How Harry's hottie came of age: She may trade on her royal links, but Cressida Bonas really CAN act - and is at least as good as Keira Knightley, says Mail critic Quentin Letts
What a palaver about (let's be honest) a minor theatrical production. There have been preview articles in the 'heavy' newspapers, paparazzi photocalls, gossip-column stories, and a celeb-speckled cast.
ITV newscaster Alastair Stewart, stargazer Russell Grant and veteran actress Maureen Lipman all take filmed cameo roles in the show, and were there at the Leicester Square theatre in Thursday's first-night throng.
Not only does the show have a glossy programme but it also carries full-page advertisements — almost unheard of for a fringe theatre show. Photographers, most unusually, were allowed into the auditorium to snap away during the performance.
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The big draw for An Evening With Lucian Freud was its solo performer - Cressida Bonas
So why the excitement? Why, when most fringe plays struggle to sell more than a fistful of tickets, was there a full house packed into the hot little auditorium, and Fleet Street drama critics in the front row?
Well, the big draw for An Evening With Lucian Freud was its solo performer. She may be an actress making only her second professional appearance on the fringes of London theatre, but she is known better on what you could call the wider national stage: Cressida Bonas.
Boho-chic Cressie was (and maybe soon will be again — it is not entirely easy to keep up) Prince Harry's poppet.
She is known as the Royal Squeeze. With the Duchess of Cambridge having retreated to bottle-sterilising duties in darkest East Anglia, Cressida is the nation's current Royal Crumpet By Appointment.
Prince Harry's former squeeze was alone on the stage in London’s West End for 65 minutes
Her voice is not a strong point, being a little monotonous, yet she has a more varied delivery than, for instance, the robotic, over-garlanded Keira Knightley
That may sound crudely sexist, but the striking thing about this young woman is that she is determinedly bending circumstance and media hoo-hah to her advantage. Call it post-feminism if you want, or sheer chutzpah, she is capitalising on her connections.
Some may find that over-eager. Others will take the view 'why the heck not?'. I put myself firmly in the 'good luck to her' camp.
Royal girlfriends have in the recent past tended to shy away from publicity. They have dropped a coy chin when pursued down the streets by newspaper snappers, and have declined to utter more than a 'no comment'.
Not Cressida. Boy, has she gone for it, career-wise. She has grabbed her opportunity in a way that would once have been thought decidedly unladylike.
From Kensington to Cannes, she has played her royal string blatantly. Old-world deference and discretion were abandoned. There was an interview/profile in the London Evening Standard, and there have been press releases and publicity stills about this new show.
Official photographs for the production did not project some hesitant doe-eyed antelope. They gave us a minxy Miss, one eyebrow raised, wearing the smile of a Siren. We also saw her writhing around on the floor, apparently wrapped in nothing but a sheet.
Was this really the behaviour fitting to a Royal love interest? You wouldn't catch Cinderella doing such things!
With the Duchess of Cambridge having retreated to bottle-sterilising duties in darkest East Anglia, Cressida is the nation's current Royal Crumpet By Appointment
She is no novice. She studied dance at Leeds University, trained as a dancer at the Royal Ballet School and did a foundation year at LAMDA
Daughters of the gentry have long had a tendency to describe themselves as 'actresses'. They have not always been taken seriously. 'Actress' was often a euphemism for 'er, not doing very much until I bag a rich husband'. Cressida, to the contrary, said it and meant it.
She is no novice. She studied dance at Leeds University, trained as a dancer at the Royal Ballet School, did a foundation year at LAMDA, a London drama school, and later won a prize for singing at London's Laban conservatoire. You do not build that sort of CV without a smidgen of talent.
Then came the publicity blitz, and it was all — let there be no doubt about this — on the strength of her being Harry's (ex) girlfriend.
She attended January's Golden Globes parties in Los Angeles with actor Freddie Fox, son of Edward. She posed for the cover of Miss Vogue magazine. She turned up at the Dior party on the Cote d'Azur the other day, shimmering in sea-blue sequins.
And she has struck up a friendship with Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. Old blowhard Harv has been bragging to anyone prepared to listen that Cressida is going to be the next big thing, and that her role in a forthcoming Hollywood film, Tulip Fever, is a goddam knockout.
So how was she on stage in Laura-Jane Foley's new play, An Evening With Lucian Freud? Rather good, actually. If I sound surprised, that is because we critics can become diseased by scepticism born of bitter experience.
Fringe theatres often employ PR people who rave about productions. But then you go along to find creaky shows directed by trust-fund brats and acted by gilded but wooden youths who should never have graduated beyond family charades.
Cressida compensated for her vocal shortcomings with a nimble set of expressions and lively eyes
Not this time. Miss Bonas, as the critic in me should address her, is more than competent enough for this level of fringe show. She has a flitting charm and cannot be faulted for her courage. She is alone on stage here for 65 minutes. To do that even half-decently you need stamina, poise, a good memory and the ability to establish a rapport with the audience.
It helps that she is pretty, I suppose, but many actresses are good-looking. If anything, I'd say she could do with putting on some weight. If I were her father, I would certainly tell her to have seconds of rhubarb crumble.
There were a couple of minor line fumbles, but that is better than Dame Kristin Scott Thomas managed on the first night of The Audience just up the road on Shaftesbury Avenue earlier this month.
I would compare Miss Bonas's stage skills favourably with those of the much older Dame Kristin (who, amazingly, was nominated for an Olivier Award earlier this year).
Miss Bonas's voice is not a strong point, being a little monotonous, yet she has a more varied delivery than, for instance, the robotic, over-garlanded Keira Knightley. On the evidence of this show, and of Miss Knightley's recent stage outings in London, I would say Cressida is at least as good as the Left-wing luvvie.
Whilst many believe that her relationship with the monarch shot her to fame, Cressida was already pursuing an acting career behind the scenes
The fledgling actress and dancer has been hobnobbing with fashion and Hollywood's finest in recent months
And only this week I went to a larger London production starring Dianna Agron, a big name from TV's hit singing-and-dancing show Glee. Miss Agron's voice was considerably more leaden.
Cressida compensates for these vocal shortcomings with a nimble set of expressions, lively eyes, absence of nerves and immersion in character.
She plays Laura, a young art student who writes to painter Lucian Freud and is drawn into his web. Laura finds herself exposed to a beguiling, famous man who pours expensive champagne down her throat and introduces her to interesting friends. Here is a trusting young woman who finds herself awestruck by the glamour of a richer, more exotic world than her own. The similarities between Laura's story and the real-life story of Cressida Bonas are not hard to see.
She is fascinated — hypnotised — by Freud's mystique and lineage (in his case being descended from Sigmund Freud). She freezes when Freud makes a move on her, stroking her head, curling a finger under her jaw and lifting her chin towards his face. At this point, Miss Bonas trembles sensuously. Pierced by Freud's seductive stare, Laura drops a glass.
All this was conveyed with great conviction. You might almost say that she showed unusual empathy for the character she was playing, as though she herself had been in such a situation.
What was the audience thinking as it watched her stretch her slender body in provocative poses? Were the theatregoers so caught in the story that they could think only of Freud and Laura?
From Kensington to Cannes (pictured), Cressida has played her royal string blatantly, casting aside old-world deference and discretion
Probably not. I certainly found myself repeatedly looking at her and thinking: 'I wonder if she could be next up the nave at Westminster Abbey at a royal wedding.'
Yet it is a measure of her skill as an actress that by the end of the show we were all, I think, genuinely as gripped by the play and by the character of Laura as by the soap opera of Cressida and Harry.
I am not saying that we have discovered the new Judi Dench or Glenda Jackson. Miss Bonas may never be good enough to join the Royal Shakespeare Company.
But there are many worse actresses working in London today, and I bet the movie camera will be kind to her.
She has the quail-like bone structure of a Hollywood starlet. That, as much as the royal connection, may be what Harvey Weinstein spotted.
Edward VII, when he was Prince of Wales, had a weakness for pretty theatricals. He is said to have bedded Nellie Clifden, Sarah Bernhardt, Lillie Langtry, La Belle Otero and Hortense Schneider, among others.
Maybe there is an affinity between stage acting and the sort of public performance expected of princes' lovers when they step into the public's gaze. To be a royal girlfriend in the modern age is arguably a form of spotlit make-believe.
Having seen Cressida Bonas on stage, I think rather more of both her and Prince Harry. I think more of her for being not just 'a pretty face', but having a measure of proper artistic ability.
And I think more of him for falling in love with a young woman who is plainly so much more than just a dingbat Sloane.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3093526/Cressida-act-Evening-Lucian-Freud.html#ixzz3ayFqSAQS
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