It’s the nose
I suppose
But there’s not one of those
To tell us we’re back at Cyrano’s.
To the rage
Of the stage
Afficionados
On McAvoy’s face
No outsize nose.
That blows?
Praps it does
For a minute
But who needs a schnoz?
Cos once he begins
And does what he does
And says what he says
With that burr and that croon
Then we’re Cyrano’s army
We’d die for that loon.
That grandstandish
Outlandish
That boyintheband(ish)
Never birdinthehandish
He raps and he rhymes.
A thrillingly rash fool
Surprisingly bashful
Not cape-, sword- or tache-ful
But always panacheful,
He seems to halt time.
He’s striking on screen
(Lord Asriel: I mean)
But the stage is the cage
Where McAvoy gleams.
With bravura to pimp
In the bard, Barnes or Crimp
He’s packed and compact
With the grin of a chimp
And the spike of a cactus
And a soul that’s intact
To heartbreak and back.
The man can act.
Fact.
And the man can speak.
The jury should peek
Neath the seats to see audience knees turn weak.
We hang on each clause
Daren’t breathe in his pause
Collectively drop our boggling jaws.
We’re drooling, unspooling,
Discarding-our-cool-ing
Each of us silently pity-the-fool-ing
As with murmur and whisper and concatenation
(God bless the arts of amplification)
McAvoy holds us close along Cyrano’s trail
Through his love that can’t speak and self-hatred that wails.
Cyranos can offer vintage-style pleasures
Spectacular rhyming, spectacular forces,
The plummiest acting to frighten the horses.
It’s a play that gets close to grand opera’s treasures
Deliciously retro, as big as it gets – though
You may turn to drink to help you forget, so.
But here at the Playhouse
We’re McAvoy’s army
Braggadocious and barmy
The foe of the phony, the scourge of the smarmy.
From his head to his toes, his
Life lessons aglow, ’tis
An ethic he shows, this.
And what each of us knows is –
Who needs the proboscis?
Cyrano de Bergerac by the Jamie Lloyd Company is at the Playhouse Theatre, London, and will be screened by NT Live on 20 February. Photo by Marc Brenner.
Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays
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