I saw Follies when I was in my thirties. <shudders...>
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Saw Danny Dyer in Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter today (matinee), and it was very good indeed. Twas a double bill but I think tonight is the end of Dyer and Freeman's run.
Dyer is physically impressive and moves well, which he's required to in this role.
I had two empty seats next to me in an otherwise full theatre, which was nice.
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Wilton's is great. Beware booking a spot next to a pillar; the chairs are all close together but those are uncomfortable enough to make an early departure seem very appealing.
I went to a couple of things last week. Berberian Sound Studio at the Donmar Warehouse is an adaptation of the horror/suspense film from a few years ago. The production design brilliantly evoked a slightly seedy 1970s Italy and there were some fine performances from the mostly Italo-British cast, as well as Tom Brooke in the lead role. There were some very creepy moments and scary effects but it is a mood piece rather than a strong linear narrative. A weekday matinee didn't look to be sold out, which is unusual for the Donmar, and the crowd seemed younger than is often the case in that slot.
Shipwrecked at the Almeida didn't work for me at all and I left during the interval, after a ninety minute first half. The main strand was a group of dislikeable, straight from central casting, 'rich liberals' talking about Donald Trump. It just seemed bogus and self congratulatory even when it was purporting to expose the characters' hypocrisies. Also the cast's American accents may have been technically accurate but felt unnatural and put on. Secondary strands about young man who had been adopted from Africa to the mid-west and some comic relief about an invented meeting between Trump and George W Bush were better but not enough to make another hour and a quarter of it seem appealing.
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The Last Ship, the Sting musical about the closing of a shipyard in Wallsend in 1986. It's been a rough seas for this one. Opened on Broadway with Jimmy Nail in the lead. Didn't do well. Got retooled for a UK tour and did better. Still, it's wildly uneven. Decent songs, but not great songs. Sting is....fine. The set is simple, innovative and marvelous. Lots of loose threads and ideas that start and then don't seem to go anywhere. And the emotions get 3/4 of the way there, but never really earn their keep. A good effort, enjoyable, but certainly not 'must see'. 7/10.
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Tomorrow night I'm going to see 'The Life I Lead' at the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park, a place I've never heard of before.
It's a one man play with Miles Jupp playing David Tomlinson (Mr Banks in 'Mary Poppins' and Professor Browne in Bedknobs & Broomsticks') who had a peculiar back story.
It might be a bit of an oddity but I love Jupp's work and it's got really good reviews so giving it a punt.
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To clarify, in case it's needed. It was the Park Theatre I've never heard of before.
I think I've only ever been in the park itself for gigs, despite going through the area a lot and living close by for a few years in Stoke Newington (though we had Clissold Park right next to us).
My office is actually in Finsbury, but that's three miles away and I've never worked out why they're similarly named.
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Bigre, straight from France ... where it's apparently a smash phenomenon.
Bigre is a one-act, 90-minute non-dialogue play with three characters. One messy 'hermit', one peculiar neat-freak, and one ditzy woman live on the upper floor of a Paris apartment. The play is about their interactions and relationship peculiarities. It's done with props, effects and tons and tons of slapstick and mugging. If that's your thing, you'll love it. If you don't get the 'genius' of Jerry Lewis, you'll grind your teeth for 90 minutes.
Admittedly, it has many clever moments. But it's largely dated, hack humour that leans heavily on cliche and stereotype. Well executed, but not my cup of tea. The largely French-speaking audience (based on chatter in the lobby and before the show) loved it.
The trailer, if you're so inclined.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQyNzW7oG9Y
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We've seen a lot of stuff like it, which did well at some small theatre or workshop or a fringe-festival type of thing. But taken outside of its environment, it seems to feel wrong.
We saw an utterly dreadful take on Sherlock Holmes a couple of years back that apparently killed at some experimental theatre in Montreal. Won tons of awards. We walked out at intermission and I demanded - and got - my money back.
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We saw 'Orpheus Descending' - A Tennessee Williams play - at the Theatr Clwyd last week. It was a bad decision, as we had both been hard at work in the garden erecting a new greenhouse and by the time we got there we were pooped. The first act ran to 100 minutes, and nearly all the cast had fun practicing their deep Sounth accents, to the extent that we could understand very little of the dialogue. We had to leave at the interval, as Mrs. Thrillseeker's snores were getting louder. Anyway, it sounded like it all kicked of in Act Two with recriminations and deaths, as we were tucking ourselves into bed. Pity - I love a good play.
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Originally posted by ursus arctos View PostI have found that anything classified as farce or burlesque rarely translates well...
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Originally posted by Gangster Octopus View PostAre you mad?
The play was in the Lyttelton Theatre where they sell tickets for the first four rows at £15, compared to £50 in the main body of the stalls. These seats are slightly narrower than the full price ones but on the front row there's a five foot gap between you and the stage so the extra leg room compensates for it.
Usually it's good being able to see the performers up close. If a production advertised itself as involving serious audience interaction, I would choose seats further back, quite possibly as far back as our living room.
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A couple of weeks ago was the Buenos Aires Shakespeare Festival, and one of the cultural centres was showing one of the RSC's livestreams (recorded from last year, so not actually a livestream) of Macbeth, which we went to see. Christopher Ecclestone in the title role. It was very good, although I was distracted throughout by the sound. Wasn't sure whether it was from the original video (but surely not) or the speakers in the room (which was a cinema, albeit not a big multiplex one, so again surely not), and granted it's possible I was the only person there who could have watched it all the way through without needing to refer to the subtitles once anyway*, but it was really annoying.
*Because I was probably the only native English speaker there, I mean. Not because everyone else is thick and I'm dead clever.
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I went to see The Firm* downstairs at the Hampstead Theatre last night. Unfolding in real time over 90 minutes and set in a bar, it is about four ageing former gang members waiting to greet a friend and celebrate his release from prison. It was strongly performed, precisely choreographed in a smallish space and caught the rhythms of longstanding male friendships well.
* - not an adaptation of the Nick Love film, to be clear.
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