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Post by Steve on May 30, 2017 19:47:47 GMT
Saw the last performance of this Saturday night. Utterly brilliant. It had come a long way since previews, and it was great in previews! It was a hot night, and the actors were sweating, which seemed to encourage Conleth Hill into an even looser, drunken style of delivery that was completely alive. Imogen Poots had come on leagues since previews, and was every bit Hill's match, her squeaky mousiness now bolstered by a fierce flowing aggression. Poots and Hill were mirrors, two beta characters, who had effectively taken control of their relationships from their stiffer, blocky alpha partners. It was a symmetry I very much enjoyed. At the end, as Imelda Staunton let her macho guard drop, I burst into tears as the actress released every bit of everything inside her, to become one of the most hollow husks of a human being I had ever seen on stage. Heartbreaking and wonderful! 5 stars
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Post by Steve on May 30, 2017 19:38:06 GMT
We were an hour into the opera, and I was very much enjoying South African diva, Pretty Yende, making a rare London appearance, when we were all hustled onto the street due to a "fire in the building."
2000 people are looking for a place to stand on the pavement.
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Post by Steve on May 28, 2017 12:17:46 GMT
Saw the Saturday matinee and absolutely loved this. A brilliantly challenging, ever playful, hysterically melodramatic take on racism and the South, with a snarling bite. Some spoilers follow. . . This is SO Tim Crouch. Everything that the Royal Court's "Adler and Gibb" did for "fake news" and narcissism , this does for race and the South. For those who didn't see "Adler and Gibb," the characters began as unclothed actors and put on their characters by degrees throughout the play. Denise Gough went from an automaton to a female Donald Trump who would do ANYTHING for acclaim. The play ended with a movie version, of the events we witnessed over the course of the play, that was "FAKE NEWS" in every respect, but which seemed more real than "the reality" we had witnessed. In hindsight, this was one of the most insightful plays I've ever seen. Unfortunately, those insights were contained in a format that turned off far too many punters. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' play reinvents Crouch's format, but keeps things on an entertaining keel throughout. He retains the concept of unclothed actors dressing up as their characters, which here includes the methodical application of white face, black face and red face on the actors, he includes an ongoing Brechtian critique of the storyline we are witnessing, and he even builds up to an audiovisual revelation towards the end, that serves as capper and commentary, just as Crouch did. But what Jacobs-Jenkins also does is exchange some of Crouch's seriousness for (apparently) childish playfulness, which means this show is far less likely to alienate audiences. Also, by adapting a known work by a seriously successful 19th century playwright, Dion Boucicault (author of the National's "London Assurance" which starred Simon Russell Beale), he guarantees himself a dramatic frame which works to entertain in it's own right, even as he hilariously upends and twists it, like playdough, as we go along. And where Crouch used grim reality to deconstruct fake news, Jacobs-Jenkins effectively does the reverse, using fake news (Boucicault's "the Octaroon") to deconstruct real news. When the real news hit, towards the end of the piece, I felt so punched in the gut, I couldn't concentrate on the actual ending of the play, which became a mere epilogue, in my experience. Anyway, this is a terrific work, and Ken Nwosu was thrilling in multiple roles, playing both the protagonist and antagonist of Boucicault's play, but also playing Branden Jacobs-Jenkins himself, provocatively and teasingly self-identified as a "black playwright." Nwosu flips effortlessly from one character to the other, and as he moves in and out of various realities, certain scenes play both comically and seriously simultaneously, depending on who an audience member is imagining they are watching at any time: Boucicalt's characters, Jacobs-Jenkins or Ken Nwosu!? There are also some wonderful supporting performances, with Emmanuela Cole's actress/slave Dido compelling and warm, Celeste Dodwell's Dora barkingly and deliberately OTT, Kevin Trainor's Boucicalt alternately gentle and fierce, and Alistair Toovey's blackface characters unnerving, provocative and funny. This is a terrific play, superbly performed in an intimate space. There is so much to process and so much to muse on. And also, so much that amuses, even, and perhaps especially, in observing other audience members. At one point, as Nwosu's Branden Jacobs-Jenkins puts on white face, Snoop Dogg's horrible sexist and racist chant "Step Yo Game Up" comes on with it's refrains, about what "bitches" must do to "niggas," to a thundering bass, and one old lady's face assumed a silent scream, while another old lady starting tapping her foot with the pounding beat in evident pleasure. There is just too much to see here to miss this! 4 and a half stars
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Post by Steve on May 28, 2017 11:27:01 GMT
I think this was a decent show that was marketed terribly. Constantly using Gary Barlow and large choirs rather than showcasing the humour and heart that this has. It completely took away from what made this show great which was that core group of women. What was marketed to me just didn't appeal to me at all and it wasn't until some friends came back with some good feedback that I decided to go. I went in with very low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. I'm not surprised that it's closing but I do think it is a shame. The title was naff and wrong from the start. Why the hell didn't they just call it Calendar Girls - The Musical? Was it a rights issue or did they really think marketing the same story with a different title was going to work? Agree about the marketing. Personally, I really liked the show, and if the tour comes anywhere near me, I might even see it again. But Gary Barlow wasn't in this show. Constant Gary Barlow marketing made the whole thing feel like an extended Gary Barlow concert, which not even the majority of "Take That" fans would bother to attend, since the appeal of Barlow is mostly as part of that band, not as a solo act. And wasting the brand recognition of "Calendar Girls" was utterly misconceived. It made something my mum would want to see sound like a burlesque show.
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Post by Steve on May 25, 2017 22:53:28 GMT
Saw this tonight, and agree with lOIslane, it's average. Miscasting of Miranda Hart, who lacks the animus to play a satisfying antagonist, saps the drama, though Ruby Stokes was a terrific Annie tonight. Some spoilers follow. . . In a contest between the child actors and the adult principals in this show, the children win easily. Their American accents are spot on, whereas neither Alex Bourne's Daddy Warbucks or Miranda Hart's Miss Hannigan come close. The children are feisty, energetic and enthusiastic, whereas Bourne and Hart seem a little lost, stuck somewhere between tentative and disinterested. Little Ruby Stokes, as Annie, displays genuine comic flair, and enormous heart, whereas Miranda Hart strains to nail her comic moments, and is simply too nice to be nasty. I suppose this was predictable, in a way, as the children have been picked from among 2000 other auditionees, whereas Hart was the only choice from the beginning, picked because her name sells tickets, not because she was right for the role. She certainly looks the part, her immensely tall frame towering over the tots. But her frame has always been her entree to comic surprise, as her charm has always been that her true personality belied that frame, as she is a cuddly and clumsy sweetheart. And she does NOT, as evidenced tonight, have the ability to suggest genuine menace or threat. Consequently, every mean-spirited remark, intended to be funny, fell flat, like balloons too floppy to pop, or a car running low on petrol. Recalling the awesome animus of Bertie Carvel's evil Ms Trunchbull, in Matilda, whose every wicked line delivery made you chortle and shiver, simultaneously, here, every equivalent opportunity is missed, or only half attained at best. Someone like Lizzy Connolly, whose every role has been super-charged with animus, would destroy this part. But she is not a star, and lets face it, Hart has shifted a mighty ton of tickets, including mine, so her casting has certainly been a business hit. Anyway, this show is only of average interest. It is defeated in it's appeal to tots, who like to see themselves on stage, by both "Matilda" and "School of Rock." And it is defeated in the song and dance stakes, in it's appeal to adults, by "An American in Paris," "On the Town" and "42nd Street." However, it does have appeal. The songs are wall to wall catchy and memorable. There is serious talent in the ensemble. Some of the supporting players show serious spark, with Jonny Fines' Rooster filling the role of a villain you can actually believe, Holly Dale Spencer emoting terrifically as the uber-caring Grace Farrell, Daddy Warbuck's sidekick, Russell Wilcox a fine-voiced Franklin Roosevelt, and Nic Gibney an endearingly expressive Drake. And then there's the kids, of whom there are three teams. We got Team Rockefeller tonight, and they were across the board excellent, a jolt of energy. The tiniest one, Nicole Subebe's Molly had some marvellously funny moments. And then there was Ruby Stokes' Annie. A real marvel, she reminded me of the Olivier winning Eleanor Worthington Cox, who was the Matilda I saw. Although, as Annie, Stokes didn't have to plumb the full realm of darkness that Worthington Cox did, she did succeed in bringing tears to my eyes at the end, after all the smiles along the way, the result of this actor's infectious sparky moment to moment reactive cheerfulness. The most entertaining moment of my show came in Act 2, when Annie, Daddy Warbucks and the whole ensemble, team up to perform the song "I don't need anything but you." Here Alex Bourne's Warbucks is at his best, his sonorous voice and natural gentleness of his demeanor, blending with Ruby Stokes' Annie's exuberance and joyousness, and a hugely rousing ensemble dance, making for genuine delight. All in all, an average but worthwhile show. Hopefully, on her next outing, Hart will play herself. 3 stars
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Post by Steve on May 24, 2017 23:29:08 GMT
So I really loved this tonight. A vibrant light-hearted song and dance show that really lifted my spirits in these dark times. Some spoilers follow. . In the first half, the songs and comedy were the strength of the piece. In the second half, I loved the dance and Drew McOnie's choreography. Storywise, the whole show is just an excuse for exuberance, a great night out watching people enjoy a great night out "on the town." I was struck about how feminist the piece is, how ahead of it's time it must have been with every woman knowing exactly what they want, and pursuing their desires regardless of what anybody else thinks. And McOnie ensures that this production is additionally progressive, by featuring a beautiful gay dance liaison, as well as by (inadvertently) casting three mixed race couples. It's beautiful. Performances were great across the board. I like broad comedy, so Maggie Steed's lecherous cynical drunken Madame Dilly was a highlight, getting a good laugh out of me every time she made an appearance. So too did I love Lizzy Connolly's uber-bolshy Hildy. Connolly is one of the best stage comediennes we have, and while this show doesn't give her the same opportunities to run riot that she had, in say, "Vanities," nonetheless she's a gem. And her stage partner, the promoted understudy, Jacob Maynard, is simply wonderful, as good at reacting to her predations as he is at expressing an infectious and loving joie de vivre in every scene he's in. Only at the beginning was it evident that he was playing the role of Chip for the first time, as he struggled to synchronise his dance steps with his fellow sailors (and even that made me warm to him in the circumstances), but thereafter, you could have told me he'd been playing the role for months and I'd have believed you. He's charismatic, charming and loveable, a total find! Miriam-Teak Lee, as Claire, the partner of Samuel Edward's Ozzie, hits the high notes with verve, and coupled with her fierce red outfit, has a real spark of electricity about her in her interactions with the always affable Edwards' Ozzie. Indeed, towards the end of the piece, the foursome of Maynard, Edwards, Connolly and Lee, performing and dancing to the song "Some Other Time," was the peak moment of my night's enjoyment. Danny Mac's Gabey, the lead, has an old fashioned romantic Gene Kelly charm about him that perfectly blended with the vivacious, youthful exuberance of Siena Kelly's Ivy. And Mark Heenehan was superbly dry and funny as the cuckolded Judge. Meanwhile, Maynard's replacement, former Billy Elliot, Leon Cooke, performed wonderfully in the ensemble, despite having been cast a mere 24 hours earlier. He will be adding more bits to his performance throughout the week, Sheader told us. All in all, I had a tremendous forget-all-troubles entertaining night out, and that was wonderful. 4 and a half stars.
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Post by Steve on May 24, 2017 22:46:35 GMT
So sorry to hear about Fred Haig. He was my favourite out of the three leads when I saw the show on Saturday. Thought he was excellent and had great comic timing. Hope he recovers soon I see in the programme that he has a part in the National's forthcoming "Follies." Fingers crossed it's a good part, and I look forward to seeing him then.
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Post by Steve on May 24, 2017 20:23:49 GMT
It's also lovely to see Lizzy Connolly's Xanadu castmate, Samuel Edwards, as Ozzie, every bit as much the dopey loveable big lug that he was in Xanadu lol.
Just a lot of fun all round, with constant dance and humour.
It's very warm, though I'm ready in case it gets cold, as it's getting dark now, and white blossom is drifting down onto the stage like snow.
Danny Mac is a lovely thoughtful romantic presence to counterbalance the more comedic personas of his two fellow sailors.
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Post by Steve on May 24, 2017 20:17:37 GMT
Jacob Maynard playing Chip tonight. Ooh, hello out there, PalelyLaura Poor Fred Haig has broken his foot, Timothy Sheader announced. I remember when I broke my foot, the doctor said it would take 6 weeks to get better, so I should imagine Jacob Maynard is in this for a long haul now. As it happens, Jacob Maynard is the highlight of my show so far. He's so likeable and sweet, and watching Lizzy Connolly's Hildy make mincemeat of him is just adorable!
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Post by Steve on May 23, 2017 16:30:18 GMT
It's wrong to confuse ISIS with Islam. The other day, someone told me they were scared living close to the Morden Mosque, and I had to laugh, because the Muslims who worship there, are of the Ahmadi sect, that disavow ALL violence for ANY reason.
If you are looking for horrific justifications for political violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, they are easy to find. The Passover itself is a story of God deliberately killing children to extract political concessions from the Egyptians, a story that all believers of the Abrahamic religions must explain to themselves.
Thankfully, most rabbis, priests and imams have found ways to disavow this sort of violence, in their religious teachings, as practiced today.
From ISIS' perspective, we are at war with them. Our own government confirms this:
"The UK has committed over 1,250 military personnel to the region to provide essential support to local forces. In the air, the Royal Air Force has conducted over 1,200 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria - more than any other Coalition country bar America – and provides highly advanced intelligence and surveillance to Iraqi Security Forces. On the ground, the UK has trained over 39,000 Iraqi soldiers in engineering, medical skills and basic infantry. In Syria, UK armed forces are training vetted members of Syrian opposition groups in infantry, medical and explosive hazard awareness skills as part of our counter-Daesh campaign. As a result, Daesh has lost 62% of the territory it once occupied in Iraq and 30% in Syria." (https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/daesh/about)
However, even if we are at war, it's a war crime to target civilians. There is no justification for deliberately killing children attending a concert.
And we should encourage all believers in the Abrahamic religions to interpret their texts the way the Ahmadis do, which is that all violence against civilians is wrong, war or no war.
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Post by Steve on May 21, 2017 22:29:55 GMT
A relentlessly mediocre musical featuring a lot of good one-liners (Marshall Brickman, presumably) and no good songs. Cameron Blakely's Gomez steals it with ease. Samantha Womack's Morticia barely registers. Carrie Hope Fletcher and Oliver Ormson are both good as the young lovers and Charlotte Page makes the most of her few moments as Alice Beineke but the show itself never really happens. I hadn't realized they'd done a rewrite - it didn't work. Saw this Saturday night, the final Wimbledon show, and completely agree with Mallardo's assessment that this is "mediocre." Some spoilers follow. . . The key factor is the lack of drama. Who cares about Wednesday dating some guy? The whole show is fan service, in the sense you can only really care about this if you are already fanatical about "The Addams Family" as a brand, and have some preconceived devastation about her dating a "normal." Nothing I saw made me feel anything about the dramatic set-up. I just didn't care. Drama: 2 stars. Second, there is a lack of comedy, in that nothing that happened made me crack more than a smile, apart from a great moment involving Dickon Gough's Lurch in Act 2. Comedy: 2 stars. Third, the songs too are mediocre for a composer of Lippa's talents, who wrote the varied and terrific "The Wild Party." I did think that the second act's "Just around the Corner" was terrific, and well-delivered by Samantha Womack. Also, "When you're an Addams" and "Full Disclosure" are ear worms, if unexceptional, and "Carzier than you" is punchy and fun, especially when delivered by the show's best singer, Carrie Hope Fletcher. Songs: 3 stars. Fourth, the production values were fullsome, the touring sets looking as dark and gothic as I would hope, and the chorus added immensely to every song, their spooky costumes and choreography proving to be fun. Production value: 4 stars. Fifth, the casting is excellent overall. Carrie Hope Fletcher is a spunky Wednesday, Les Dennis is Les Dennis squared, as his sad clown inside is bolstered in this show by a sad clown outside, and Cameron Blakely is all-round superb, an engine of energy in a plot you can't care less about. Samantha Womack sings well, but she lacks energy, possibly because that's her take on the Morticia character. It's a shame, as a show with so little plot needs more drivers, not less. And Womack was great in that Barbican South Pacific not so long ago, I thought. Cast: 4 stars. It is the lack of drama, the absence of an engaging plot, that is the main problem with this show. The second act (4 stars) I liked much more than the first (2 stars), as it simply gives up on it's flailing plot, and devolves into some very pleasurable episodic Sondheimesque ruminations on the humanity of each of the characters. Overall, the show was so mediocre that I felt I had to jazz up my thoughts by giving the show a million stars for a million disparate things lol. 3 stars overall.
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Post by Steve on May 21, 2017 22:03:07 GMT
Man-hating? Forgive me if I'm missing something as I only saw this show once on Broadway 11 months ago, but what is man-hating about it? The abusive male character even gets redeemed at the end. Spoilers follow. . . Snutte, All I mean is that, for me, the book goes too far down the men-are-awful route. No men are decent, all women are decent. Dad rapes and beats his own step-daughter, man systematically beats his wife, other man cheats on women without a care, redemption merely amounts to "oh I feel a little regret, now that you've left me, please take me back." Frankly, I'd expect him to start beating her again if she did, as actions speak louder than words (especially the words of someone who wants something). For me, Dreamgirls is far better and more sophisticated in it's depiction of myriad kinds of men, and the way they mistreat women. I compare it, as it's got the same feminist trajectory of an underdog woman defining herself, in a world of abusive men. Then again, the show really worked for me tonight. So what I'm saying is, I'm rethinking these thoughts now. I'm open to hearing anything about this. It was interesting being at the front as wel, the people all around me were on their own, and no joke, when we were chsting pre-show, pretty much everyone said as soon as they saw Marisha, Rachel and Tyrone listed in the cast list ahead of time, they booked instantly because they had either seen them or had heard about them. And there was alot of tears down the front, I was pretty much an emotional wreck at several points in the proceedings. DanielJohnson14, I was next to you, I realise, re-reading the thread. I was in CC8. Your bouts of crying were as infectious as sneezes, as I found myself crying too shortly after lol. Nice to meet you. I definitely booked because I wanted to see Marisha Wallace, based on some youtube clips of her, having missed her in Dreamgirls. She's as good an actor as a singer, so I hope to see her in Dreamgirls sometime, which I've only seen with Amber Riley, previously.
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Post by Steve on May 21, 2017 21:07:33 GMT
Breathtakingly brilliant one-off show, with a stand-out star-turn by Marisha Wallace, and sterling supporting performances by Rachel John, Wendy Mae Brown, Seyi Omooba, Tyrone Huntley and Bernadette Bangura. The key to Wallace's performance as Celie was to be found in her final solo song, in which her stealthily modulated build to her ultimate declaration of personhood, "I'm Here," had the audience on their feet in an instant standing ovation. Wallace had until this point reserved the full impact of her devastatingly full and emotional voice, as her tender, tentative Celie had until this point been cowed by the batterings, both figurative and literal, of her horrible story. From the start, Wallace played the hollow-eyed dazed soft vacancy of a battered woman to perfection, which hollowness she filled in slow gradations throughout the course of the show. By halftime, her character was still only half human, causing some in the audience to doubt the fullness of the actress' potential. But this methodical character building was a testament to the seriousness with which Wallace approached tonight's show as a fully acted performance, rather than a mere one-off opportunity for show-boating, and judging by the fullsome tears of multiple audience members all around me, she succeeded in taking the audience with her on the journey of a nobody to become a somebody! The most emotionally fulfilling performance in a musical I've seen all year! All around her were supporting performances to die for: there was the effortless easy comedy sass of Wendy Mae Brown's Sofia, making hilarious hay of her anthem "Hell No;" there was the dominating diva antics of Rachel John's Shug, whose Push Da Button" brought the house down in the first half, but who also evinced heartbreaking tenderness in her song "Too Beautiful for Words;" there was the preternatural sweetness of Seyi Omooba's beaming Nettie, with a dulcet voice that belied her toughness in the recent "Junkyard;" and there was Tyrone Huntley's magical charisma, making up for the man-hating book, by lending Harpo a softness and likeability he doesn't have on the page, thereby balancing the misandry of the show as a whole. Of the wonderful 3 strong church lady chorus, all with exceptional voices, on the right of the stage, Bernadette Bangura, in the centre, stood out for her total passionate emotional commitment to every song! The sound mix was a little hollow and tinny, which tended to make the bass voices of the men a little harder to hear, but nonetheless, Cavin Cornwall as Mister, was a force of nature, never more so than in his body-rolling, wide-grinning cackling excitement about "Shug Avery Comin ' to Town." LOL. Anyway, I enjoyed this much more than when I first saw the show at the Menier, partly on account of being more familiar with the work, partly for being less bothered by all the manhating, but mostly because this was an amazing once-in-a-lifetime star ensemble cast that really understood the work and all their parts in it, and made the whole night so much more than the sum of it's parts! Truly, my favourite night of the year so far! 5 stars
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Post by Steve on May 14, 2017 10:26:52 GMT
Saw this last night, and really enjoyed it. This is a monologue by "an anonymous woman," detailing her sexual fantasies and masturbation practices, read by "an unprepared man." You don't know who you are getting until the reader announces himself, though the Royal Court has announced the following list of readers: "Will Adamsdale, Rob Beckett, Danny Brown, Adam Buxton, Nick Frost, Phill Jupitus, Miles Jupp, Funmbi Otomayo, John-Luke Roberts, Sunil Patel, Romesh Ranganathan, Arthur Smith, Mark Thomas, Thom Tuck, Phil Wang and Liam Williams." If I had been given a choice, I would have booked for Will Adamsdale, who I adored in "Detroit" at the Cottesloe, or Mark Thomas, whose outraged takedowns of political chicanery I have found relentlessly amusing. Some spoilers follow. . . Last night, we got retired stand-up and budding playwright, Liam Williams, who did such a superb job of reading the monologue, investing it with ease, emotion, authority and good timing, that suspicious minds might have suspected him of sneaking in and buying the playtext, which is on sale at the Court, in advance. Then again, William's debut play, "Travesty," featured a woman playing a man and a man playing a woman, so perhaps it was to be expected that he'd be uniquely at ease as a vessel for a woman's words. The words were wonderfully frank and engaging. How does a person negotiate the discord between who one fantasises about and who one is actually with? Why do more men masturbate than women? Which fantasies are most likely to get you off in 5 minutes? The most degrading are the hottest, obviously, which is evidently why Murdoch crony and post-facts bullsh*t artist, Michael Gove cropped up as a fantasy figure in Anonymous' quick-release fantasy palette. The play, and it's presentation, is fascinating on many levels, and it had my mind racing through all sorts of things. Is this story true? Is this written by a woman? Does that matter? Are there any pertinent differences between men's and women's fantasies anyway? Where do bisexuality and homosexuality fit into this somewhat binary picture of men's and women's fantasies? What difference does it make that a man is reading this? Do I privilege male voices? Why are the men on the list of readers mostly stand-ups? Who could read this so I related to it most? Who could read it so I laughed the loudest? Why does the writer want to be anonymous? Is she a coward? Is she protecting her husband and/or previous partners from ridicule? Is she protecting her professional reputation? Is the writer Phoebe Waller Bridge? In answer to the last question, probably not. Phoebe Waller Bridge is braver than any man, or woman for that matter, when it comes to confronting these sorts of issues, and has said much more potentially embarrassing things publicly than the mildly masochistic fantasies we get here, besides which, she is a Soho Theatre artist, rather than the Royal Court artist the author is supposed to be. Anya Reiss? Too young? Penelope Skinner? Well, in "The Village Bike," also at the Royal Court Upstairs, Romola Garai's character was a lot like this author, exploring masturbation and porn and fantasies and danger, so can't be ruled out lol. The fun is not knowing, of course. And also the fun is the frankness of the fantasies. There is a huge ring of universal truth to the mundane tawdriness of the repetitive sexual fantasies that we hear about here. There are laughs of recognition from both men and women about how such fantasies interplay with real life relationships. The man-woman thing may be essentially a red herring, as NOBODY really likes fessing up to their sexual fantasies in public. The phwoar page-3 superficial vision of men's supposed fantasies is, I suspect, mostly a front for a masculinity that masks, rather than expresses, it's true sexual fantasies. It may even be, that contrary to the suggestion of this show, that women, more than men, have generally been more honest and open about their actual fantasies in the public realm. Then again, all the walkouts last night were WOMEN, so anecdotally, that is evidence that women, more than men, find public discussion of intimate issues objectionable. That bolsters this play's thesis that more women than men need masturbatory encouragement to enjoy themselves. In any event, a show that works on so many levels, and promotes so much chit chat about so many topics, is great stuff. 4 stars
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Post by Steve on May 3, 2017 22:52:31 GMT
This is indeed the Waltons in the shadow of the Troubles, and I loved it. Some spoilers follow. . . Like in the movie Jaws, we open with a scene that sets up a threat which must become relevant later. Like in Jaws, the suspense created by the impending threat allows us to wallow in family scenes, while maintaining tension concerning what's to come. But while this set-up is effective story-telling, at it's core this is a wonderful portrait of a family that has been living with the Troubles forever. The Carney family are introduced like a chart of a human evolution, with the youngest and smallest introduced first, a baby, utterly unspoiled by the shadow of the Troubles, through multiple children of ascending age, through their parents, and onto the generation of grandparents. How sectarianism has infected (or not infected) the thinking of each child, middle-aged, and older person is delineated with loving precision by Butterworth. Mercifully, the pattern of infection is not overly simplified, so that Brid Brennan's elderly dementia sufferer, Aunt Maggie Far Away, who drifts affectingly in and out of coherency, remains as unspoiled by prejudice as the baby, whereas Dearbhla Molloy's Aunt Pat is utterly poisoned by hatred of the other, the English. Her hatred translates even into her view of the sole Englishman in the play, John Hodgkinson's mentally impaired, but physically able, Tom Kettle, who has been in and about the family for 30 years. What happens in the play I won't reveal (I'll leave that to the critics), but I found that I fell in love with this family and all it's members, so it all mattered. I particularly loved the energetic, instinctive Shane Corcoran, charged with an elemental electricity by the wonderful actor, Tom Glynn-Carney, and the vibrant Caitlin Carney, played with moment to moment vivaciousness and humour by Laura Donnelly. But this is a cast filled with well-drawn characterisations, beautifully realised, by the whole ensemble, from Brid Brennan's Aunt Maggie to Paddy Considine's lynchpin lead character, Quinn Carney, to Genevieve O'Reilly's ever-so-delicate Mary Carney (how she manages to look so weak and frail in every scene is a miracle of acting). For humour, Butterworth puts Daniel-Kitson-style-original-curse-words into the mouths of babes, a strategy that always wins laughs, and does so again here. I got a vicarious kick at seeing how much the smallest kids enjoyed getting the biggest laughs from their very adult audience, with each minor minorly corpsing at the roar of laughter following their use of expletives. Anyhow, it is perhaps true that this show weights too much to family shenanigans, and too far from the Troubles for much of the running time, but there are so many well-observed and amusing heartfelt moments, that I was always entertained. And within each portrait of each person, and in each action also, Butterworth hides a treasure trove of insightful commentary on how we become who we are, so that, while, for me, this is not as perfect a thing as last year's "Hangmen," it is certainly one of the best shows of the year. 4 and a half stars
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Post by Steve on May 2, 2017 11:58:47 GMT
I can't wait to see if Cate Blanchett will do all those awful van Hove dramatic pauses. Feeling mixed about this, I'm really going off Ivo van Hove Cate Blanchett has a thing for pauses and the avant-garde. That Boho Strauss "Big and Small" show that she brought to the Barbican, from the Sydney Theatre company that she runs, was very experimental. Who did she hire to translate it, after all? Martin Crimp of the Republic of Experimental Theatre. And who did she hire to direct, Benedict Andrews, who turned Three Sisters into a game of musical chairs, with tables and chairs being removed from underneath the actors every time the music stopped, which worked for me, but not others. And what was the action? An alienating landscape of selfishness where one decent woman experiences one rejection after another, pause to suffer, and on to the next. The whole thing had me weeping, but audience members all around were moaning and groaning after that one, as it wasn't the engaging piece of entertainment they'd hoped for. So if I see the names Ivo Van Hove and Cate Blanchett, I'm thinking experimental theatre. Then again, if I see the name Sonia Friedman, I'm thinking happy audiences, so maybe this will be "A View from the Bridge" rather than "Obsession." But you never know. I can't wait, either way.
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Post by Steve on Apr 29, 2017 11:14:11 GMT
I thought this was loads of fun, the audience participation and the Donald trump references being the raison d'etre of the production. Some spoilers follow. . . Yes, this is not as good as the 5 star Henry Goodman production, which was superlative in every way, but mostly for the growth in Goodman's Ui/Hitler over the course of the play from a kind of cuddly Mickey Mouse mumbling caricature to an utterly frightening monster. Here Lenny Henry's Ui is a thug from start to finish, so the whole thing is a lot less surprising and scary, nor does it have an equivalent coup de theatre at the end, which capped the Goodman show by suddenly producing Nazi-redolent symbols everywhere. What this show does have is oodles of goodwill, where the super-friendly actors use excellent judgement about which audience members they dare invite into the performance. I generally hate audience participation, but Lucy Ellinson was utterly open and lovely, at the beginning, about asking me to raise my hand, and cheer for her words during the show, and she didn't molest anyone who looked closed off to it. Generally I was shielded from the fear of sitting in the front row of the stalls, my band B side stalls seat having been moved round to the back of the stage, with a row of chairs in front of me, to create an in-the-round show, in which everybody feels involved. The wooden chairs at the back are a lot less comfortable than the usual pews though. There were tables there with appropriately Brechtian Dogsborough cafe "menus," which helpfully contained an explanation of which scenes correlated to which historical events, and which play characters were which historical characters. Ellinson was Giri who was Goring. Anyway, Lenny Henry's sheer height and bulk lend him great gangster gravitas, and he, and all the actors had great fun with their roles, skilfully juggling between playing cod gangsters and being themselves talking to us. My favourite performers were Ellinson as Giri, Giles Terrera as Rohm, Justine Mitchell as many characters, who all excelled effortlessly at this duality, and I loved Michael Pennington as Dogsborough, the soul of the show, the one person who seemed truly frail and vulnerable, lending the show a poignancy that it otherwise lacked. The Trump references came thick and fast, from his "I have great words," to his border wall plan, and Henry pulled it all off wonderfully. While it may be obvious, I think it's all worth saying again and again, as the lies Trump tells will never stop either. What this production loses in being frightening, it gains in being friendly. 4 stars
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Post by Steve on Apr 29, 2017 10:52:13 GMT
Even seeking out the isosceles triangles couldn't lift our spirits. I apologise for using the word "isosceles." Using it was the most fun I had with that word since I foolishly caved in to coaching my nephew Sundays on his GCSE maths, for which he was predicted a D and needs to be lifted to a B. Next stop, I'm throwing out references to "Pythagoras," "half the base times the height" and "sohcahtoa." You have been warned. Also, as soon as there's a tube strike, I'm jumping in there with bo--ocks like "if Foxa arrives at Farringdon station at 1.50pm and walks at 3 miles an hour towards the Barbican, will she make it to the theatre by 2pm to see her favorite play, Obsession, again?"
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Post by Steve on Apr 28, 2017 11:25:16 GMT
I went in fearful of having a dismal time, but I loved this! A post-modern avant-garde study of the representation of "obsession," disguised as a play. Some spoilers follow. . . From the first appearance of Jude Law's Gino, playing his harmonica like Charles Bronson's revenge-obsessed character in "Once Upon a Time in the West," I found myself being drawn away from the production I was watching, to think instead about the depiction of "obsession" in other art works. When Law enters, the three lead characters freeze, forming points of a huge isosceles triangle, a physical manifestation of a love-triangle, but also reminiscent of a Sergio Leone shootout, a tableau that might occur at the end of an obsessive quest. As in Sergio Leone films, a native English speaker, Law, fills the role of protagonist, while the other key characters are played by mainland Europeans, who, while not dubbed, speak English as a second language. These other characters also reveal themselves not as individuals, but in relation to other works, with Halina Reijn's Hanna singing from Bizet's Carmen, an opera in which a freedom-loving woman is both object and subject of obsession, sandwiched between two men, while Gijs Scholten van Aschat, her older husband, sings from "La Traviata," in which an obsessed older man tries to wedge himself between two young lovers. Van Hove explores the representation of obsession not only by reference to other films, but also by pre-recording huge filmic close-ups of the principals, their legs and arms and bodies intertwined, lips locking, bodies touching, close-ups being the filmic language of intimacy and obsession. Yet the stage remains vast and empty, a plate on which to put the characters under Van Hove's intricately operated microscope. Van Hove explores portraiture, having Law, critically a film star, stand for long periods with his muscular torso exposed, making shapes with Halina Reijn's Hanna, then freezing, as if posing for dramatic filmic portraits, perhaps for a perfume called "obsession." Van Hove explores obsession in song, having Law mime to Iggy Pop's primally obsessive "I wanna be your dog," and plays Woody Guthrie's sociopolitical tract "This land is your land," as he explores the romantic imagery and backdrops against which obsessive stories are typically told, huge waves a symbol of the perennial nature and primal forces we seed into our concept of obsession. Critically, Van Hove abstracts his characters from their particular story, which is presumably why he hired Simon Stephens, a master of alienation and detachment, to translate his Dutch original script into English. The play leaves out specificities of character, so as to keep them filmic iconic symbols, rather than mere characters in a drama. So while I listened to moaning from others about "lack of character development," my own feeling was that that lack of character development was the whole point, to distill depictions of obsession to their universal essence. Law is not a lazy actor, for me, particularly good at portraying brute passion, as he did with his murderous Henry V, and most perfectly in Anna Christie at the Donmar. Van Hove interrogates his actor's skill at becoming a brute thing, and bottles it in countless poses and portraits, alone and with other actors. Law really is wonderful in this, his whole being translated into freeze-frames of torid passion, and Halina Reijn, in particular, is wonderful support. I got the feeling that Van Hove had already emulated Visconti's early experiments with realism in other projects, and here, bored with that, preferred to reflect late Visconti's fetishism for depicting decadent rituals, in this case, the rituals we invoke to depict obsession, which Van Hove himself does obsessively from start to finish. This is essentially an avant-garde art piece about obsession, that interrogates the representation of obsession from the outside-in, even while depicting obsession from the inside-out. For that reason, it's memorable and meaningful, even though it eschews the immediate visceral kicks that a detailed and specificly dramatic show would deliver. 4 stars.
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Post by Steve on Apr 28, 2017 9:29:17 GMT
Steve, is it just actors talking? Or is it a rich experience with light and sound design? HG, it's not a rich light and sound design. It's lights off for time lapses between scenes, with resetting of the scenes during lights-off to plant clues about the changing relationship between the characters, then lights back on for the next scene.
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Post by Steve on Apr 27, 2017 11:45:07 GMT
Before Barney Norris' Bridge Theatre play, Nightfall, comes this modest two-hander in the equally modest new Bush Theatre Studio. And assuming this post is the Hitchhikers Guide to the new theatre and the play, the answer is 70. Well, the theatre capacity is 70, like a slightly bigger Finborough or a slightly smaller Hampstead Downstairs, and the play runs 70 minutes without an interval, and I would add that the average audience age was 70, except I can't, because they mostly looked much younger lol. Anyway, everything Barney Norris is in this play, from the poetic use of language, the observance of minor details of mundane yet telling behaviour, the heightened sense of reality that puts really huge existential issues on the table while nothing much actually happens, and the cherishing of human beings merely for being alive. This is minor Norris though, as it is shorter, less eventful, a two-hander that consists of a series of conversations between a lonely woman and her ex-boyfriend, now homeless, who she takes under her wing by inviting him into her house. Tessa Peake-Jones is the perfect Norris actor, as was Linda Bassett in the exemplary earlier Norris play, "Visitors," in that they have poetic faces that speak volumes of lived experience, before they utter a word. Peake-Jones is also an excellent actor, supremely sensitive in her observance of her character Carol's learned habits, her repetitive ticks, her wry welcoming smiles and the trapped and caged existence that hides behind them. Andrew French is appropriately more mysterious, as the adventurous ex-boyfriend, whose ambitions are vast yet unconsidered, his hopes to "re-wild" Scotland with wolves humorously incompatible with reality. Yet, the play asks, can this man's adventurous spirit re-light Tessa Peake-Jones' Carol's life and can she ground him? The play is Norris screaming "Carpe Diem," "Seize the Day," where Norris refuses to speak louder than a whisper, so as not to be impolite. Although the overall effect is slighter than Norris intends, I did tear up once, and loved all the aforementioned Norris aspects of the play, except for the slightly contrived set-up, and I'm very much looking forward to what may be a far more substantial effort, Nightfall, given how many many tickets will have to be sold to fill the Bridge Theatre. 3 and a half stars
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Post by Steve on Apr 26, 2017 11:08:52 GMT
I sat on one of those Dorfman ones and it was fine....but I quite like the front seats at Olivier and Lyttleton and I know people sometimes find them uncomfortable!I have booked one for last production at Bridge as only cheaper but close option! ☺ Thanks Latecomer, you are right. I just got an email back from the Bridge Theatre confirming this: "A strapitan seat is narrower and folds away. It may be slightly less comfortable than the other seats around it but it is great value."
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Post by Steve on Apr 26, 2017 9:18:30 GMT
Sir Toby and especially Sir Andrew less funny than usual. I had the opposite reaction, in that I found Sir Andrew more funny than usual. There's no accounting for taste, though I'll do my best to account for it (below) lol. This was an especially funny Twelfth Night, in which the still sad music of humanity was largely zoned out to make way for laughs. I loved it! Some spoilers follow. . . Every part in a Shakespeare comedy combines poignant and comic aspects. Simon Godwin seeks to extort and emphasise the comic aspects, and he is more successful at doing this with those actors who have an innate comic gift: Tamsin Greig, Tim McMullan, Daniel Rigby, Imogen Doel and Oliver Chris. Those actors who do not have such an innate comic gift are a bit at sea with Godwin, and fall back on naturalistic acting skills at the expense of the comic exaggeration Godwin is going for. Phoebe Fox is an extreme example of this, her eyes filling with tears of grief and love, when Godwin wants her to be flopping around drooling for sex, soaking wet and silly in a swimsuit. I have seen Fox a few times, and she is a brilliant actress, effortlessly emotional and affecting, a highlight in dramas, but here the dissonance between her channeling of reality and Godwin's broad comedy vision was disorienting for the audience, who did not know whether to laugh or cry at her slipping on Godwin's metaphorical banana skins, and consequently seemed dumbfounded. One could easily conclude, from watching this show, that Olivia is simply not a comic part. Yet, at the Globe, Mark Rylance made comic magic out of Olivia, putting on a strange silly shuffle of a walk that made Olivia seem to hover over than stage rather merely stalk it. Every exaggerated foible of Rylance's oozing overemotional Olivia made me bust a gut laughing, rendering Rylance's Olivia one of the funniest characterisations I've ever seen! There are some superb comic performers in this ensemble, who exploit Godwin's comic caricaturing to the max. Like Rylance's Olivia, comedy caricatures do not move and act like real people, their movements undercutting the audience's expectations of reality, priming them instead for comic surprise. In this show, Godwin divides his comedy caricatures into two basic categories, the slow and stiff (Greig, Rigby, Chris) and the fast and loose (McMullan, Doel). Which brings me back to Daniel Rigby's Sir Andrew Aguecheek, why I think he's hilarious, and why others may not. He is refined to the most basic gormless "me too" comedy caricature, someone who would fit in perfectly as a punchline of a joke on "The Fast Show," where his bit is to dimly respond "me too," to anything anyone smarter says. Rigby gets the comedy perfectly, the mind of his Sir Andrew ticking so slowly we can hear each tick, his body so stiff we can hear it creak. He's so dumb and so stiff he brings to mind the equivalent comedy caricaturing that Rowan Atkinson worked on his own mind and body to create the iconic Mr. Bean. And that's where taste comes in, because if you don't like this sort of childish broad caricaturing, you're going to hate this Andrew Aguecheek. But if you are among the vast swathes of people who laughed at The Fast Show or Mr. Bean or any other purely silly-for-the-sake-of-silliness thing, you will laugh your head off. Everyone around me was laughing like no tomorrow at Daniel Rigby's dim stiff antics, and I felt he was the funniest and broadest Aguecheek I've seen. Hugely successful comedy performance! Tim McMullan finds the fast preening teetering walk of someone whose mind reflects his jacket, dripping with sharpness and lechery, but whose inebriated body can only wobble like a weeble in it's desperation to catch up. McMullan is forever pouncing on people and ideas, like Tom who never catches Jerry, while his body collapses under him, and his sidekick, Rigby's Aguecheek, dimly twitters "me too." What a splendid comedy double act these two are! I was in stitches! Imogen Doel plays a mini-me of McMullan's Sir Toby, a welcome echo of his fast comic fumbling. Oliver Chris gets all Tim-nicely-but-dim in his phwoar-sulk Fast Show type antics, less successful at mining laughs than Rigby and McMullan, but still hitting the comedy nail on the head more often than not. And above all, there is Tamsin Grieg's Malvolio, a role this comic actress has been building to for years. At base, the preternatural slowness of Greig's Malvolio's mind, and the supernatural stiffness of her body, exactly mirror the comedy strategy of Rigby's Aguecheek. But Godwin and Greig add another element to her Malvolio, her interaction with the fourth wall. Greig is effectively not only doing a comedy character skit, she is also playing the stand-up comedian, seeking affirmation, and constant connection with the audience. I was thrilled with how confident that connection with the audience was. Grieg is willing to risk long pauses of staring at the audience as she carries out outrageously slow physical demonstrations and replays of her thoughts and actions, with the full knowledge that she will eventually get that teased out punchline. She does this with total stand-up mastery and daring, even while she stays in her comedy character. Only an actress with immense comic instincts and years of comedy behind her would dare do such a thing! It's absolutely masterful, and I found it even funnier than Derek Jacobi's hilarious Malvolio. In the Globe's recent Twelfth Night, Stephen Fry got no laughs at all, as he played the tragic realism of his pathetic Malvolio to the hilt instead. He may have got no laughs, but at least we understood his pain. Miraculously, in this Twelfth Night, after close to three hours of stand-up and comedy caricaturing, Greig forcefully creates in her Malvolio a realistic pain and a naturalistic fury that was every bit as painful and miserable as Fry's! Overall, though, apart from Greig's final exit, and Doon Mackichan's Feste's vulnerable and broken rendition of the primally poignant song "Come Away," this Twelfth Night lacks depth. However, because it has some great comedians in it's acting ensemble, capped by Greig's superlative performance, this show emerges as a laugh riot! 4 stars
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Post by Steve on Apr 26, 2017 7:16:05 GMT
I have never heard of a "strapitan seat." Is it cheap because it's uncomfortable, in which case I'll buy it, or because it's for some particular constituency (eg the less abled or young people), in which case I won't? Anyone know?
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Post by Steve on Apr 22, 2017 10:33:51 GMT
Loved this at the Rose Theatre. Affecting and sweary version of Dead Poets Society, set in a Bristol Playground, in which the power of the imagination stands to liberate some kids from their underprivileged and abusive backgrounds. Some spoilers follow. . . There is so much empathy and love in this show that I teared up. Be warned though, the love is hidden in the soft centre of a hard shell, in which the Bristol teenagers (played by young adults) posture and curse more than Renton in Trainspotting. You'd be hard-pressed to hear more c-words and f-words in any other show in town. Couple the swearing with the suspicious anti-authoritarian another-brick-in-the-wall attitude adopted by the kids in the show, and you have a production that is likely to win over such kids in the audience, just as it puts off their prudish parents. The first half of the show, the music and songs are Madness-inflected, with a marchy communal extrovert bolshiness; the second half, more Doors-inflected, with reverberant guitar strings and plaintive introspective lyrics. A couple of the songs are ear-worms, with the one about "the spider" still ringing in my head this morning. The show did not fit my inbuilt dramatic pattern expectation, which anticipated the nadir-moment of a generally cheerful show to occur at the three-quarter mark, but which instead occurred half-way. This expectation transgressed, the second half felt overlong, though I'd be hard-pressed to say what to cut. Erin Doherty is ferocious as Fizz, the furious, mischievous, irrepressible lead-character, and narrator, who opens up the milieu of the play. She completely fulfilled the high expectations I had of her from "Wish List." Calum Callaghan is more muted, endlessly relatable and reasonable, as Rick, the inspirational teacher at the centre of the adventure playground building project, yet equally as good, the yang to Doherty's yin. The whole ensemble is also excellent, with Scarlett Brookes' sad-eyed pregnant Debbie, Josef Davies's disturbed violent Ginger and Enyi Okoronkwo's vulnerable poetic Talc especially affecting. Despite the ending feeling long, this was a wonderful vibrant urgent heart-warming show, that could also work magic on the souls of the sorts of kids depicted, if only teachers and adults ignore the swearing and take them to see it! 4 stars
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Post by Steve on Apr 18, 2017 23:51:50 GMT
Saw this tonight from bang in the centre of the front row (Row C for this production) In summary - a good show, but with a lot of untapped potential. I'd give it 3 stars. JGBlunners, given where you say you were sitting, I think I was sitting next to you, moaning to you about how much I was missing the musical "I Can't Sing", which also featured the superb Simons Lipkin and Bailey, except unhindered by this monotone moroseness. I was grumbling about the song list in the programme, which showed that the two ghosts (Simon Bailey and Naimh Perry) got almost all the songs, and you were egging me on by pointing out that the one song with the most grimly teenage title, "Better to be Dead," got four reprises. Upon which, I started singing the praises of the marvellous "American Psycho" musical, which led me to buy the ticket to this in the first place via the Duncan Sheik connection, upon which the American lady on my left and I got into a discussion about how much I felt that it was wrong to cut the song "Oh Sri Lanka" from the show for Broadway. I think that must have been you, as my seat was front row, centre adjacent, and I'd agree the view was excellent, and the multi-tiered round lighthouse deck design is quite awesome to behold. Some spoilers follow. . . This show is one for adventurers and completists, who have already seen all the 4 star shows in town, and are looking for something that bit different, even if the things that are different have a tendency to sink the drama. The ghosts are sirens, peripheral to the main action, who seek to convince everyone involved in the show to end themselves. The songs they sing are samey, designed to depress the listener, with one being the exact same song sung five times (mentioned above). The songs sound to me like the bridge to grungy Nirvana numbers, with the proviso that just as you are about to rock out, the song stops, lest you accidentally get excited. Ironically, the one superb rock out song, "Take A Bow" is omitted from the programme and the show, and is performed AFTER the bows, in order to energise the audience to get up and leave, following the downbeat torpor of the main show. Simon Bailey and Niamh Perry perform it superbly, though I'm not surprised, as Bailey was the lynchpin of an awesome final London Jersey Boys line up, and Niamh Perry owned that Ben Elton show "The Beautiful Game" at the Union Theatre! In the main body of the show, Simon Lipkin is an invaluable boon, as his irrepressible vivacity brings humour to the character of the Sheriff, who moves the main plot, by pursuing the US wartime policy of the day, persecuting Japanese residents. Lipkin performs the heck out of his one number, "The Tale of Solomon Snell," a rare song not performed by the Greek chorus of the 2 Ghosts. Poor Nicholas Goh, as said persecuted Japanese resident, gets no songs at all! Beneath the siren songs of misery, two good dramas struggle to surface, one pertaining to Nicholas Goh's Yasuhiro's struggle against institutionalised xenophobia (very topical) and the other concerning the naivety of a judgemental child (which drama recalls the much more engaging "The Go Between" at the Apollo). That the cast make us feel a little something for these underwritten characters, involved in these two dramatic situations, over the wailing of the ghosts, is to the company's credit. Strangely, I don't regret seeing this show, as seeing a show that dares to be different, even when it fails to work dramatically, is always interesting, and with performers like Lipkin, Bailey and Perry to watch, you at least get some blood out of a stingy stone of a musical. 3 stars.
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Post by Steve on Apr 18, 2017 22:58:57 GMT
I took Jan Brock's suggestion and saw the Easter Monday matinee, and adored it! "Pride and Prejudice" remixed for maximum laughs, with an unforgettable star turn by Rebecca Collingwood! Some spoilers follow. . . There's alot of "Pride and Prejudice" in this story of caste (aka class) separating lovers. The central duo George d’Alroy (Duncan Moore) and Esther Eccles (Isabella Marshall) are exactly like Charles Bingley and Jane Bennet, but the set-up of this play differs in that the Darcy character, Captain Hawtree (Ben Starr) fails to convince his friend out of marrying below his class. Instead, hijinks ensue, as the unexpected newlyweds' family members react to a culture clash. Most extreme is the reaction of Susan Penhaligon's Marquise de St.Maur (a Lady Catherine de Bourgh clone, if ever I saw one)! Penhaligon's Marquise speaks like she swallowed 16 frogs, and at least two of those frogs sound like they might leap from her mouth every time she opens it. It's a hilarious performance, evidencing massive range by Penhaligon, as the last time I saw her in this venue, in Martine in 2014, she was the soul of lyricism in a sad poetic play. That this isn't the funniest turn in the show is a tribute to how terrific this production is (Jan Brock measures his praise cautiously)! The funniest turn is indeed by the delightful Rebecca Collingwood, who plays Esther Eccles' little sister, Polly, a frothing fizzball of a Lydia Bennet clone, with one massive difference: she is sharp as a tack! Disregarding class barriers, she swans around, taunting and tormenting the men around her, not with silliness, but with genuine quickness and wit! Collingwood was last seen (by me) in the "Love's Labours Lost/Much Ado" double at the Haymarket, where she was the small pretty one you expected to have lines, but didn't. This time she spurts lines at triplepace, resembling that little girl at school who had all the friends, and bossed them all around, then grew up, and behaved exactly the same. Collingwood's Polly is a human Tardis, in that her small frame contains more bottled energy and effervesence than ten larger ones. She is so amiable, charming, quick and funny that even the grumpiest looking audience members were audibly laughing. Plot developments were well realised, and apart from a melodramatic slump at the beginning of the second half, this was the most amusing, most delightful play I've seen all year. It's a joke in itself how much funnier this production is than "The Miser," which by comparison, is packing them in! Gods of theatreland, please give this production a run at Trafalgar 2 so other people can see it. While it's politics are in the rearview of history, like "Pride and Prejudice" itself, this show is pure pleasure. 4 and a half stars
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Post by Steve on Apr 18, 2017 22:07:56 GMT
Perhaps tipped with minks' teeth for that authentic tappity tap sound and maximum animal cruelty? Do you object when folks (frequently) wear leather in shows or are some animals worth more than others? Sorry, it's a gripe of mine. As an omnivore, with a craving for cheeseburgers, I avoid judging or criticising anyone's choices regarding what they wear, what they eat or what they hunt, so I take your gripe on board. On the other hand, although it's irrational, I fed ducks so often as a child, I developed an unshiftable sentimental fondness for them, so choose not to eat them. I have not ever looked into a duck's eyes and made an Albee style connection with them, I stress, lol. On topic though, with respect to the idea that a genuine mink coat is being used in this show, however, two points do strike me: (1) Unlike leather, mink skin is not a byproduct of the general food production process, so a legitimate distinction can be drawn by those who care to do so; (2) No show should be so dumb as to publicise the use of a real mink coat, as those who do care about this issue, care very much.
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Post by Steve on Apr 12, 2017 13:51:28 GMT
4 stars from The Telegraph and The Guardian: The Telegraph sent their opera critic, Rupet Christiansen, so I'm not surprised he privileged voice over performance, as opera critics tend to be forgiving of performance, but exceptionally picky about voice. But the Guardian sent Michael Billington, who wrote that Alfie Boe "admirably conveys the character’s complexity, combining a bear-like roughness with hints of an underlying gentleness." Complexity? Gentleness? Is he referring to the shampoo they clean the wig with, or are we just being trolled?
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Post by Steve on Apr 10, 2017 18:01:13 GMT
There are some moments in which I feel like I can hear all the hopes, dreams, and mistakes of mankind in a single musical phrase. Just curious: why on earth is this considered/marketed as a "semi-staged" production? To me, there was nothing "semi" about this staging in the slightest. Sondheimhats, I agree about all the hopes, dreams and mistakes of mankind. Lovely description. I think they only describe it as "semi-staged" because there are no helicopters (like in Miss Saigon) or spaceships (like in "I Can't Sing") or other massive set constructions, so I agree. After all, AAIP also uses projections as a backdrop, and like that, this features lots of choreography and dance. I expect the description lingers from the producers' initial cost-saving philosophy adopted in their previous two productions that did at the Coliseum, Sweeney Todd and Sunset Boulevard, but that they have grown increasingly ambitious since then. if it's an either/or situation I would always opt for the strong actor. I saw the Hytner production in New York with Michael Hayden as Billy and I well remember the criticism that was heaped upon him for, basically, not being John Raitt. He lacked that rich baritone sound that everyone seemed to feel was the essence of the role. In fact he sang the role just fine - listen to him on the cast recording - but, much more importantly, he created a lost and vulnerable character, desperate to earn Julie's love and be worthy of her yet lacking the essential confidence in himself - resorting instead to violence. The vocal stars were in other roles in that production - Audra McDonald was Carrie! - but the show worked so brilliantly because of Hayden's performance. If we, the audience, don't see in Billy what Julie sees, then Carousel makes no sense. I agree completely, Mallardo. Acting is everything to make this really work. Otherwise it feels like a concert performance. I also regularly listen to the recording of the Broadway cast you saw, and I love it!
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