Pride and pitfalls of one-man show

It was the kind of homage that Sam Wanamaker, another Hollywood actor and director, might understand. The late Mr Wanamaker loved this town and made it realise it had to recreate Shakespeare's Globe.

We saw something of this great Anglophile, revered as he is, in Kevin Spacey with his promise to bring new life to the Old Vic. He moved into an apartment on the Thames, close to the theatre; he was seen to be enjoying London's parties, restaurants and people.

Peter Mandelson, it was noted, was a friend. Spacey's politically liberal credentials endeared him to Blair's Britain - he put in a cameo appearance at the Labour Party conference with Bill Clinton.

Spacey seemed to want to become one of us. It was hard to resist the idea that such affection from a celebrity and talent on this scale was rather flattering.

Who could have foreseen a situation where Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph's venerable theatre critic, would open his review of Spacey's National Anthems yesterday with the words: "I find myself worrying about Kevin Spacey ... " He described the play as "shallow, contrived and dated" and reminded his readers that Spacey's first offering at the Old Vic, Cloaca, had also been a bitter disappointment.

Evening Standard's Nicholas de Jongh raised the question that has troubled others of late: "I begin to have serious doubts about whether Kevin Spacey is the right man to run the Old Vic," he wrote.

How did it come to this? Spacey, at 45, is still in his prime. There can be no question of his being burned out. And it has to be said, even though the critics thought National Anthems was poor, it has already sold tickets worth more than £1 million, according to the Old Vic's spokesperson.

Cloaca, the "dud Dutch drama", did not do as well. By the time its run ended in early December only a third of the Old Vic's seats were occupied. Spacey did not act in Cloaca and the message from this, of course, is that people are happy to pay to see him on stage, even in a lacklustre play.

But his tenure at the Old Vic was predicated on his skills as artistic director. The theatre cannot survive on a permanent Kevin Spacey one-man show. Why hasn't he chosen to present plays that will be recognised for their own artistic value?

"The thing you have to understand about Kevin," an Old Vic insider said, "is that he does what he wants to do. He is the big name, the guy that pulls in the money. No one dares to go against him."

No one? What about Sally Greene, the former actress who has theatre in her blood, the woman who, with her property developer husband Robert Bourne, revived both Richmond Theatre and the Criterion.

Witness this scene: Spacey was recording a song for a 9/11 benefit in a studio near Waterloo. Sally Greene was there and, when he finished the number, offered some mild constructive criticism. Spacey exploded. According to one of those present he shouted: "Sally, you bitch! You don't know what the f*** you're talking about."

Ms Greene, who is used to dealing with thespian egos, took it in her stride. But the incident laid down a marker for Spacey's modus operandi.

Peter Mullan, the Scottish actor and director, co-starred with him in Ordinary Decent Criminal, shot in Dublin in 1999. As Mullan later recalled, Spacey rubbed him up the wrong way with his selfobsessed personal style. "I should have stuck one on him. I regret now that I did not," he said.

"I remember him hiring two Range Rovers, in lilac, one for himself, the other to act as a decoy. He honestly believed there would be mass recognition. We did try to explain to him that we were in a city where Bono can walk down the street and nobody bothers him. Dubliners are not impressed by celebrities."

So does Spacey have an ego problem? Intriguingly, there may be a clue in his latest film, Beyond the Sea. It's a biopic about one of Spacey's childhood heroes, Bobby Darin, the American pop singer of the 1950s and 1960s. Spacey not only co-wrote the movie, he co-produced and directed it. That was as well as starring as Darin and singing all the songs himself. Spacey is a gifted crooner.

Some felt the movie was an exercise in overweening vanity, the expression of a talented actor's amour-propre. Intriguingly, Spacey has Darin speak this line in the film: "Conceit is thinking you are great. Egotism is knowing it."

Was it egotism that led Spacey - against some advice, we are told - to choose two duff plays for his opening season at the Old Vic? Did he think he knew best?

National Anthems ends its run on 23 April. On 3 May, the Old Vic stages a far more sure-footed work, Philadelphia Story, with Spacey in the role taken by Cary Grant in the acclaimed film version. It has all the promise of a hit and advance ticket sales have already taken in £218,000.

Spacey is due to start filming a new Superman movie early this summer. His last few films have not been great successes and there is an expectation that his role as the caped hero's adversary Lex Luthor could return him to Hollywood's front rank.

Where will that leave the Old Vic? He once said he was here for the long term. It was a job, he said, to which he had been born. But the critics have bruised that celebrated ego and for insight into his thinking, we should turn to the pages of Richard E Grant's memoir With Nails.

Grant worked with Spacey some years ago on the film Henry and June. According to the British actor, Spacey defined his thinking in this outburst : "Let's face it, this is just another gig like any other and it's the same old f****** routine and bullshit there always is."

Perhaps, but to us, the Old Vic is special.