On the Ceiling

Published Wednesday 25 May 2005 at 11:25 by Pat Ashworth

Nigel Planer’s first play is glorious, a truly original piece about the painting of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo is remarkable by his absence - and that is the point. It is Lapo and Loti, fresco craftsman and apprentice, who do the hard graft for which their absent master will get the glory.

On top of the lofty wooden platform that is their studio, they mimic and slag him off without mercy as a whingeing Florentine drama queen, a sulky sculptor and reluctant painter. Ron Cook plays the grumbling Lapo, a man whose swagger and crudity masks the real pride he takes in his work, and Ralf Little is the younger and more tolerant Loti, a lad who would much rather be working for Raphael. The pairing of these two is superb and they relish the robust and hilarious dialogue.

But Planer gives us an education in the art of fresco painting too, and this is one of the abiding fascinations of the play. There are moments of utter absorption as the two men work silently away on the cartoons, pricking the paper with a bodkin, applying charcoal to the stencil, sweeping the outline with broad brush strokes onto the wall. It is like watching authentic craftsmen at work.

Matthew Wright’s design is integral to the success of the play. No reviewer should give away the ending - it is enough to say that it is slow, breathtaking and completely magnificent. On the Ceiling is due to transfer to the West End, where it should be an enormous hit.