Post by Dr Tom on Jan 7, 2022 11:21:13 GMT
I hope there isn't already a thread for this somewhere, but I saw David Suchet: Poirot and More at the Harold Pinter yesterday. The show has been touring the country and it's in the West End for three weeks.
Yesterday was press night and I ended up with a heavily discounted ticket in the centre of the Dress Circle. An absolutely perfect view in the small theatre.
This is really a two person show (David, plus interviewer), which runs about 2 hours and 40 minutes. It's mostly an interview with lots of anecdotes, although it does come across as rather rehearsed. Very interesting though and the single biggest focus is on David's Shakespearian work, with a few small touches for Poirot fans.
In the second half, there's a long presentation where David talks about how he analyses the language patterns in scripts to find out more about the characters he's playing. I found this interesting, although it is aimed more at the actors in the audience. The only qualm I have, as someone who has studied some linguistics, is how David's approach rather assumes that everything we think of as being by Shakespeare actually was written by the same person. But as I say, interesting, and there's also discussion of how all of this was applied to develop his own interpretation of Poirot.
Unlike many shows of this type there's no audience interaction or spontaneous Q&A. But everything works well.
I don't think the London run is selling as well as it could, but I do notice they've put the front row Stalls on sale for £25, which may interest those of you who like to get close to the action.
Yesterday was press night and I ended up with a heavily discounted ticket in the centre of the Dress Circle. An absolutely perfect view in the small theatre.
This is really a two person show (David, plus interviewer), which runs about 2 hours and 40 minutes. It's mostly an interview with lots of anecdotes, although it does come across as rather rehearsed. Very interesting though and the single biggest focus is on David's Shakespearian work, with a few small touches for Poirot fans.
In the second half, there's a long presentation where David talks about how he analyses the language patterns in scripts to find out more about the characters he's playing. I found this interesting, although it is aimed more at the actors in the audience. The only qualm I have, as someone who has studied some linguistics, is how David's approach rather assumes that everything we think of as being by Shakespeare actually was written by the same person. But as I say, interesting, and there's also discussion of how all of this was applied to develop his own interpretation of Poirot.
Unlike many shows of this type there's no audience interaction or spontaneous Q&A. But everything works well.
I don't think the London run is selling as well as it could, but I do notice they've put the front row Stalls on sale for £25, which may interest those of you who like to get close to the action.