2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 19, 2018 9:09:53 GMT
Generally reviewers are not so close in their opinions, so force of numbers does mean something. That's a bit of a stretch, lots of shows get pretty similar reviews from the majority of the critics... Anyway, people are entitled to make up their own minds - there is certainly not unanimous praise for this, but frankly there isn't unanimous praise for any show so I don't know why that would surprise anyone. Which is my point, that people should make up their mind rather than let some random bunch of people persuade them otherwise.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 18, 2018 20:05:30 GMT
But what if you’re in the camp who love it? No seeing a lot of strong love it comments here, but we will find out after I attend. It’s got four star reviews pretty much across the board. What’s the problem? Generally reviewers are not so close in their opinions, so force of numbers does mean something.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 15, 2018 18:32:02 GMT
There are no words.... “A man laced the atmosphere of a Baltimore theater with menace when he began shouting “Heil Hitler! Heil Trump!” during intermission of a classic play set in a Jewish village in czarist Russia. The patron’s pro-Nazi and pro-Trump outburst during a Wednesday night production of “Fiddler on the Roof” sent dozens of panicked people running for the exits at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre.” time.com/5455842/fiddler-on-the-roof-heil-hitler/(It appears to be the tour of the Bartlett Sher revival).
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Brexit
Nov 15, 2018 18:07:09 GMT
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 15, 2018 18:07:09 GMT
Although the Dutch format included quiz questions, so involved a fraction of general knowledge. (This is clearly the most important possible post on this thread today) I'm Dutch and watched the show but the Dutch format of Deal or No Deal didn't have any quiz questions. There have been several versions in the Netherlands, the one that started it had the box stuff as the final round after quiz type questions and such. On May, she keeps saying that ‘people want us to get on with it’, she does not know this at all but there is one easy way of finding out.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Brexit
Nov 15, 2018 13:27:31 GMT
sf likes this
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 15, 2018 13:27:31 GMT
parliament cannot get a majority on 'no deal' either. Parliament doesn't need a majority on No Deal. In the absence of any sort of Deal or delay to Article 50, No Deal is what we will have... Then we have to take things into our own hands........
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Brexit
Nov 15, 2018 13:06:45 GMT
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 15, 2018 13:06:45 GMT
In an odd way, you do have to admire May’s stubbornness and commitment to the cause given her position on Brexit a few years back. She was given a hospital pass and, despite that, has made an attempt to run with it, knowing that it was always likely to get to this point. People said 'we don't want this, do what I want', without any idea of what that was and with so many different sets of expectations that leave was never deliverable in a form that satisfies a majority of the country. The architect of the referendum question takes the initial blame, followed by the unwillingness of anyone on the leave side to explain what version of leave they wanted people to vote for. So what next? The vote on this fails, May might well be replaced, parliament cannot get a majority on 'no deal' either.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Brexit
Nov 13, 2018 18:40:30 GMT
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 13, 2018 18:40:30 GMT
Whether or not there's been a breakthrough in negotiations between Mrs. May and the European Research Group remains to be seen.
Labour say it looks like they can’t vote for it, the ERG, the SNP and a number of tory remainers neither. It’s as dead on arrival as Chequers.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Brexit
Nov 13, 2018 18:38:04 GMT
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 13, 2018 18:38:04 GMT
Deal Or No Deal originated in the Netherlands. Endemol (as per usual), yes. The British version was vastly simplified and only used the bit which traded on luck rather than skill (presumably as there was no need for experts). A game where very few were winners and where people were regularly tempted into giving up what they had for a dangerous gamble on something better. Ironic, really.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 12, 2018 12:01:47 GMT
Not often done, so this will be an interesting one. The turn of the millennium at the Donmar was the last major London production wasn't it? There was a Royal Exchange production about five years ago too.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 11, 2018 17:35:33 GMT
I blame Noel Edmonds.
Bear with me.
I hadn’t watched the afternoon TV staple ‘Deal or no Deal’ until I visited my parents and they watched it every day. I couldn’t get my head around the idea of the show - ‘so there is no element of skill! It’s just luck?’ ‘So why do they believe that they can magically overcome the natural outcome of random failure?’ ‘Why do they gamble away what they have had the good luck to win, in the hope of some fantasy outcome, given the long odds of success?. I still can’t understand what made it into a ratings hit, with its unholy alliance of ‘greed ‘and that relentless nemesis known as ‘reality’. Was it the idea of beating fate in a random universe? Give me games of skill any day, you are in control of those (or at least you can try and improve through practice).
Anyway, even without the audience’s constant exhortations for the contestants to go for ‘no deal’ (seriously, the whole setup was like an ERG fantasy), I thought it revealed a lot about the country’s psyche here and now. It even had as its hate figure a banker thus cementing a populist political message for the whole unsettling farrago.
So I blame Noel Edmonds.
Just a bit.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 11, 2018 12:47:44 GMT
During the referendum I was going on about a couple of things in particular, the potential breaukup of the UK (and the Ireland situation in particular) and the issue of trade. Not a single person who expressed support for leave was interested and the usual ‘it will all be fine’ mantra was the only reply, followed by ‘immigrants’ and ‘EU laws’ as a retort. Too difficult to comprehend for a few maybe but most voted leave knowing that there would be a breakup of the UK and a trading disaster. They have no excuse about not knowing or understanding. They wanted this chaos and they’ve got what they wanted.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Brexit
Nov 10, 2018 14:51:33 GMT
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 10, 2018 14:51:33 GMT
Now we are at the endgame things are starting to become more inevitable and the most obvious outcome seems to be that there is no possibility of any deal getting through the commons and the EU. As such, the only possible Brexit is a no deal Brexit, not Chequers, not some <insert random country> deal, no possible bespoke solution, just crashing out.
Elsewhere I see people salivating/despairing that this will happen, saying that the government will just let us do so. I really doubt that, however, as the blame will all fall on parliament and the parties in power in particular. To allow a no deal is to commit political suicide. As such we will not crash out at parliament’s behest.
So, the way out for any politician wanting to save their party’s and personal skin is to let others shoulder the blame. Who are the only other entity that can make that decision? The electorate, of course. This can only be done through either a referendum or an election. The latter is likely to still leaving a government to carry the can so we are, perhaps inevitably, going to have a second referendum.
This, for one very important reason. No political party or grouping will ever want to take the blame for what is now generally acknowledged as going to be a disaster. People vote remain, then blame the people for changing their mind. People vote leave, then blame the people for the chaos that ensues. It’s all going to be our fault.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 10, 2018 14:29:12 GMT
I’m guessing because they refer to the key themes of music and communication. The Spring Awakening set was similarly symbolic, as I recall. EDIT: Just checked the set on twitter and can see a jukebox but not a telephone booth. Where should I be looking for it? Stage left, top of the small staircase. Also are the musicians on stage themselves not an appropriate enough reference to the theme of music? [rhetorical] Something not to be used can also be a choice, maybe indicating the absence of something. I immediately thought ‘here’s a jukebox but this is not a jukebox musical’, having heard the music as an album first, just the connection I made. A phone that doesn’t ring? Makes me think about what is not being said, as in why does nobody call?
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 10, 2018 12:57:16 GMT
I get the point about about not being too specific with its setting; but if thats the case, why's there a jukebox and telephone booth on stage? Both surplus to requirement. They've tried to keep it a malleable playing space but then provided these really specific items that create an assumption of location. I’m guessing because they refer to the key themes of music and communication. The Spring Awakening set was similarly symbolic, as I recall. EDIT: Just checked the set on twitter and can see a jukebox but not a telephone booth. Where should I be looking for it?
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 10, 2018 12:51:41 GMT
Yes, will probably book for this now. Last saw Sara Kestelman in 1988 in "Bussy D'Ambois" by George Chapman (1603). Saw her before that in several things including Arthur Miller's "The American Clock" and "The Price" - all three right up your street eh ? She was reliably excellent in ‘The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide....’, also at Hampstead, a few years ago. She was particularly powerful, for me, as Fraulein Schneider in the Donmar’s ‘Cabaret’, sounding like Lotte Lenya reborn with some caustic and unsentimental singing.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Brexit
Nov 8, 2018 12:34:09 GMT
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 8, 2018 12:34:09 GMT
My mother was in Manchester when the bomb went off outside the Arndale, for one. It got to the stage in London where there was a bomb scare and you just went 'okay, so now the Northern line is suspended, so I need to go via the Bakerloo and Victoria to avoid being blown up....'
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 6, 2018 18:07:59 GMT
Did nobody see Mission Drift in the Shed (a great strange fever dream of a show, which I loved)? That gives a good idea as to Chavkin’s very different approach to musical theatre. I love Mitchell’s music (I’m a sucker for anything folky) and Chavkin’s a good fit for a show that isn’t your typical fare. It’s likely to be hampered, though, if people have different expectations of narrative, use of song etc.
On the NT doing new musicals, does anyone remember Jean Seberg in the eighties? There was Honk (fine but not really the sort of show that needed to be there) and London Road and Jerry Springer the Opera, neither of which couldn’t have been given the opportunity commercially, given their different approach. The Light Princess, which was fine but with Marianne Elliot not quite making the case for it. I’m thinking if there were any more, Tyger way back in the seventies, a sort of William Blake revue, Hiawatha in the early eighties adapted by Bogdanov (broadcast on Channel Four but I’ve never seen a copy).
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 6, 2018 17:58:33 GMT
He's been here before... Remember him in Take Me Out at the Donmar, years ago... He was good. He’s got a lot of stage experience (including a number of musicals, like Assassins and Sweet Charity, which is where I first noticed him). I think that it was his stage work that led to his great TV roles.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 6, 2018 12:27:39 GMT
Just short of three hours. I’ve seen this ‘plus interval’ timing a few times recently at different venues and its use instead of the usual ‘including interval’ is very misleading. Looking back, the Almeida were using ‘including interval’ as recently as for Summer and Smoke so it’s a change that appears to make no sense. Completely failing to see how this is anything other than crystal clear. It's clear on its own but the context is that they have always done the opposite. Does anyone know why they've made this change?
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 5, 2018 22:46:44 GMT
Running time on website currently showing as 2 hours 35 plus a 20 min interval. So that’s nearly 3 hours, correct? Or 2 hrs 35 total? Confused.com Just short of three hours. I’ve seen this ‘plus interval’ timing a few times recently at different venues and its use instead of the usual ‘including interval’ is very misleading. Looking back, the Almeida were using ‘including interval’ as recently as for Summer and Smoke so it’s a change that appears to make no sense.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 4, 2018 12:22:05 GMT
Twitter lets pretty much anything go (see the so called president of the USA as evidence A) so it has to be really out there or subject to pre existing legal orders to get removed.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 1, 2018 10:16:54 GMT
Something that has been concerning me lately is the culpability of those of us who trade in fictions in a world where lies are destroying the fabric of a hard won society. Particularly interesting that in an addition that is entirely Icke's - not in the original at all - he specifically calls out left-wing politics as trading in lies and being detached from the real world. A proposition you don't often see on stage. He doesn’t appear to be making a direct connection to that, although the character is most definitely held up as an example of ‘shaming’ and its potential for increasing rather than decreasing any effect on the innocent. On a side note, and connected to the discussion elsewhere on non age fitting actors, in the first English language production of the play the original Hedwig appears to have been pushing forty! Thankfully we are blessed with many brilliant child actors nowadays and the one I saw (Grace Doherty, from looking at the headshots) was very much in that frame.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 1, 2018 1:01:32 GMT
Loved this today and, for me, that happens rarely with Ibsen. The Chekhovian first act, before the plot heaviness kicks in is a riveting wallow in lies and self deception and, instead of the usual frustration I have with his characters, that layer of undercutting commentary made me warm to them. Indeed, it did so in a way which paid off handsomely in a second half of melodrama tropes now refreshed by an extra complexity of responses and thoughts about the nature of those responses.
Reality has to be hard earned in a medium that lies as a matter of course and here, so much so, that I could be persuaded that Ibsen really was the equal of his Russian successor.
I saw Chekhov’s Last Play at the BAC later, for which anything that I post would be too spoilery but, again, the nature of truth, lies and reality is in question. Something that has been concerning me lately is the culpability of those of us who trade in fictions in a world where lies are destroying the fabric of a hard won society. In a post truth world, are our lies as storytellers the gateway to destruction by the morally corrupt? Both these shows are powerfully engaging with these sort of questions.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 31, 2018 11:44:35 GMT
I’m told there are buildings that attract a number of people on Sundays. I haven’t been to one for ages and I don’t see any adverts for them on the tube and such, though. Are they still running? I believe that they also have music, audience participation and free wine.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 31, 2018 11:39:58 GMT
There is a lot of class snobbery involved, as he doesn’t lie low and relate to and kowtow to his ‘betters’ as us working class oiks are supposed to. He's not working class - he doesn't even claim to be, he is middle class and graduated from Oxbridge. No different to, say, Peter Hall and Trevor Nunn (although they were from working class homes) and a host of others. So I don't think class snobbery is involved in his reputation at all, although he may think it is. More likely in my view is simple envy because he's been successful, plus a number of actors who don't like working in directors' theatre because it is less collaborative. Well he went to a comprehensive as opposed to the independent educated Hall (albeit as a scholarship pupil) or grammar school educated Nunn. It makes a big difference and makes any route to Oxbridge less open. How education changes may have weakened social mobility is another discussion, though. I very much agree on the envy and Regietheater aspect (see David Hare etc.). How such directors build a group of trusted performers is also irksome to those not ‘chosen’ (see Rice, Mitchell, McBurney etc).
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 31, 2018 9:54:35 GMT
Oh, and just a note to Icke's agent, in a few sections of the play Icke speculates (and presents as fact) the influence that some elements of Ibsen's own private life had on his art. There can be no complaint then if we do that with Icke too. But isn't Icke talking about how Ibsen's own life is referenced in his work when on here people just gossip about the fact that they hear he's not supposed to be particularly nice and just use it as an excuse to say nasty things about him. Aren't they two different things? I don't necessarily see how one gives the green light to the other. Absolutely, and personal vendettas from ‘insiders’ under the cloak of anonymity have no place here. Especially as their arrogance places the moderators in a terrible position and the board as a whole in a precarious one. There is a lot of class snobbery involved, as he doesn’t lie low and relate to and kowtow to his ‘betters’ as us working class oiks are supposed to. The idea that he is ‘compensating’ is particularly typical of that mindset, although, I suppose, in a business where our greatest playwright is thought of as not being clever enough (through his upbringing) to have written his works what can you expect? Anyway, I’m seeing it today.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 30, 2018 16:08:20 GMT
Not true, as Very etc. Dark Matter and others have shown. It’s good to hear from those who connect with productions before the gatekeepers of criticism get to weigh in. Yes, it is often true. Only be way of small scale productions where commenters tend to be close to the production. With West End and larger Off West End productions you get a larger and useful unfiltered range of views. You also have to do more searching than just the official hashtag to get a fuller picture.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 30, 2018 15:22:25 GMT
How is Jan Versweyveld getting a nomination for best set design when it's the same set he always designs? And how is Home, I’m Darling considered best play amongst the other strong contenders? It was widely praised and liked. My personal preference would be for The Writer to win though or, failing that, John.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 30, 2018 15:12:45 GMT
I have heard good things about this. On Twitter people are calling it a work of genius. Now, we know by now NOT to trust twitter reviews...especially in previews... Not true, as Very etc. Dark Matter and others have shown. It’s good to hear from those who connect with productions before the gatekeepers of criticism get to weigh in.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 30, 2018 11:03:56 GMT
Just watched this via iplayer and found it to be another brilliant episode, this time paying homage to Ghostwatch and, I thought, the fakery of April fool’s shows like Alternative 3 (over forty years ago as Wikipedia just told me!)
With this series, the League of Gentlemen and Psychoville the various creators are creating TV that will be looked back on with great affection in years to come (and probably repeated frequently).
|
|