They gave Madonna a standing ovation. But, since her performance in David Williamson's comedy is that of a dogged trier lacking in technique or mystery, the gesture is meaningless: what the audience is applauding is not achievement but some hollow concept of celebrity.
Admittedly the play itself is not one of Williamson's best: only last week I attended a reading of his 1977 Australian play, The Club, which knocked spots off this for dramatic intensity. But in this story of a ravenous New York art dealer trying to force the bidding for a rare Jackson Pollock up to $20m , he makes some telling points. In a greedy world, he suggests, the broker will do anything to clinch the deal: even, in the case of Madonna's Loren, to strapping on a black dildo to satisfy the anal cravings of a prospective buyer.
Williamson uses the bludgeon rather than the rapier and skimps on narrative detail. When the dotcom millionaires split over the price of the Pollock there is no suggestion that severance would involve teams of lawyers. But Madonna's Loren is the focus of the action and one is left, like Oliver Twist, hungry for more. "I want money so I can own beauty" cries Madonna. But, instead of an implacably driven heroine, one simply finds an amiably smiling girl in silver top and black slacks. The voice is light and, even from row H, not always easily audible. And the hands flail around like those of a traffic cop. When Madonna talks of "the essence of creativity caught for a moment in time" she signals skywards before slamming her fist into her palm. What we don't see, in all this manual activity, is a character of frenzied ambition who undergoes a last minute repentance.
Madonna is not positively bad: just technically awkward. But, fortunately, she is buttressed by strong supporting players. Sian Thomas, who can get a laugh simply through the flick of an eyelid, is superb as a Courtauld-trained consultant longing to get her revenge on the corporate world. Megan Dodds, as the dotcom entrepreneur who starts by seducing Madonna and ends up falling in love, combines sexiness and solitude. And Michael Lerner blusters effectively as a crude buyer for whom art is a means of appeasing his wife.
But the best feature of Laurence Boswell's production is Jeremy Herbert's design: a two-tiered glass box whose lower panels slide sleekly back and forth to indicate shifting locations. The design is elegant, functional and, in its projected imprints of New York, beautiful. It makes up for the non-event of Madonna's performance which, ironically in a play about the excess valuation of art, simply capitalises on her existing fame.
Until July 13. Box office: 020-7369 1796.
Classical
Britten's Canticles
Westminster Abbey ****
For those who think that homeless people never get closer to opera than selling the Big Issue in Covent Garden, Streetwise Opera's first full-scale production will come as a surprise. Arguably, the focus of attention was the small cast of professional musicians, but they were supported (and occasionally almost upstaged) by actors, dancers and production staff recruited from five of London's homeless shelters.
It was an inspiring evening. For once, worthy wasn't a euphemism for dull or mediocre. Streetwise had come up with a programme that was artistically intriguing in its own right: a staged version of Britten's five Canticles. The dynamic director Bill Bankes-Jones and his company Tête-à-Tête were just right for the job. Westminster Abbey proved a spectacular setting, but also yielded some surprisingly intimate performing spaces. We were led from place to place for each canticle - past Britten's own memorial to the North Transept, then the Lady Chapel, and on to Poet's Corner. Halfway through The Journey of the Magi I looked down and realised that I was standing on TS Eliot.
It soon became clear that Bankes-Jones and his assistants had been able to feed off a wealth of ideas and insight gleaned from workshops in the shelters. The masterpiece among the canticles, Abraham and Isaac, brought the most memorable staging. The voice of God - a tinglingly effective fusion of alto and tenor voices - is usually sung by the same two who perform the rest of the piece. Here, dramatic considerations called for a separate God, in the distinguished forms of James Bowman and Ian Partridge. The besuited pair - like dictators perhaps, or company magnates - were cruel and self-congratulatory, shadowed by a minder and attended to by a TV crew, who lost interest in filming after the sacrifice was called off.
Finally, we came to the grave of the unknown warrior for Still Falls the Rain - another monologue for the tireless tenor Dan Norman, who sang in all five canticles. Other musical contributions, especially the piano playing of music director Dominic Harlan, were also compelling.
Hopefully someone from over the road was there: this was proof that it is worth investing in the arts because they can improve people's lives, at ground level, where it's needed.
Theatre
A Carpet, a Pony and a Monkey
Bush, London ***
It would not be unreasonable to think that the theatre could provide a haven from the current football fever. But not at the Bush, where Mike Packer's play harks back to a previous assault on England's sporting prowess and sense of national pride and identity: Euro 2000.
In a hotel in Belgium, millionaire ticket-tout Barry is trying to offload hundreds of last-minute tickets for England versus Germany with the help of Tosser, a man who more than lives up to his name. Barry is repulsed by Tosser's Little Englander mentality, but beggars can't be choosers, and he knows that unless he can raise some cash quick the bailiff will be moving in on him, his business and his unsuspecting wife. After years of keeping his gambling addiction under control, Barry has lost his entire fortune investing in dot.com companies on the stock market.
One of Barry's contacts is Alan, a black premiership footballer on the slide who turns up with his new girlfriend Kate, very much a bird but definitely no bird-brain, who knows that the worth of a man lies in the size of his bank account. When Alan offers them a stash of tickets for the quarter finals of England versus Italy, Barry and Tosser think they can't lose.
Sometimes you come across a play that isn't really terribly good, but is so entertaining that you are happy to forgive its failings of structure, characterisation, and credibility. This is one of those. Touching on racism, family ties, friendship, the psyche of the gambler, celebrity culture and kiss-and-tell morality, Packer tries to pack rather more into his play than is actually good for it, but this stew of double-crossing low-life has a compulsive anthropological fascination - and is also very funny. Mike Bradwell directs in racy style, and the playwright gets away with it because he is so well served by the actors who are all diamond-hard - none more so than Philip Jackson, who adds layer upon layer of complexity to Barry.
· Until June 15. Box office: 020 7610 4224.