January 2026. I'm trying to reestablish a regular sketchbook practice, but in the meantime, I have a lot of Legos, a love of symmetry, and some creative nervous energy to burn off.
maybe the details of art are common knowledge, but i only read up about it yesterday. it's interesting! it opened in the west end in 96 & was something of a popular hit
it's about three old friends who fall out when one of them buys an expensive painting that's an almost-blank white canvas (a quiet night in); one of them aggressively disapproves, calling it pretentious; and the third is caught in the middle trying to keep the peace
had a ton of casts – a new one every three months. (the effect of this is interesting – more on that below.) tlog were selected to be the last lot before it closed in 02. if you don't already know, who do you suppose played each role? it has nothing to do with the weirdly deceptive promo pics. answers & more below the cut
mark played the friend who buys the painting, steve played the one who disapproves, and reece played the guy caught in the middle. i wonder how that decision was made. i wonder if they considered any alternative configurations (bf had steve & reece switched, which i think makes a lot of sense). as always i'm like. but what does the character say about YOU
they got mixed reviews. nearly every review singles out reece's delivery of this monologue, though they disagree on whether it was good or not. perhaps surprisingly, they don't uniformly characterise it (or his performance in general) as particularly angry. not to be dramatic but i would kill and die to have seen it, just that monologue alone
so below i've collected the most interesting parts of surviving reviews. the last one is my fav. some of them have interesting things to say on the effect of the rotating cast, sort of the opposite of the in9 meta-character effect, which i think is pretty funny & fitting
BBC
Reece Shearsmith is a little too giddy with Yvan's furious diatribe about his impending wedding - the laughs are landing so hard that some others are being lost in the process.
But he is a particularly touching and vulnerable go-between, desperately sitting on the fence in the conflict that erupts between his friends Serge (Mark Gatiss) and Marc (Steve Pemberton), and finding - as you do - that those who sit on fences are liable to get splinters.
GUARDIAN
[A] play as bland and flimsy as this requires actors who are not only heroically talented but who also have formidable technical skills. Pemberton, Gatiss and Shearsmith don't. They are likeable, even mildly engaging but you are always aware that they are putting on a performance. What's more, they are far less funny than the two other casts I've seen.
Shearsmith, for example, flunks the timing of his long monologue so instead of making an audience rock with waves of laughter, he gets only one big laugh right at the end. The silences in the evening, in particular the famous olive scene, are not eloquent, just empty.
THEATREGUIDE
I've heard, though, that other casts have had other dynamics. With some, it plays as light comedy, satirising everyone's pretensions to high passions. Others make it a touching study in the fragility of friendship and all three men's hitherto-unrealised need for it. The cast changes every three months or so [...] Just be prepared for the fact that the show you see will be different in tone and effect from the one your friends saw last year, and will probably be a glib skating over the emotional issues and implications it raises. [...]
And while the laidback, indeed colloquial, approach of Mark Gatiss (perky Serge), Steve Pemberton (laconic Marc) and Reece Shearsmith (wickedly neurotic Yvan) may not be to everyone's taste, it's undeniably perfect casting to complete the spectrum of wall-to-wall talent that's made the show such a feature of London's theatrical landscape. [...]
Playing cheekily with rhythms of speech and timing, they create a very English rendition of what is essentially a French play, substituting the de rigueur dramatic devices and flourishes with frighteningly real personalities that transcend the dramatic crutch of Yasmina Reza's Continental-style philosophizing text and sub-text.
Admittedly the first ever cast of Courtenay, Finney and Stott all those years ago set the benchmark for the production (though I found them yawnsome and wooden) - and the League have the advantage of tapping into the accumulated performances that followed.
i think "laidback," "colloquial," "cheeky," "English" and "real" might be euphemisms for northern – more on that below
CIX
Having now seen Art three or four times (to be honest, I forget which), I've begun to muse that in some strange way it's a metaphor for itself. It's not just the performance dynamics, our impression of the trio's relationship, that varies from cast to cast... it's the very sense of how much real content there is in Reza's play, of whether it takes its thematic concerns about inherent versus attributed qualities (whether of a painting or a person) very far or not. In a sense, the performers are the series of diagonal white lines painted on to the white canvas of the play.
And like the lines in the painting on stage (or so we're told), they're not pure white: some are vaguely yellow, some are sort of ochre-ish... In the case of the League, the bizarrely unrelated publicity images make clear that what's hoped for is a kind of fake-blood crimson tinge. So although there's no real indulgence, director Jennie Darnell allows the three to turn in a slight caricature of the naturalism with which the piece has usually been played, that little unreality often seen in the kind of sketch comedy where the group cut their teeth.
The elegant apartment set is a world away from the League's fictional town of Royston Vasey, but the casting of the individual members plays to respective strengths familiar from their various screen guises. As Serge, who has paid 200,000 francs for the picture, Mark Gatiss exudes an appropriately smug and supercilious cleverness. As Marc, who faces off against Serge by declaring the canvas "shit", Steve Pemberton is more mercurial, with an air of suppressed violence. Reece Shearsmith, the relatively cuddly one [sic], succeeds in focusing audience identification on Yvan, the less smart piggy-in-the-middle.
All three are of course skilled performers, and you can see the rapport gained from up to fifteen years' collaboration in, for instance, the way Gatiss and Pemberton trade facial "mugs" as they first consider the painting. However, this very affinity with each other enables them to skim over deeper elements in the play. When Shearsmith gabbles out Yvan's great bewildered set-piece about the complications of his wedding arrangements, we applaud the high-speed delivery but don't pick up enough of what he says to engage with Yvan's travails.
kissing this reviewer on the mouth for specifically describing what he thinks their respective strengths are & especially for describing reece as THE CUDDLY ONE like... idk if it shows but i'm obsessed with how people see them, and how they see themselves & each other
EVENING STANDARD
Not so much a piece of headline-grabbing stunt casting as three trained actors flexing their thespian muscles [...] bona fide drama graduates, not comedy chancers. This immediately shows, from their poise, projection and presence.
Only the dimple-chinned Pemberton as intolerant Marc comes close to his rogues' gallery of BBC2 personae during moments of rage when he cannot come to terms with Serge's purchase of an overpriced minimalist painting.
By contrast, Mark Gatiss as the punctilious, pretentious Serge is the epitome of restraint, as cool as his sharp, charcoal suit. The comic moments are all in context. Shearsmith, as the boyish Yvan, is increasingly troubled by his imminent nuptials. This eventually spills out in a breathless pseudo-Pythonesque rant against marriage that is as funny to witness as it is difficult to say.
But throughout, the trio respect Reza's text, sidelining their insatiable appetite for the grotesque that has made their their brand of humour so distinctive. This may, however, be problematic. Having sold out in the West End with their sketch show a couple of years ago, some of the threesome's intensely passionate fans may see Art as a follow-up and feel shortchanged.
The eye-catching poster may compound the deception, the chopper, axe and chainsaw being wielded suggesting some Grand Guignol flourishes which never materialise.
BBC AGAIN
The northern accents do not quite ring true in the sophisticated setting of a Paris apartment and often lead to flat performances, where one gets the feeling their brand of wit is not quite enough to portray Parisian conceit.
The strongest display by far comes from Mark Gatiss (Serge) - the eerie butcher in League of Gentlemen - as the tall, slightly effeminate doctor who acquires the painting, striking just the right balance of preciousness and acerbic wit.
The diminutive Reece Shearsmith is adequate in his portrayal of Yvan, the put-down-upon soon-to-be-married stationer caught in the middle of the feud between his two friends.
But the biggest disappointment comes from Steve Pemberton, who plays Marc, the critical compadre who takes Serge's indulgence for contemporary art as a personal slight.
Pemberton, normally the trio's strongest performer, well-known for his brilliant turn as Pauline in the League of Gentlemen, seems ill at ease in the role.
His northern persona cannot quite stretch far enough to inhabit the part of Marc, an angry homeopathic freak whose insecurity finds it hard to cope with his friend's show of independence over the painting.
Like the painting, the play does not remain colourless throughout however. One of the highlights is Shearsmith's 10-minute tirade about the difficulties of coping with the women in his life ahead of his impending wedding.
yeah this one is definitely my favourite. casually calls them ALL scallies, then calls each of them out INDIVIDUALLY for being a) gay b) short c) shit. absolute legend. did they ever find this reviewer's body
related, from this article in the guardian:
"When we first did Art, a review said 'Yes, but can they act?' and that made me angry," said Shearsmith. "I remember thinking 'What have we been doing in The League of Gentlemen? It's not standup."
in 2013, reece said art was his favourite ever play to do. highlights from the replies
I’ve been working on some large canvases for the last few weeks, but in between those sessions, you will find me “painting” in my sketchbook, playing with colors, shapes, and patterns.
I rarely sign my sketchbook pages, but occasionally I think they are worthy of uploading to Redbubble or Fine Art America to offer prints and merchandise, please feel free to take a look!
I hope you are having a…
