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Post by kathryn on Nov 16, 2018 21:25:48 GMT
The point of it was to generate a huge amount of speculation among his fans on social media about what it was, and get a bunch of click-baity press coverage. Which it has done very successfully.
The idea was clearly not to say anything about the play, but to create a bit of a mystery. The original version didn’t even indicate that it was a play - quite a few people speculated that it might be Marvel-related, so it got coverage on geek-oriented sites that don’t normally write about theatre.
In other words, it’s a piece of marketing.
This is why an NT live broadcast would not surprise me. It looks like they are aiming for a wider audience than the normal theatre crowd.
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Post by zahidf on Nov 17, 2018 0:34:30 GMT
The point of it was to generate a huge amount of speculation among his fans on social media about what it was, and get a bunch of click-baity press coverage. Which it has done very successfully. The idea was clearly not to say anything about the play, but to create a bit of a mystery. The original version didn’t even indicate that it was a play - quite a few people speculated that it might be Marvel-related, so it got coverage on geek-oriented sites that don’t normally write about theatre. In other words, it’s a piece of marketing. This is why an NT live broadcast would not surprise me. It looks like they are aiming for a wider audience than the normal theatre crowd. Yup. I imagine it'll be a money spinner.
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Post by Jan on Nov 17, 2018 8:29:03 GMT
I saw Pinter once in the Crucible audience. It was during their Pinter season years ago, and it was a reading of a radio play with Prunella Scales and Tim West, and then a Q&A with them and Sam West, when he was AD at the Crucible. Pinter was sitting just behind me,and the lady next to me was RANTING at the interval about what a load of pompous sh*t it all was, with her companion nudging and nudging and kicking her to try and make her shut up. He just sat there sort of smiling. I'd forgotten all about it til just now. Ahh, that was a good evening. When “A View From The Bridge” was on at NT all the people around me stayed in their seats at the interval and I delivered an analysis of the play to my companion along the lines of “Not his best work really - the attempt to link it to Greek tragedy is not really worked through, but not a bad effort etc”. At the end of the play the director came on and invited Arthur Miller, sitting directly behind me, to stand up.
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Post by learfan on Nov 17, 2018 9:06:17 GMT
I saw Pinter once in the Crucible audience. It was during their Pinter season years ago, and it was a reading of a radio play with Prunella Scales and Tim West, and then a Q&A with them and Sam West, when he was AD at the Crucible. Pinter was sitting just behind me,and the lady next to me was RANTING at the interval about what a load of pompous sh*t it all was, with her companion nudging and nudging and kicking her to try and make her shut up. He just sat there sort of smiling. I'd forgotten all about it til just now. Ahh, that was a good evening. When “A View From The Bridge” was on at NT all the people around me stayed in their seats at the interval and I delivered an analysis of the play to my companion along the lines of “Not his best work really - the attempt to link it to Greek tragedy is not really worked through, but not a bad effort etc”. At the end of the play the director came on and invited Arthur Miller, sitting directly behind me, to stand up. Haha. Did you engage the great man in conversation?
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Post by Jan on Nov 17, 2018 9:27:43 GMT
When “A View From The Bridge” was on at NT all the people around me stayed in their seats at the interval and I delivered an analysis of the play to my companion along the lines of “Not his best work really - the attempt to link it to Greek tragedy is not really worked through, but not a bad effort etc”. At the end of the play the director came on and invited Arthur Miller, sitting directly behind me, to stand up. Haha. Did you engage the great man in conversation? No. Another time queuing to get into "The Mysteries" at NT there was some bloke in the queue behind showing off by explaining the source texts and the purpose of the plays and so on - after raised eyebrows and sighing I eventually said to my companion "What a know-it-all !" and I turned round to look at him and it was, of course, Tony Harrison, the author of the plays.
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Post by kathryn on Nov 17, 2018 10:10:57 GMT
There seems to be a theme to these stories 😂
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Post by Jan on Nov 18, 2018 9:47:51 GMT
Oh how odd, Hiddleston is playing the husband (Robert) in the play, not the lover (Jerry). The Ben Kingsley part not the Jeremy Irons part. Seems wrong.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2018 10:11:32 GMT
I guess he wants to do something different. He's played lots of lover types in the past and it's probably the obvious role for him to be cast in so he probably wants to diversify and set his career up for more mature roles as he heads towards and into his 40s.
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Post by peggs on Nov 18, 2018 13:12:23 GMT
Now my abiding memory from the Donmar version was the icey moment when I thought Sam West's husband was going to hit his wife and for that reason I rather hoped he'd take that part.
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Post by kathryn on Nov 18, 2018 13:42:53 GMT
He read the part of Robert at the Birthday Gala, so I didn’t realise that people would expect him to be Jerry. I’m interested to know why, if that can be articulated without massive spoilers! Is Jerry generally considered the juicier part?
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Post by Steve on Nov 18, 2018 14:35:50 GMT
He read the part of Robert at the Birthday Gala, so I didn’t realise that people would expect him to be Jerry. I’m interested to know why, if that can be articulated without massive spoilers! Is Jerry generally considered the juicier part? It's a very hard play to spoil, as it's played backwards. It's like a Colombo mystery, where it's not WHAT happens that you are interested in, rather HOW it happens.
Since it's a thinly veiled story about Pinter having an affair with his friend's wife, and since Pinter's character is called Jerry, that is the lead, as it is through his experience of the affair that the affair is deconstructed.
One of Florian Zeller's plays, that you may have seen, pinches the plot of this and plays it chronologically for laughs, and once again there, the "Jerry" character is the lead, whose viewpoint we follow.
In this, Robert is Pinter's friend, a more enigmatic character. Although it is surprising that it is not Hiddleston's character's viewpoint that we will be following, that is what I find exciting about this, as it allows Hiddleston to do something different. Certainly, at the gala, he seemed a lot colder than we've come to expect from him, and I like that.
When I look back on the Kristen Scott Thomas Betrayal, it is Ben Miles' tough and glacial Robert that resonates most for me. I think this will be good.
Zawe Ashton played Emma (Robert's wife) opposite Hiddleston's Robert at the Gala, so it will be interesting to see if she is Emma in this.
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Post by kathryn on Nov 18, 2018 14:54:57 GMT
Interesting. I wonder who Jerry will be? Do they have another star name lined up, or is this going to be the chance for a relatively unknown theatre/character actor to reach a new audience?
I think it will make a big difference to the type of performance Hiddleston gives - I’ve noticed that he is quite happy to dial it back and let another character actor shine, but when he’s working with a thudding great star he will steal scenes out from under them.
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Post by learfan on Nov 18, 2018 16:11:01 GMT
Will be amazed if there arent two more stars cast in this. James McAvoy is v close to Jamie Lloyd so...
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Post by Rory on Nov 18, 2018 16:18:49 GMT
Would like to see this a lot but the thought of paying something like £90 for a decent seat with a noisy TH fan base all around puts me off a bit. I remember seeing Little Malcolm with Ewan McGregor at the same theatre and the audience nearly ruined the whole experience.
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Post by kathryn on Nov 18, 2018 17:02:31 GMT
Will be amazed if there arent two more stars cast in this. James McAvoy is v close to Jamie Lloyd so... Now that would be a tasty bit of casting! Don’t think there are any obvious filming conflicts that would preclude it, but I admit I don’t follow McAvoy news that closely. His last stage outing was 2015, so I expect he will be back on stage in the next year or so whether he does this or not - a play every 3-4 years seems to be his pattern.
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Post by Jan on Nov 18, 2018 18:17:25 GMT
He read the part of Robert at the Birthday Gala, so I didn’t realise that people would expect him to be Jerry. I’m interested to know why, if that can be articulated without massive spoilers! Is Jerry generally considered the juicier part? In my case it's mostly just the actors I've seen play Jerry - Jeremy Irons, Bill Nighy, Douglas Hodge - seems more in Hiddleston's scope. However, originally the great Dan Massey played Robert so it can be done differently. Remember too that Jerry is actually Harold Pinter so none of that casting looks right.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 18, 2018 22:11:40 GMT
Isn't the husband the bigger part? I saw the John Simm/Ruth Gemmell production, and it can't have been that long ago, but I can't even remember there being a third character!
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Post by joeinnewyork on Nov 18, 2018 23:51:55 GMT
This'll be playing during our London trip the last week of March - hoping to catch it!
(I still have fond memories of the first Broadway production, with Blythe Danner, Roy Scheider and an - IMO - ill at ease Raul Julia.)
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Post by Backdrifter on Nov 19, 2018 1:22:58 GMT
"Hi**les"
I can't bring myself to type it in full.
Where are the emojis for vomiting or my skin wanting to crawl off into another room?
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Post by showgirl on Nov 19, 2018 5:21:13 GMT
Indeed, and should James McAvoy join the cast as suggested, this would become a bargepole production for me.
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Post by Jan on Nov 19, 2018 6:47:40 GMT
Indeed, and should James McAvoy join the cast as suggested, this would become a bargepole production for me. I'm OK with that casting unless they also cast Maureen Limpman as Emma.
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Post by kathryn on Nov 19, 2018 7:55:12 GMT
"Hi**les" I can't bring myself to type it in full. Where are the emojis for vomiting or my skin wanting to crawl off into another room? 🤮🤢 These the ones you need? I know some people hate the nickname because they think it indicates over-familiarity. I personally think it’s mildly ridiculous (and am aware that it’s a fan invention - no-one who actually knows in real life him calls him Hiddles) so find it slightly distancing - a way to stop myself descending into full-on fangirl gushing. Just ‘Tom’ feels way more familiar, and calling him just ‘Hiddleston’ feels unnecessarily reverential, or that I’m pretending to have a neutrality that I don’t possess. As ever, no-one is forcing you to read this thread or see this production...
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Xanderl
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Post by Xanderl on Nov 19, 2018 8:42:52 GMT
Would like to see this a lot but the thought of paying something like £90 for a decent seat with a noisy TH fan base all around puts me off a bit. I remember seeing Little Malcolm with Ewan McGregor at the same theatre and the audience nearly ruined the whole experience. The Hiddleston fans I was surrounded by at the Donmar Coriolanus were impeccably behaved.
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Post by Rory on Nov 19, 2018 9:55:24 GMT
Would like to see this a lot but the thought of paying something like £90 for a decent seat with a noisy TH fan base all around puts me off a bit. I remember seeing Little Malcolm with Ewan McGregor at the same theatre and the audience nearly ruined the whole experience. The Hiddleston fans I was surrounded by at the Donmar Coriolanus were impeccably behaved. Good to hear.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 19, 2018 10:09:28 GMT
Would like to see this a lot but the thought of paying something like £90 for a decent seat with a noisy TH fan base all around puts me off a bit. I remember seeing Little Malcolm with Ewan McGregor at the same theatre and the audience nearly ruined the whole experience. The Hiddleston fans I was surrounded by at the Donmar Coriolanus were impeccably behaved. Yes, I don't recall them being too much of a problem either. Those Deborah Findlay fans on the other hand. Wow.
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Post by kathryn on Nov 19, 2018 11:14:17 GMT
It's true, I actually interrupted Hiddles talking about Coriolanus to applaud Deb Findlay when he mentioned her name the other week!
(And then had one of those *sinking into seat* 'just me, then' moments.)
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Post by Backdrifter on Nov 19, 2018 11:41:16 GMT
"Hi**les" I can't bring myself to type it in full. Where are the emojis for vomiting or my skin wanting to crawl off into another room? 🤮🤢 These the ones you need? I know some people hate the nickname because they think it indicates over-familiarity. I personally think it’s mildly ridiculous (and am aware that it’s a fan invention - no-one who actually knows in real life him calls him Hiddles) so find it slightly distancing - a way to stop myself descending into full-on fangirl gushing. Just ‘Tom’ feels way more familiar, and calling him just ‘Hiddleston’ feels unnecessarily reverential, or that I’m pretending to have a neutrality that I don’t possess. As ever, no-one is forcing you to read this thread or see this production... For me it's more that this particular nick-name, if that's what it is, sounds nauseatingly coy and cloyingly twee, like a sugary term of affection. It's the use of performers' first names that I find over-familiar. Using just the surname doesn't sound reverential to me at all, I'd say it's just right. I have no particular problem with TH, as I think of him (and which others may well regard as affectedly chummy), and generally like Pinter's stuff a lot so would be happy to see the production and can well imagine him as Robert. It's a part that can be played with a sort of simmering restrained resentment tempered with cold, forced friendliness that I'd be interested to see TH do.
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Post by kathryn on Nov 19, 2018 12:01:58 GMT
For me it's more that this particular nick-name, if that's what it is, sounds nauseatingly coy and cloyingly twee, like a sugary term of affection. To me, 'Hiddles' sounds like someone's pet cat! It is indeed cloyingly twee - the artwork (yes, of course there's fanart!) that goes with it is even worse. I have failed mightily to kick my Tom Hiddleston fangirl habit, so I kind of need to remind myself that it's all a bit ridiculous and that I should grow up and get over it. I don't want to fall into that obsessive trap of taking it all too seriously. I don't want to cause any actual nausea though - how do you feel about T Hiddy? Would that be a suitable compromise?
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Post by Backdrifter on Nov 19, 2018 12:27:38 GMT
For me it's more that this particular nick-name, if that's what it is, sounds nauseatingly coy and cloyingly twee, like a sugary term of affection. It is indeed cloyingly twee - the artwork (yes, of course there's fanart!) that goes with it is even worse. I have failed mightily to kick my Tom Hiddleston fangirl habit, so I kind of need to remind myself that it's all a bit ridiculous and that I should grow up and get over it. I don't want to fall into that obsessive trap of taking it all too seriously. I don't want to cause any actual nausea though - how do you feel about T Hiddy? Would that be a suitable compromise? FAN ART! It's bad enough I can't un-know that, so will leave that one in a lead-lined concrete-wrapped container buried in the Atlantic Trench. I suppose a big part of the problem is that H-----s sounds exactly like obsessive fangirl language, though I understand your strategy. But hey, if that word is what you prefer, stick with it. I said it made me shudder but by no means do I want to make you change it.
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Post by Jan on Nov 19, 2018 12:39:55 GMT
🤮🤢 These the ones you need? It's the use of performers' first names that I find over-familiar. That is very common over in the Musicals threads but is very rare here in legitimate theatre.
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