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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2018 14:38:09 GMT
I shall be seeing this tonight. I'm not sure what I'm looking forward to most - Ophelia Lovibond or an interval madeline.
I'm wearing pink shoes today. I'm looking scrumptious. Say hello if you see me. I'm happy to wave. Unless I'm doing something illegal of course, in which case I'd rather stay "on the down low" as the kids say.
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2018 14:39:52 GMT
Only seen the TO so far but was a positive 3*. Seeing this next week, but the interview on WOS (I think) with B Norris was interesting - I know Hytner is a bit of an evangelist for young writers not getting stuck in the studio ghetto and writing for the big stages, so even if Norris hasn't quite managed it with this hopefully it will be a good positive stretching experience that gets him a step further. “Positive 3*” Like Lavish primark
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Post by theatrelover123 on May 10, 2018 17:17:37 GMT
Enter the code MASTERCLASS when selecting seats for any of the remaining performances and tickets are £10 each (seems to apply to the £90 premiums too). Nice
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Post by n1david on May 10, 2018 18:15:52 GMT
Enter the code MASTERCLASS when selecting seats for any of the remaining performances and tickets are £10 each (seems to apply to the £90 premiums too). Nice Thanks! Given the cool reviews I'm much happier paying £15/ticket for this than the £50/ticket I did have - I'm getting £15 for the Premium seats for late in the run with this offer, but I'm happy to return my existing tickets for credit and take a punt whilst paying less.
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Post by theatrelover123 on May 10, 2018 20:14:19 GMT
Enter the code MASTERCLASS when selecting seats for any of the remaining performances and tickets are £10 each (seems to apply to the £90 premiums too). Nice Thanks! Given the cool reviews I'm much happier paying £15/ticket for this than the £50/ticket I did have - I'm getting £15 for the Premium seats for late in the run with this offer, but I'm happy to return my existing tickets for credit and take a punt whilst paying less. Yes it actually looks like the premiums are £15 and all others £10 with that offer
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Post by Marwood on May 12, 2018 17:03:39 GMT
I saw this this afternoon and was rather impressed. I thought all of the cast were good, in particular Ophelia Lovibond and it engaged my attention thoughout (I can’t see why anyone would find anything excruciating unless they had a psychotic hatred of Fleetwood Mac). Also: the lack of onstage farming, surely no one expects to see a tractor being driven round on stage, a cow being milked or someone digging up spuds? The erm ‘rustic’ smell being sat down the front was enough for me.
Shame the theatre was probably only a third or so full - if it had more famous names in the cast it would have had more people attending.
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Post by crowblack on May 19, 2018 20:22:52 GMT
return my existing tickets for credit Is hat do-able at The Bridge? I've been able to shift dates but I wasn't aware they refunded - they didn't when I couldn't make it to London for Young Marx. I didn't look at this thread before seeng it (which I did today) - I had a £25 cheap row D side of centre stalls which was fine, but I wish they'd turned the lights up so see could see the actors' faces! Will add more thought after I've been next door to hoover up remains of royal wedding party food/drink.
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Post by foxa on May 19, 2018 22:00:37 GMT
Had a very civilised afternoon at the Bridge Theatre today. Lovely walk beforehand with lots of people enjoying the weather, the fountains and the recording of 'Funny or Die' taking place about a minute away. The theatre wasn't particularly busy, but it wasn't ghostly quiet either. All the staff we spoke to were super helpful and pleasant (and I liked that the bar staff had a sign saying all tips this week were going to a mental health charity.) No loo queues. Theatre was spotless, light and airy. We enjoyed a plate of madeleines and pots of tea at the interval.
The play wasn't great. At times I was engaged - but overall thought it was frustrating. I kept seeing glimpses of other plays (the dead crow made me wonder if we were heading towards 'The Seagull' territory, the threat of law enforcement made think of 'A View from the Bridge') and sometimes there were hints of a better play in this one. A big problem was the mother character (Claire Skinner) - I really couldn't make any sense out of her. She is ferociously unsympathetic - which is okay - but I didn't understand why she was the way she was. She mentions once that she has been working, but she never seems to do anything. Aside from occasionally listening to music or flicking through a magazine or glancing at her laptop - or for one embarrassing bit, a little 'dancing' - she just does nasty/manipulative. I don't think her idea of running an Air Bnb at the farm is a winner given that her garden lounger was virtually resting against a huge unsightly oil pipe - it makes her seem unhinged to even consider it. The playwright seemed to dislike the character with such intensity, it was as if he was working out some unresolved hatred for her so that he couldn't present anything redeeming. The character of Pete was a bit of a relief because at least he took productive action from time to time and he and Olivia Lovibond have a good scene at the end of the first act.
I know some people said they thought it was a Brexit play (and Brexit was mentioned once) but I'm not sure I got that. Was it about clinging to the past? I think the playwright was making a point about people who just get stuck in their own unhappiness. Mr Foxa didn't demand to leave and quoted a few lines he liked afterwards, and we both liked the set and lighting, so not a disaster, more just a bit baffling.
As a side note, has anyone eaten anything beyond the madeleines here? I thought the menu looked tempting.
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Post by n1david on May 19, 2018 22:00:43 GMT
Yes, it’s essentially the same policy as the NT. Return them early enough and they’ll credit your account less £2 per ticket. They just add the credit to your account and it shows as available next time you’re booking, so there’s no faffing around with credit vouchers like the NT. No cash refunds though and I think it must be 48 hours in advance. ( foxa got in before me but this in respect of the q by crowblack about returning tix)
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Post by crowblack on May 19, 2018 23:40:18 GMT
Thanks! I am too inebriated to add my reviewy thoughts tonight, having hoovered up aforementioned neighbour's party cava dregs, but Foxa sorry to miss you, I was the puzzled looking scruff with round specs.
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Post by foxa on May 20, 2018 9:16:52 GMT
Sorry to have missed you, crowblack. I was the one enthusiastically eating madeleines. Looking forward to your review!
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Post by crowblack on May 20, 2018 11:10:04 GMT
Sad to say I agree with barelyathletic and foxa above. It was really frustrating, in that it's good to see new writers given a big platform and there are the bones of a good play in there, but this wasn't it. It felt underwritten and slackly directed - you kept wanting them to speed it up a gear or two. Scenes and revelations that should have packed a punch didn't. I don't know much about the writer's background but one of the most glaring problems was the lack of any sort of rural atmosphere: with all the swanning around, wine glasses in hand, tealights and M&S nibbles it could just as well have been set at a north London garden party and about a family firm of solicitors. I think the warning signs set in early with the dead crow - you'd think none of them had set eyes on a dead animal before. Characters and relationships were unconvincing and inconsistent, though the brother and sister were strongly played, which for me was the production's saving grace.
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Post by foxa on May 20, 2018 19:32:12 GMT
Ah - I just had a thought about another possible influence on the play: Glass Menagerie. Overbearing mother, damaged son and daughter, plus gentleman caller, inability to escape the past, 'abandoned' by father, money problems....
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Post by talkstageytome on May 20, 2018 21:02:26 GMT
Foxa I thought the exact same thing funnily enough! (Slightly more specific comparisons in spoilers.) {Spoiler - click to view}
Great minds 😉
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Post by foxa on May 20, 2018 21:17:56 GMT
Ah - snap. While I was watching it I was thinking more Chekhov/Miller but today thought Williams. So slower on the draw than you!
{Spoiler - click to view} Like Chekhov, there were people stuck in a decaying place that someone else wants to buy and characters with yearnings that they can't fulfil... Then I thought it was gearing up for more a Miller ending - I thought the mum was going to call the police/oil company in order to destroy the relationship between Lou and Pete as Eddie does to ruin the relationship between Catherine and Rudolfo, But nah.
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2018 8:30:03 GMT
I saw this on Friday and there was something interesting there but I was mostly just baffled by how mad the mother was. My knee-jerk reaction was 'another male writer with really weird ideas about women' but then I remembered BN's other plays and he isn't someone who usually writes cartoon characters. I wonder if he just felt he had to go big for a bigger venue and ended up going over the top?
I tuned out in the second half so don't remember much about it. Not a hit for me, but still enjoyable to go to this venue on such a nice evening. I'm forgiving it as a noble failure!
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Post by peelee on May 24, 2018 10:22:37 GMT
I saw this on 7 May and liked it a lot. While straining to hear some initial exchanges from backstage between two characters as a pipeline supplying energy was being tampered with in order to be shared with this farm, things soon moved closer and became easier to hear. I wondered whether the stage could have been set up to capture speech a bit better.
A small domestic drama, on the face of things, yet with an epic quality. All four in this cast play their parts well and from a slow start each character's intertwined dilemmas are revealed and yet not easily to be solved. It was all plausible and much of it true enough. Taking power from an energy company, and a farm owing money to a bank that wants repaying — the ironies that operate in contemporary Britain and the pressures such organisations exert on so many people form the wider context for the play. Two articles in the theatre programme, by the playwright Barney Norris and by author of Romantic Moderns, Alexandra Harris, underline the significance of what the play is about and which only Libby Purves, reviewing the play on Theatrecat website, seemed to sense the importance of.
Beautifully written, well acted, all characters making mistakes yet having a point, this important play could be just the kind of thing that college and university theatre clubs consider staging in their own right, and just as tempted into staging it will be local dramatic societies.
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Post by crowblack on May 24, 2018 11:30:02 GMT
the theatre was way too big for the writing. Agreed. And I know it's called Nightfall, but it might have helped if they'd turned the lighting up. I was on row D and in new glasses but even so the actors' faces were often indistinct.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2018 15:17:29 GMT
Two articles in the theatre programme, by the playwright Barney Norris and by author of Romantic Moderns, Alexandra Harris, underline the significance of what the play is about and which only Libby Purves, reviewing the play on Theatrecat website, seemed to sense the importance of. When the audience/critics have to rely on programme notes to give a real flavour of what the play is aiming to be "about" then I think the play has probably failed to do it on its own terms...
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Post by lichtie on May 24, 2018 16:43:41 GMT
I did like the staging which is an area I think the Bridge do well at - but the actual play could have been compressed easily so it all fitted into the pre-interval half without losing anything, and it would probably still have been lacking in drama...
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Post by foxa on May 24, 2018 20:07:31 GMT
I saw this on 7 May and liked it a lot. While straining to hear some initial exchanges from backstage between two characters as a pipeline supplying energy was being tampered with in order to be shared with this farm, things soon moved closer and became easier to hear. I wondered whether the stage could have been set up to capture speech a bit better. A small domestic drama, on the face of things, yet with an epic quality. All four in this cast play their parts well and from a slow start each character's intertwined dilemmas are revealed and yet not easily to be solved. It was all plausible and much of it true enough. Taking power from an energy company, and a farm owing money to a bank that wants repaying — the ironies that operate in contemporary Britain and the pressures such organisations exert on so many people form the wider context for the play. Two articles in the theatre programme, by the playwright Barney Norris and by author of Romantic Moderns, Alexandra Harris, underline the significance of what the play is about and which only Libby Purves, reviewing the play on Theatrecat website, seemed to sense the importance of. Beautifully written, well acted, all characters making mistakes yet having a point, this important play could be just the kind of thing that college and university theatre clubs consider staging in their own right, and just as tempted into staging it will be local dramatic societies. I didn't get the programme but did see the play. So what was it about? (Feel shame-faced that Theatre Cat understood it and I didn't.)
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Post by peelee on May 25, 2018 11:41:18 GMT
"When the audience/critics have to rely on programme notes to give a real flavour of what the play is aiming to be "about" then I think the play has probably failed to do it on its own terms..."
I didn't need to rely on 'programme notes'. I was absorbed by the play and followed what was going on, but only read the programme a day or so later. I remarked on how interesting to me were two articles in the programme, and I did so because they led to awareness of the existence of a writer whose work I didn't know and which indicated to me why she was attuned to something like Norris's plays and books. See book reviews of her much praised Romantic Moderns. Norris's article interested me because it expressed his concerns about the kind of people and places he has known, that have had a bearing on other things he has written some of which I have seen and read. From what I could pick up, he and I think differently about some contemporary issues though I share other of his concerns, things that have concerned me for longer than he's been alive. There are other comments and excerpts of poetry in the programme, that all taken together enhanced my appreciation of the play. That other theatregoers do not want to read the theatre programme or the play text, is fine by me and presumably by them.
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Post by kathryn on May 26, 2018 19:16:48 GMT
I am curious what the programme notes said to throw light on the production, because it seemed very unfocused to me.
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Post by nash16 on Jun 29, 2018 20:28:09 GMT
For those seeking some answers as to why this was so bad (and why Barney Norris' long term director Alice Hamilton wasn't at the helm of the show) check out Barney's twitter feed.
He has gone into detail, over a long thread of tweets, as to whom he felt the problem was. And it's not pretty. #thedirector
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Post by foxa on Jun 29, 2018 23:04:19 GMT
That was interesting, thanks for the heads up. Something clearly went wrong with that production.
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Post by nash16 on Jun 29, 2018 23:08:32 GMT
That was interesting, thanks for the heads up. Something clearly went wrong with that production. Yes, it's very sad and must have been a horrible time for him. Very brave of him to voice what happened.
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Post by littlesally on Jun 29, 2018 23:10:34 GMT
Explains a lot...
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jun 29, 2018 23:54:45 GMT
I know Barney from his time in Oxford and I salute his forthright defence of his work and his rights as a writer.
Hopefully he will be able to put this experience behind him and continue on the path he deserves.
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Post by david on Jun 30, 2018 0:23:51 GMT
Having read his posts on his twitter account, you really do have to respect the guy for his honesty in his assessment of what happened as well as making it public. It cannot have been easy for him to have made the decision to do what he did and he has my full respect for taking this action. Hopefully he can turn what has been an unpleasant experience into something positive long term,
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2018 7:44:35 GMT
So in a case like this where there's a dispute between writer and director, what if anything is the role of the theatre that commissioned the work? Should it intervene/take sides or leave them alone to negotiate it between them?
Any other cases where the relationship between writer and director has broken down when the work is being rehearsed/developed
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