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Post by showgirl on Dec 19, 2017 5:01:40 GMT
Mr Allam himself does presumably have some say in the matter? Apart from his views on the play offered, he might like the venue or its location or have some other quite prosaic reason for choosing to work there. In fact, wouldn't it be interesting to know generally why some actors accept particular roles?
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2017 8:18:56 GMT
Yes and no. It would be interesting when the reason isn't particularly prosaic, but I think it would get depressing after a while hearing "I needed to pay the bills and this is what I was offered". I've heard before now that even well-established actors - the ones who do primarily stage with maybe some television, at least - find that is their reason more often than not.
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Post by Snciole on Dec 19, 2017 9:52:15 GMT
Television doesn't pay as well as it used to so combined with stage not paying as well as it used to it may put actors who are fortunate to keep working in either field reasonably secure.
There is also the possibility that Allam lives local to Hampstead. Don't we all want a nice commute with a short day at the office?
Whilst I didn't hate it as much as some I can't see a lot of people staying beyond the added interval. It is a lovely off-West End play to enjoy with your G&T, I don't think the conflict is there to keep people in their seats.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2017 10:01:52 GMT
I liked it but to sum up Hampstead's audience the play had to be stopped mid way because some elderly woman collapsed. So to the conclude there is a market for soon dead people and young women who fancy Roger Allam, even in that wig. Irritating for you, but presumably deeply upsetting for the elderly lady and her companions, if she had any. Referring to someone who collapsed at the theatre as representative of a group called "soon dead people" shows zero compassion. I don't know if you have elderly relatives, but do try this phrase out on them and see how warmly they respond. This is probably going to sound morbid but now that I am older I realise that we are all “soon dead people”. When I was younger I thought I was invincible but I have had quite a few friends and acquaintances pass away in the last few years and only one was elderly. The rest were under sixty and the youngest was six months old.
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Post by Snciole on Dec 19, 2017 10:14:38 GMT
Irritating for you, but presumably deeply upsetting for the elderly lady and her companions, if she had any. Referring to someone who collapsed at the theatre as representative of a group called "soon dead people" shows zero compassion. I don't know if you have elderly relatives, but do try this phrase out on them and see how warmly they respond. This is probably going to sound morbid but now that I am older I realise that we are all “soon dead people”. When I was younger I thought I was invincible but I have had quite a few friends and acquaintances pass away in the last few years and only one was elderly. The rest were under sixty and the youngest was six months old. We are all one accident, illness or boring play from death. I am in admiration of these very elderly people having great nights and thinking they are invincible only to collapse in their seat or fall down the horrible Other Palace StairsSomeone I know works in a theatre. His CEO brought his 80 year old mum to their ballet. She had a lovely time and the theatre got the news she had died the following morning.
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Post by lynette on Dec 19, 2017 13:24:53 GMT
Well, what a way to go. Hamlet for me so watch out....
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Post by lynette on Dec 19, 2017 13:34:37 GMT
Don’t judge me, I was just feeling the lovely arras.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2017 13:43:34 GMT
Well, what a way to go. Hamlet for me so watch out.... I think I'd quite like to go while watching a play too. Talk about upstaging the actors.
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Post by RedRose on Dec 21, 2017 10:52:53 GMT
Television doesn't pay as well as it used to so combined with stage not paying as well as it used to it may put actors who are fortunate to keep working in either field reasonably secure. There is also the possibility that Allam lives local to Hampstead. Don't we all want a nice commute with a short day at the office? Whilst I didn't hate it as much as some I can't see a lot of people staying beyond the added interval. It is a lovely off-West End play to enjoy with your G&T, I don't think the conflict is there to keep people in their seats. ITV pays rather well for Endeavor - don't think Allam does this transfer for the money.
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Post by profquatermass on Dec 21, 2017 14:18:18 GMT
He has quite young kids I think. Maybe this is paying their school fees?
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Post by n1david on Jan 19, 2018 1:19:02 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 8:21:04 GMT
Maybe big Rog is just the kind of actor who doesn't like to be out of work long? as much as he's a bit 'known' he's always been a 'jobbing actor' type- consistently working and yes with critical acclaim BUT it's hard to shift that mentality of 'take each job it could be your last' when you've lived like that. Or maybe Mrs Allam gets fed up of him underfoot for too long and told him to 'go and do a nice play dear' And to add to the previous discussion, if you gotta go (and we all gotta go sometime) I can think of worse ways than after a night at the theatre. And for some of us on this board 'leaving' (in the ultimate way) at the interval seems very apt...
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Post by RedRose on Jan 19, 2018 8:24:19 GMT
Is that to use on the ATG Tickets website?
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Post by n1david on Jan 19, 2018 8:32:03 GMT
Is that to use on the ATG Tickets website? Yes, sorry, I chopped that bit! The button below takes you to the listing on the ATGTickers website.
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Post by Mr Snow on Jan 19, 2018 9:20:15 GMT
Not sure if there's a separate thread for offers, or if its worth starting a new one, but happy to share the following.
The Moderate Soprano: Ticket upgrade offer David Hare’s magnificent new play about the love story at the heart of the foundation of Glyndebourne transfers from its sold-out run at Hampstead Theatre to the West End. John Christie’s formidable vision, born out of his adoration for the beautiful soprano Audrey Mildmay and his innate passion for opera, became a gift to the nation, revered the world over. Book a Band B seat by 12 February for any Monday-Thursday and Saturday matinee performance until 29 April and receive a free upgrade to Band A seat. To take advantage of this special offer, simply use the promotional code ‘ROHupgrade’.
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Post by Dawnstar on Jan 19, 2018 13:41:34 GMT
And to add to the previous discussion, if you gotta go (and we all gotta go sometime) I can think of worse ways than after a night at the theatre. And for some of us on this board 'leaving' (in the ultimate way) at the interval seems very apt... Oh no, not in the interval, you'd miss Act 2. It would be especially awful if it was a piece you'd never seen before & therefore you'd never find out how it ended! Much better to die just as the curtain calls end.
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Post by n1david on Jan 19, 2018 13:47:26 GMT
And to add to the previous discussion, if you gotta go (and we all gotta go sometime) I can think of worse ways than after a night at the theatre. And for some of us on this board 'leaving' (in the ultimate way) at the interval seems very apt... Oh no, not in the interval, you'd miss Act 2. It would be especially awful if it was a piece you'd never seen before & therefore you'd never find out how it ended! Much better to die just as the curtain calls end. Probably a topic for a new thread but I'd happily watch Act 1 of Pippin many times but I never want to see Act 2 again... so dying in the interval would be a relief! There must be other plays where leaving early would give one with a better impression than lasting to the end...
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 13:48:31 GMT
Depends on what happens after we die. If haunting where you died is an option, no reason to miss out on act 2. You'd have to hope it was a theatre with plenty of turnover though, could be a slightly tedious afterlife if you opted to hang around for the second half of Thriller, thinking you had the option to move along Shaftesbury Avenue as the urge took you, only to discover you're stuck in a two metre radius of your place of death. If I had to pick a theatre to die in, it'd either be the National (for obvious reasons) or the Globe ('cos it'd be quite nice for the Globe to have a ghost).
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 13:51:27 GMT
And to add to the previous discussion, if you gotta go (and we all gotta go sometime) I can think of worse ways than after a night at the theatre. And for some of us on this board 'leaving' (in the ultimate way) at the interval seems very apt... Oh no, not in the interval, you'd miss Act 2. It would be especially awful if it was a piece you'd never seen before & therefore you'd never find out how it ended! Much better to die just as the curtain calls end. Oh I quite agree- it's was more a comment on a few of our posters who seem to leave more often at the interval than the end!
@baemax I quite agree at the Nash at least you'd get variety. Though there's also a few Globe regulars who could do with a good haunting.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 13:55:55 GMT
@emicardiff, am I a bad person for laughing at that, or am I a bad person for thinking "actually, they're more likely to get to the ghost stage before me"?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 14:06:43 GMT
@emicardiff , am I a bad person for laughing at that, or am I a bad person for thinking "actually, they're more likely to get to the ghost stage before me"? I proper laughed out loud at that.
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Post by Dawnstar on Jan 19, 2018 19:01:23 GMT
Depends on what happens after we die. If haunting where you died is an option, no reason to miss out on act 2. You'd have to hope it was a theatre with plenty of turnover though, could be a slightly tedious afterlife if you opted to hang around for the second half of Thriller, thinking you had the option to move along Shaftesbury Avenue as the urge took you, only to discover you're stuck in a two metre radius of your place of death. Maybe that's the circle of Hell designed for theatregoers: stuck eternally watching Thriller! (Though at least if I was stuck in the Lyric I would get one performance of Showstopper a month!)
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Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2018 19:51:36 GMT
Oh that's true, you do get the occasional Tiger Who Came to Tea or Gruffalo's Child too.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 6, 2018 17:43:04 GMT
I'm going to see this tomorrow. I've just seen a picture of the Allam wig
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Post by joem on Apr 8, 2018 16:03:40 GMT
This was ok in a "small UK film" kind of way, easy to watch if not especially deep or meaningful. David Hare is a "good" rather than "great" playwright. Perhaps "The Absence of War" is the last play he wrote which has claims to greatness.
Did Roger Allam keep the wig from Limehouse on all this time?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2018 17:03:05 GMT
Did Roger Allam keep the wig from Limehouse on all this time? Other way round, he probably took it to Limehouse after the 2015 run of The Moderate Soprano and resolved to wear it more 'cos he knew it would upset his fanbase.
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Post by lynette on Apr 8, 2018 17:08:39 GMT
I’m surprised this has a second run. It isn’t that good. Maybe Allam has a contract with a second run.
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Post by loureviews on Apr 9, 2018 6:43:55 GMT
My thoughts, ported over from my blog:
There is no singing, operatic or otherwise, in The Moderate Soprano, which returns to the stage following a sell-out run at Hampstead three years ago.
There is Roger Allam in a curiously bad wig (and at one point, lederhosen) as the eccentric John Christie, who made his fortune from building and decided his destiny was to build an opera house in his garden – which became Glyndebourne, England’s answer to Bayreuth.
The soprano of the title (not moderate as in average, but as in gentle of voice) is John’s wife, Audrey, played by Nancy Carroll, and we meet both of them in the first scene after the Second World War, when their enterprise is to be taken under the control of a Trust, ‘for the people’.
We then go back to see how Glyndebourne came to be, by the tenacity and naivete of Christie, and the help of three refugees from the Nazis: Rudolf Bing, Carl Ebert, and Franz Busch. So a truly English institution was modelled on the German model by three specialists in the production of Mozart.
There are hints and glimpses of politics pre-war, and these are done well, but they feel a bit lost in what is essentially a light comedy, and David Hare’s play, now split into two Acts with an interval, could do with an additional trim to stop the action dragging to a stop.
Paul Jesson, a stalwart of the RSC who I last saw playing Henry VIII at Stratford-upon-Avon, is Busch, a conductor who fell foul of promoting Jews above Gentiles for their talent in his opera house in Dresden, who was driven out after his orchestra took to wearing swastikas on their lapels.
Anthony Calf (best known perhaps, as Strickland in New Tricks) is Ebert, engaging with the Christies in characteristic Teutonic arrogance, and his assistant Bing is played by the very mannered Jacob Fortune-Lloyd.
The play is complex, but I felt it did not entirely convince. The performances are broadly good (especially Allam, who gets to the core of the character and Jesson, who convinces as a man displaced and somewhat befuddled by political progress), but there is something missing, and the decline in health of both the Christies is not fully explained, or the fact the private enterprise seems to decline during wartime.
I was also a little disappointed with the frugality of the sets and backdrops, and the dig within the script to people prepared to pay high prices to watch opera (which is also true, these days, of London theatre).
Just a reasonable two hours of theatre, not unmissable by any means, and not an obvious candidate to see out its full run to the end of June; it probably suited the small space of the Hampstead Theatre far better.
----
Incidentally I didn't mention but Jesson required a prompt which could clearly be heard in front stalls - a first for me to see at a professional production.
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Post by tmesis on Apr 9, 2018 6:54:50 GMT
I enjoyed this at Hampstead but then I'm a bit obsessed by opera. I thought then it was a bit niche and most of the average theatre-goer (even at Hampstead) wouldn't give a toss about what is essentially quite a 'rarified' institution. Amazed it got a WE transfer.
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Post by profquatermass on Apr 9, 2018 9:12:54 GMT
My thoughts, ported over from my blog: The soprano of the title (not moderate as in average, but as in gentle of voice) is John’s wife, Audrey, played by Nancy Carroll, and we meet both of them in the first scene after the Second World War, when their enterprise is to be taken under the control of a Trust, ‘for the people’. ---- I thought she was moderate as in average - there was a lot about how she wasn't quite good enough to be an opera star.
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