An Actor's Lament

Steven Berkoff's actorly distopia, it seems, has come to pass. An art world of easy sentiment peddled by barely literate, thin-voiced, straight to television nubiles. A world in which new work must toss up easy sentiment for grubbing over by the public and press – these "stuttering toerags wallowing in the swamp of self-importance".

What then, is the glossy take-home of this enjoyably venemous hour? Much less a new manifesto for art, the point is largely thus: that Berkoff and his co-stars, Jay Benedict and Andrée Bernard, are brilliant – and if you're not them, you're probably not as good.

It's a message that is pretty well evidenced. Three actors, clearly on top of their craft, demonstrate that hamming and carping in sure hands can indeed be an art form. Berkoff's script, all in blank verse, shows both the considerable abilities of a dramatist able to live and breathe the Shakesperian idiom, and of that idiom to crackle with wit, allusion and linguistic pizzazz. There's a virtuosity here that's hard not to enjoy.

But even Berkoff can't sustain gold for a full hour, the back-and-forth routine growing a little monotonal. Plus the defence of irony can't wash out spots that feel genuinely jealous and splenetic. In a month which sees enthusiastic youngsters trying, however inexpertly, to shoehorn their understanding of the world into theatrical form, this at times feels undignified – the punching of kings and queens of theatre determined to scupper the ships and raze the villages before they are deposed.

Christ, they do it so well though.