Newsnight Review discussed Daniela Nardini in Camille at the Lyric Hammersmith in London.

Watch the whole programme

(Edited highlights of the panel's review)

MARK LAWSON:
Paul, do they make the case for doing it again?

PAUL MORLEY:
No. Did nobody see Moulin Rouge? It's a letdown. The Parker thing comes to mind if you are going to make intelligent things these days you have to do something with form that doesn't make us think we are seeing a slightly amateur production. The audience is beginning to twitch. The actors are looking and we know that there are spaces that are appearing and we know she is going to die. In the end we are all relieved to get the heck out of there, as were the people on the stage.

LAWSON:
It is set in a specific world, does it have anything still to say about men and women?

JEANETTE WINTERSON:
It should, but it doesn't. It is brave but it is a poetic script. You cannot bring across any power when you miscast it. It is not Daniela Nardini's fault she cannot play it on stage. You need an actress of tremendous power to come on and captivate us. It's a big role and she can't do it.

MORLEY:
It is a problem because it is set up for a few minutes before she arrives.

WINTERSON:
She comes on and she cannot carry it off. It is not because she is too big and beefy and she is meant to be dying.

LAWSON:
I thought I would raise that point. Is it right that people pay so much attention to the physical capabilities of actors?

WINTERSON:
No, in opera you are convinced by the singer and by the role. A different actress could have made it happen for us, but all the time we are thinking this is an embarrassment

EKOW ESHUN:
The problem is there is no revelation in it. It starts with the main characters shouting at each other across the stage and it builds up to a hysterical pitch. There is no subtlety in it. It had stripped back. In doing so he hasn't found anything new to say so it is empty at the core.

LAWSON:
I had the most horrible feeling of feeling sorry for the actors but also for the theatre, because there is a real problem that you have the great barn-life theatres run by local councils and how do you get people in, put a TV star in a familiar classic which is all you can do and it doesn't work.

WINTERSON:
It's a huge space to fill up. It's not the television camera and she fluffs her lines.

MORLEY:
It is a form of intellectual pantomime and you get the TV star to lift it. I was almost going to get up and sing It's a Little Bit Funny. Everybody was miscast, give or take the rather amusing lady but it seemed out of beat. The production and direction. In the end we were all happy to go home.