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Post by jek on Mar 26, 2018 13:55:27 GMT
You can get a flavour of this by visiting the Isle of Dogs twitter feed (@isleofdogsmovie) which has a film of Murray and Vogler performing a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghettii. I suspect that the evening could be a lot of fun.
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Post by jek on Mar 23, 2018 22:52:44 GMT
tonyloco Oh that is a shame. Like the ravens leaving the tower. But at least the archives have been preserved. It's been good to see Wilton's Music Hall use of Heritage Lottery funding for their archives by providing so much of it online (https://www.wiltons.org.uk/heritage/archive and artsandculture.google.com/partner/wilton-s-music-hall) and it would be nice to see something similar for the TRSE. The research I did on Burton was done after my PhD on behalf of a professor at Leeds University. She, the sadly late Katrina Honeyman, published a book based on it - Well Suited: A History of the Leeds clothing industry 1850-1990. Love a bit of Finian's Rainbow. I suspect that I am not the only person of my age (mid 50s) who came to love Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg thanks to Sunday afternoon Benny Green radio programmes.
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Post by jek on Mar 22, 2018 22:43:40 GMT
tonyloco When I was on the last tour there was some mention of at least some of the material being moved - I think to the British Library - but I wasn't sure if this was specifically the oral history material that they had collected. As someone who has used a lot of archives as a doctoral and post doctoral researcher I love a small, quirky archive (I once spent the best part of a year researching the life and work of Montague Burton 'the tailor of taste' in a small archive in Leeds) but I know that there is a definite move to consolidating archives into bigger facilities. While I hope this doesn't happen at TRSE (I would miss seeing Murray Melvin around Stratford - as would my teen daughter who has never recovered from my making her sit through Barry Lyndon when it was on at Stratford Picturehouse!) but with all the changes that are clearly going on at TRSE I did wonder if the archive would be part of that wider reorganisation.
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Post by jek on Mar 22, 2018 17:23:44 GMT
For us the appeal of Stratford East is that it is so close that we can hear the end of the Archers and still be in our seats for a 7.30 pm start. But there has been very little on in recent years to make me want to make even that limited effort - we are much more likely to be going in to the Picturehouse opposite for a live relay of a play. Looking at the new season there are a few things that might encourage me back. Shame about the lack of musicals though - the things we have enjoyed there are things like Glasgow Girls and The Infidel. There is a local audience for theatre - we're certainly not the only people on the train home to any of the Stratford stations (Stratford, Maryland or Stratford High Street) clutching programmes - but I suspect that they haven't been going to the Stratford East much.
I wonder what is happening with the archives. I've been on a couple of tours of them hosted by Murray Melvin. Perhaps they are going to be housed elsewhere.
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Post by jek on Mar 15, 2018 19:16:01 GMT
Saw this this afternoon and loved it. Had no idea when I booked it a couple of days back that it was a school's matinee but - for me - that made it even more enjoyable. The young people had a very direct (not always comfortable) response to the play - I see from the programme that they will have had a workshop before attending and I would love to have been a fly on the wall during pre and post show discussions among them.
Inevitably for me the play stirred memories of seeing Brian Glover as God in the Mysteries put on at the National when I was in my late teens. Sheffield audiences are in for a treat.
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Post by jek on Mar 8, 2018 9:13:10 GMT
We too have booked on the basis of her performance in Woyzeck in Winter (I am a member of Wilton's, so we get early booking). She has got talent by the truckload - not just musical but as an award winning architect. In fact, from her Wikipedia page it is clear that her art is fuelled by a very full life. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_O%27SullivanReally looking forward to seeing her at Wilton's.
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Post by jek on Mar 5, 2018 23:11:26 GMT
Just back from the Guildhall production of Poulenc's Dialogues de Carmelites. Good to see it performed as I am familiar with the story and the Bernanos script. It was a well designed production but, as you would expect, while the singing quality was generally excellent some of the acting wasn't very good - give these youngsters a few years and I'm sure they will perform much better. I expected the audience to be full of friends and family but that wasn't the impression I got. Certainly the people around me were largely elderly (even though I'm in my 50s I felt quite young for once). I've been to the Silk Street theatre before and while it lacks the glamour of the Guildhall's Milton Court it is small with a good rake and so a good view is guaranteed.
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Post by jek on Mar 3, 2018 23:22:59 GMT
Just back from seeing this and found it to be extraordinary. Very funny and madcap but also profound and terrifying. More than a bit of the Samuel Beckett about it. And a terrific audience - many clearly native Russian speakers and so not having to rely on the ropey surtitles. I do hope the Vakhtangov company will be returning again soon in the not too distant.
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Post by jek on Mar 1, 2018 9:28:30 GMT
Feeling guilty now n1david bc. Hope you get through soon. It clearly is quite random - I only remembered about the booking at 8.20 am and so opened the site then. I clearly was lucky.
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Post by jek on Mar 1, 2018 9:14:29 GMT
Just booked my tickets (priority membership) and have to say that it was unexpectedly painless. In the past I've faced all those very familiar problems with the website crashing but this time none of that. Waited for about 25 minutes in the waiting room (there were about 3000 people in front of me at the start). Made me feel less resentful about the membership fee - although to be fair we've had our value out of it not just with booking shows but also with the Christmas party for members (daughter was very excited to see the model box for Follies and some of the costumes). And, independent of membership, the courses for teenagers that the theatre offer are really good and clearly heavily subsidised so I'm OK about chucking a bit of money at them.
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Post by jek on Feb 24, 2018 10:27:59 GMT
This may well be a repeat but this morning Radio 4 were trailing a programme on Radio 4 Extra tonight at 7pm called 'How to Have A Hit Show' in which Maria Friedman 'explores the BBC Archives to hear the advice of celebrated songwriters on the subject of staging a great show'. In fact I see from the Radio Times that it is also on as I type. At three hours long it has the opportunity to go in to some detail. Presumably it will be available on the Radio 4 Extra iplayer too. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09sn83p
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Post by jek on Feb 21, 2018 13:48:23 GMT
Just had my priority membership email through giving details of these productions. Wonder if the IT system will hold up this time on 1st March when booking opens.
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Post by jek on Feb 21, 2018 8:10:27 GMT
Christopher Eccleston was on the Today Programme on Radio 4 this morning talking about his upcoming role as Macbeth for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Most of the interview was about his failure to be approached for Shakespearean roles due, he feels, to his accent and being working class. But he was also asked how he will react if people attending - particularly, the inference was, those who know him primarily as Dr Who - get out their cameras during the play. His response was that he would take their cameras off of them. He pointed out that the stage would be full of men and women with swords meaning that this would be an easy task to achieve. Not a person to cross it seems!
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Post by jek on Feb 10, 2018 18:19:51 GMT
Went this afternoon and rather enjoyed it - the performances in particular. It could be cut by 20 minutes or so I thought but other than that no complaints. I enjoyed the way that the ticking of the clock seemed to slow me down to the right pace to enjoy the production. We were in seats M5 and 6 in the pit and missed very little. Earlier in this thread people were asking about sitting in M1-4 as these were the Entry Pass seats. You will miss a bit there (although less than you would on the other side of the theatre) but I would have thought given the price of the Entry Pass tickets it is a no brainer (our tickets were £28 each).
And I have to say that, as an Archers fan, it was great to see Anisha from the Archers (Anneika Rose) in the play.
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Post by jek on Feb 10, 2018 18:05:07 GMT
Yes, @andy164. They certainly played live in the stadium but presumably, given the size of the stadium, even people actually there were hearing the Abbey Road recorded version. And I know that some of the LSO players weren't playing their 'best' instruments for fear of what the weather conditions would do to prized string instruments.
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Post by jek on Feb 9, 2018 22:58:55 GMT
Don't know but we saw it the first year it was on in Dublin having previously seen it in London. I had forgotten, despite spending summers in Ireland as a kid (my dad was from Cork) just how noisy cinemas and theatres can be in Ireland. It was a very different experience from seeing a the Phoenix. My daughter said at the time that we had enough material for a sizeable entry to the Bad Behaviour at a show thread.
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Post by jek on Feb 9, 2018 16:39:19 GMT
Re the click track. My then 14 year old son played trombone at the Olympic opening ceremony with the London Symphony Orchestra. A year later they held a reunion for the young players and family at which one of the members of Underworld who had composed the Pandemonium (industrial revolution) scene played for us the click track that all the musicians were hearing as they played. It sounded bewildering and I understood why the kids had had to have so many rehearsals with the click track playing in their ears. It was a different situation from the Hamilton case since at the ceremony while the musicians played as live, the music heard on the broadcast was pre-recorded by them at Abbey Road studios. But the modern technical means available for keeping people in time must be a boon.
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Post by jek on Feb 9, 2018 13:05:13 GMT
There's a nice short piece in the Talk of The Town section in the current New Yorker (Feb 12th and 19th) written by the always reliable Rebecca Mead about Finn Caldwell teaching the Shadows of the Broadway production how to operate the wings of the Angel. They are rehearsing with the London production wings but having to make new ones as the old ones aren't fit for purpose. Not sure if this link will work, or if it is behind a paywall (I have a New Yorker subscription): www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/wings
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Post by jek on Jan 30, 2018 17:25:21 GMT
Wilton's have announced that they are staging the ENO studio live production of Britten's Paul Bunyan in September. Booking is open now for Wilton's priority members and opens on February 14th for the general public. www.wiltons.org.uk/whatson/433-?platform=hootsuite
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Post by jek on Jan 28, 2018 19:09:20 GMT
Yes, we've booked on the basis that the same company's Eugene Onegin was extremely good, if at times puzzling (couldn't find anyone to explain the significance of the old woman or the pickles!). The Australian reviews I've read of Smile Upon Us are good and we've bought a book by the same writer - Grigory Kanovich - Shtetl Love Song to read and get a flavour of 'one of the most prominent Lithuanian writers'. And, the bonus of anything at the Barbican, is that the seats will be comfortable.
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Post by jek on Jan 24, 2018 8:14:18 GMT
I suspect n1david that the theatre is relying on the fact that there are plenty of people (especially in my demographic - women in their 50s) who are fans of both Elizabeth Strout and Laura Linney. Both the book and the TV serialisation of Strout's Olive Kitteridge did very well and Lucy Barton was serialised on Radio 4 as well as making the shortlist of many book awards. And, of course, those of us who are in middle age most likely have been following Laura Linney's career since Tales of The City in the early 90s. Given that so many theatre goers are middle aged it might not be such a hard sell.
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Post by jek on Jan 22, 2018 9:54:05 GMT
Sorry Mr Snow I don't know what the song is. But I can tell you that the 'theme' they sing ( which features in the trailer) has proved to be a proper earworm in this house. I thought a trip to see Amadeus on Saturday would knock it out but it hasn't! Really surprised to find, on looking it up, that Chagall lived until 1985. We are now planning a trip to Tudeley in Kent to see his stained glass windows in the church there.
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Post by jek on Jan 20, 2018 18:59:13 GMT
Went this afternoon. It was absolutely packed out which must be gratifying to the National after some recent poor performers (we were at a rightly very sparsely populated of the St George and the Dragon and of Common). I enjoyed it a lot - I always enjoy the young musicians of the Southbank Sinfonia and have fond memories of the part they played in the National's productions of Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and the St Matthew Passion. I took my daughter who didn't even know there was a film version but knows quite a bit about Mozart because she is doing A Level music. She was very taken with Mozart's Dr Marten's Di Antonio shoes. It was a delight to see something that could take advantage of the size of the Olivier Stage. We're usually in the cheap front row seats at the National but I splashed out on a Row F circle seat this time and think it was worth it both for the comfort factor for a long play (the luxury of arm rests!) and for the view.
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Post by jek on Jan 19, 2018 22:10:39 GMT
Just back from seeing this at Wilton's. Very lovely. If you are used to seeing things at Wilton's you might be taken aback, as we were, by just how many seats they have managed to cram in. It seemed like a pretty full house too. I do hope that such success means that they follow this up by staging Romantics Anonymous there at some point in the future..
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Post by jek on Jan 13, 2018 22:59:26 GMT
I've booked today for Poulenc's Dialogues de Carmelites being performed by Guildhall students at the Silk Street Theatre from the 26th February - 5th March. Not that many tickets available so anyone who is interested should probably book soon. Tickets are £25, £15 for concessions.
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Post by jek on Jan 5, 2018 11:18:25 GMT
Thanks dizzieblonde that is really interesting. My daughter's school (a state school in East London) is very keen on project based learning and so, for example, teach the Russian Revolution through an immersive theatre project. Hamilton would really feed in to that. They also (thanks largely to an English teacher with a particular interest) cover quite a lot of hip hop and the like (I am so not able to distinguish all the categories!) in English lessons. They are also keen on staging musicals and do so with a largely non white cast. I wholly get the point about the lack of curriculum links and the need for some sort of funding. Would be interesting to know if the London production have explored - or intend to explore - any of this.
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Post by jek on Jan 5, 2018 10:38:39 GMT
Went last night and wasn't expecting to enjoy it but I did. I was in the position where my sixteen year old daughter had been extraordinarily keen to see it for the last couple of years and so I bought tickets to take her and her friend back on that mad day last January. I booked knowing that, because of the ticketing method, I would have to attend with them and felt this to be a shame given that so many of her other friends would have loved to go too. I would have been happy to hand over the ticket. Over the Christmas holiday I started reading Ron Chernow's book and by yesterday I was about two thirds of the way through. It's an excellent read (I'm now keen to return to it) and rattles along with some pace, just like the show. Obviously it is not necessary to read the book to enjoy the show (given its length that would be a big ask) but I really enjoyed seeing how the complex arguments examined in depth in the book were rendered into short pithy song form in the show. My charges predictably loved it all.
We were in Row H of the Royal Circle, in the mid 30s, with a very good view. The legroom is poor but manageable if you're short (my partner is 6ft 4" and would have struggled). The seats are also very narrow - nothing like as good as at the Barbican, for example - and so it does all feel a bit hemmed in. A bit like the cheap front few rows at the National.
My daughter, like many youngsters, is in the sixth form at an inner city school where she is in a very small minority of kids who would be defined as white British and in an equally small minority of kids with parents who are in a position to furnish them with tickets for Hamilton. I do hope that, as the run continues, schools like hers are offered deals to take groups to see it. They'd get so much out of it. Perhaps even more than this mid 50s woman with a new found admiration for the skill of Lin Manuel Miranda and his excellent crew of creatives and performers.
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Post by jek on Dec 21, 2017 21:11:29 GMT
We were there too. Fantastic. We were in row G of the stalls (the row with the large gap in front of it) and so had the whole cast including Danielle de Niese and Alysha Umphress conga-ing right in front of us Our 16 year old daughter warned us that if we joined in (as suggested by Sir Simon Rattle for the encore performance) she would kill us! The whole evening was made extra special by the fact that it marked the retirement, after 38 years, of Nigel Broadbent one of the first violins. He got the sort of send off no-one would ever forget. According to comments on the LSO facebook page the performance has been recorded for the LSO LIve label. We have the 1998 recording which tmesis mentioned which is also very good. Really glad we went and thought the half six fix format (just one piece performed with a concert length of about an hour and a half worked really well.
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Post by jek on Dec 17, 2017 10:25:46 GMT
We booked this primarily for two reasons. The first was Audrey Brisson who was so fantastic in La Strada earlier in the year. The second was for the design. My daughter did a three day course at the National at half term in which they learned how to do various paint effects to create giant letters (their own initials) - clearly a nod to what was being designed for Pleasure Island. (Incidentally the course for 16-21 year olds was a bargain at £30.) Brisson was fantastic and we enjoyed the design (although being in the cheap row C seats in the stalls I suspect it would have looked better from further back). We also enjoyed the music - although feared for the musicians every time Pinocchio leapt over the pit.
Overall though we were underwhelmed. It wasn't the worst thing ever but there was something wrong with the tone. Not quite magical play nor full on panto. And the fox reminded me too much of the dragon in St George I'm afraid. It's a shame as some of the elements are really good.
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Post by jek on Dec 15, 2017 8:24:39 GMT
James Naughtie interviewed Ron Chernow for the Today programme this morning (not sure of the timings but around about 7.20am I would think - it will be on the radio iplayer at some point). Now there's a man who must be bewildered by the turn his work has taken. As someone with a PhD in an obscure area of political history I know that expectations of readership for any scholarly work are extremely low. From the interview it seems that such good fortune couldn't have happened to a nicer man.
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