some will always book
when the cast includes a star
not for the content

RALPH Fiennes brings his 2025 Bath Summer Season to a close with Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s commissioned play Small Hotel, and, like the rest of the productions of the season, it has evoked vehemently differing responses. The intention was always to present two new works and one Shakespearean production and each has split both critics and audiences. Small Hotel is by far the most difficult – neither a narrative account of a historical figure (with strong local ties) nor a beloved and familiar Bardic play.

The play has a cast of four and a creative team whose work is even more than usually integral to the action. It is open to many interpretations, and the interesting programme notes may or may not help. One member of the audience commented that the characters were disappointingly predictable, and that is the polar opposite from the reaction of many others.

Larry (Fiennes) is a famous chat show host, and, like anyone who has reached their late 50s, has some history. Part of his history is a 20-years-younger actress, Marianne (Rosalind Eleazar from Slow Horses). He also has a mother Athena (Francesca Annis) with a past of alcohol, drugs, careless cruelty, sex and sectioning, and a twin brother Richard, who lives a hermit’s life in the peaceful countryside. Rachel Tucker plays everyone else, and sings and tap dances, too.

Larry goes to an ATM where he is mugged and stabbed. One interpretation of Small Hotel is that the rest of the 90 minutes of the play is spent in the fringes and supernovae of his mind as he loses the battle for life. Ralph Fiennes’ programme notes say that it “explores the fragility of relationships in a modern world of societal impulsiveness and ambition, a world where intimacy and love struggle to cohere.” It can be both, or either, or something else altogether.

There are light moments. Few of the listening audience will view a new fridge in the same way again. The characters are recognisable in a world where narcissistic excess and hyperbole gush out from under their peach bouffant covers.

But the pain inflicted by Athena on her sons is palpable, specially for anyone with a cruel mother, and Richard’s tender care for Larry and personal terror provide what might be seen as a happy ending.

I suggest you go and see for yourself, not because there are well-known TV and movie stars on stage, but because Small Hotel will give you plenty to think about in a time of increasingly banal and truly predictable offerings.

GP-W

Photographs by Marc Brenner