Hitch Not Cock

The other week I went to see Terry Johnson's Hitchcock Blonde at the Royal Court Theatre, a play which intertwines three separate timeframes. In the near present, a lecherous lecturer (David Haig) seduces a young semiotics student (Fiona Glascott) into accompanying him to a villa in Spain with the promise of investigating some mysterious lost footage from Hitchcock's youth. Meanwhile, in the late 50s Hitch (William Hootkins) is interrogating a young woman (Rosamund Pike) hoping to be Janet Leigh's body double in the Psycho shower scene. Finally, clips from the 1919 footage are pieced together to provide clues for the director's obsession with blondes in peril.

Can the lecturer and student bridge the generation gap to find happiness? Can the blonde starlet free herself of her violent, possessive husband and melt the cold, distanced heart of Hitchcock? Will we discover whether Bond girl Rosamund Pike is a natural blonde? And will the lost prototype footage provide the answer to Hitchcock's career or will it prove to be the ultimate McGuffin?

It's a long, ambitious but undeniably entertaining play benefiting from some imaginative set design; thoughtful plotting; clever wordplay; genuine laughs; glamorous blondes and last but not least impressive performances from Haig and Hootkins as the troubled anti-heroes of the piece.

On Newsnight Review boggle-eyed Irishman Tom Paulin apparently frothed at the mouth at what he perceived as the play's nasty misogyny. I think this may be missing the point. The lasting impression of Johnson's explorations of the sex wars is the struggle within masculine sexuality to balance the desire for possession with the fear of genuine intimacy. That's a universal theme you don't need to be a film buff or voyeur to relate to.

The play is running until May 24th.