound seldom intrudes, save for two scenes of destructive melodrama, while convincingly conveying a ship’s steel-plated deck, bulwark and nautical chains to give an air of seaworthiness.

To begin somewhere near the beginning, Bonnar as the grizzled narrator tells us how the virtuoso jazz pianist of the title began his life as a nautical foundling, abandoned in a lemon crate in the first class saloon and promptly dubbed Novecento to acknowledge his mysterious birth in the first days of the new 20th century.

Who then among the crew takes on the months of wet nursing and years of child rearing is not explored. But after this charmed arrival into the wicked world of sailors and buskers, our self-taught prodigy – a keyboard genius at the age of eight – becomes a permanent fixture, never getting around to disembarking to try out life on dry land. How could he since he has no nationality, no certificate of birth and no passport?

The most amusing scenes take place when Jelly Roll Morton, that self-proclaimed inventor of jazz, books a passage to England just to hear this young upstart inventing yet more ingenious examples of free-form jazz. This, it is claimed, puts the huffy Morton in the shade, but without our having to listen to their actual competitive riffs. Instead we enjoy some tricky side business between the rivals with unseen but smouldering cigarettes as the weapons of choice.

But perhaps I should conclude with further praise for the expressive staging, designed by Paul Wills, which gives us a convincing transatlantic sea-storm, backed up by Paul Keogan’s narrative-based lighting plot and excellent backing track and sound effects by Donmar regular Fergus O’Hare.