Evening Standard from London, Greater London, England • 18

18 WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 1998 EVENING STANDARD a star in the No-Chance Saloon sTHE popularity of the Chelsea Flower Show is as great as ever but conjunction with the isms Royal Horticultural Society we are offering our readers the chance to buy two tickets for the mil price of one for thepp i evening of Thursday 21 Tickets for the the grounds of the Royal I Hospital normally cost £8 1 each but Evening Standard can buy two for a I total of £8 The offer is 1C limited to two tickets per I person! but should you i wish to visit the show fort longer on the Thursday or on Friday 22 May you can monc call the same telephone Kevin Spacey as Hickey the sinister salesman taking charge of lost souls Picture: alastair muir FIRST-NIGHT it touches of dream-like ritual Into this saloon there comes Kevin mesmerising visitor Hickey perhaps the deathly Iceman of the title He is a salesman involved in a spiritual hard-sell urging the 2-dreamers to abandon high pipe-drea AN ASTONISHING troupe ofactors triumphed last night in one of the great dramatic marathons of the century Eugene view of life through a glass darkly hard-set in the lower depths of alcoholism It took a taxing though tremendous four hours to complete and I who have never made this rare theatrical journey before emerged from New York NoChance Saloon of 1912 devastated scathed and curiously elated The Iceman Cometh wrestles with the question of whether existence is better lived smoking heavily on pipe-dreams or facing cruel frets of life all illusions scorned And it gripped me heart and mind It may sound a subject best suited for debate by dry philosophers in ivory towers But makes the problem brightly live through the experience of vintage alcoholics who slouch sleep and slur in Harry Manhattan saloon A stinging pathos is arranged There they are eyes and bodies dormant in the midst of Bob handsome Edwardian bar which looks far too dean and stylishly modem-Islington to be the dilapidated creation of imagining These people are The The These people are chronic has-beens focus and conflict ironically named has not even daylight for two Captain and the at permanent has lost frith in war correspondent by Nicholas de Jongh Iceman Cometh Almeida number and book Full-day tickets on Thursday (8am-t 8pm) cost £25 and on Friday (8am-8pmj £23 'Afternoon tickets Thursday (330pm-8pm) cost only £14AH tickets are sold in advanceThe number to call is 0171 344 0334 (Credit card bookings 24 hoursseven There is no booking fee but a postage and IMp i administration charge of £135 is charged on each order Standard readers can also take advantage of I a special RHS membership I offer Two foil tickets forif Thursday plus ayear'S'tlf membership of the society 1 cost only £55 a saving of pierces to the dark heart uses Hickey as a vehicle to peddle the idea that self-awareness is better than self-deception But Hickey as bland though sinister performance eloquently suggests is an unreliable advocate The go for honesty and accept Iceman Cometh says something dif-themselves as they are ferent Rupert fraught Most Hollywood film stars chancing treacherous young man Ian it on the London stage twinkle dimly touchingly drunken all personality shrivelled To this reg- journalist and James ularity Spacey is a ripe exception His gruffly melodramatic saloon bar Hickey breezes into the saloon to take owner prove that for many people charge of lost souls all the while ooz- truth is better left unfaced A towering a charm and bonhomie that mask ing theatrical night fanaticism Tim Pigott-Smith is ripe for superlatives as the former anar- Ratings: -O adequate chist Larry Slade the only saloon "good habitue who accepts hard reality But very good Spacey nonchalantly underplay- outstanding ing crazy 20-minute confes- sional monologue of his life who More reviews: Page 48 hopes to Harry Hope the saloon proprietor dared to step out into decades The English Boer Commando are odds The Anarchist anarchy the English only battles with alcohol and always loses Howard beautifully choreographed production surely the best of his long career aptly liberates the play from realistic confines and gives who have only their better pasts on which to fall back for consolation knew their persistent drunke-ness and dereliction well How vividly he brings them into theatrical £28 -9 the new low cost airline from british airways 08456 054321 i Vj --mH''- 'Y-' i ivW 'fi aysi'awee.