The Habit of Art was first performed in 2009 at The National Theatre and was the fifth collaboration between Nicholas Hytner and Alan Bennett. It is set in Oxford in 1972 and portrays a fictional meeting between the composer, Benjamin Britten and the poet, W H Auden towards the end of their lives. But this is not merely a meeting of two great talents. Auden and Britten are played by Fitz and Henry, actors rehearsing a play, Caliban’s Day, with the writer in attendance and a Company Stage Manager trying her best to get through the script in place of the absent director. It’s an interesting device, which Bennett uses to explore and question the text and reminds us of the foibles and insecurities of actors (and the people they play). The first act introduces the whole company whilst the second concentrates more on the encounter between the two great men.

Mathew Kelly is superb as Auden, suitably seedy, world weary and outrageous, with a penchant for rent boys. David Yelland’s Britten is beautifully clipped and uptight, only relaxing when accompanying young boys on the piano. Britten’s music is cleverly interspersed throughout the play. The ensemble is also very well cast with no weak links. There are wonderful performances from Veronica Roberts as the motherly CSM and Alexandra Guelff as the keen, young ASM, who both also amusingly, stand in for absent actors.

This is the first revival of the play and it seemed very fitting to be seeing it in Oxford. The audience lapped up the many local references, and especially enjoyed when Auden, being interviewed by Humphrey Carpenters says ‘Am I addressing the nation?’ ‘No, just Radio Oxford’, answers Carpenter. Auden, being the poet, is given most of the great lines in this play such as ‘Music is a mystery of course, words are not.’

Alan Bennett, like cups of tea and ginger nuts, often personifies British cosiness as in his much- loved Talking Heads monologues. In this play, the ginger nut has definitely been dunked in the tea as he tackles Auden and Britten’s homosexuality in an age when it had only recently been made legal for two men to be in a relationship.

The Habit of Art is a multi-layered play about actors and writing, and sexuality and growing old and is definitely worth seeing.

★★★★☆   Karin Andre    25^th September 2018