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Post by Steve on Jan 24, 2017 14:51:32 GMT
Gina Miller contested Theresa May's attempt to erode the right of Parliament to make laws. Miller did both Brexiters and Remainers a huge favour, and we should all be thankful to her, for preserving the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty. While it is true that many actions the Government takes stem from exercising the power of the Queen, changing the law of the land (which all sides conceded would be the result of triggering Article 50) is NOT one of the Queen's powers, and is reserved to Parliament. Thank you for standing up for this key principle, Gina Miller, in the face of tremendous personal abuse, and against an overwhelming tide of ignorance fueled by the Daily Mail! As has been pointed out, the choice to make the Referendum advisory was made by David Cameron's Government, it was a mistake, and it is his fault that public money has been wasted today, as well as Theresa May's fault for compounding his mistake, and not consulting Parliament about Article 50 in the first place.
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Post by Steve on Jan 19, 2017 1:04:32 GMT
I must say I never saw the play as misogynistic - but you make a great case, Steve. It could also be read the other way around, as an appreciation of the power and controlling intelligence of women and the helplessness of men in the face of it, to the degree that Dodds' only recourse is the one men have always used when confronting such superiority - violence. Agree. That was my starting point in thinking about this, that Donald Dodd is exactly like my acquaintance, who committed murder-suicide, a weak man who resorts to violence because he is confronting a "superiority" he can't control. It was after that that I started thinking that every woman in this comes across as a sociopath, but not only that, sociopaths with preternatural powers of omniscience and foresight. They feel like a vision of women with superpowers, from inside a paranoid male mind, yet their actions carry on being that way even when Dodd is not present, such as when Ingrid instantly deduces Donald's movements by smelling his jacket, or when we hear how she has swayed the mind of Donald's father against him in advance of his plea for understanding, etc, etc. I got the feeling I get in a Dirty Harry movie, or a Death Wish movie, when I am being misanthropically primed to be ok about someone being blown away in an act of extreme "justice." My general feeling is that if you take a murder-suicide type, and focus on reasons that justify that sort of behaviour, and those reasons include that all women are secretly and dispassionately coldly controlling your life, and treating you not as a human, but as a pet (eg Ingrid's statement that she picked Donald as a partner because she could "live with him," not because she loved him, which sounds like she's treating him like a pet dog, except less than that, because she probably loves her dog. And it gets worse, she is so cold she is willing to tell him to his face that he has the status less than a dog, a dog she encourages to have an affair as a kind of thought-control experiment, designed to exorcise his friskiness, or to castrate him. It all seems to imply that when Dirty Donald pulls out his Magnum 35, he's dispensing a kind of necessary justice against the arrogance of his wife. And if indeed, as appears to me, there is no recognisably human woman in this play, I would argue that the play borders on suggesting that, by extension, extreme action may be necessary against all these bodysnatchers who seek to control poor all-too-human men. But of course, these are only thoughts and opinions I am having, and I welcome reasons that show I'm wrong. I didn't see the show but David Hare has been lauded for decades for the roles he has written for women. Of course, many people become progressively out of touch over the years. Agree. Love Hare. I wonder if this play is merely shaped by Hare, and that Simenon seeded the thematic territory that I am thinking about above (in my comment to Mallardo). Steve I'm not sure if I agree wholly with what you've written but what an explanation, thanks for that, rather more nuanced and developed that my 'why are talking so slowly and not doing up their coats' response. Yep, I'm quite capable of disappearing up my own rear end, but it's better getting it out of my system and doing that on a message board, than doing it in real life, which might prompt dirty looks lol. I must say I never saw the play as misogynistic - but you make a great case, Steve. It could also be read the other way around, as an appreciation of the power and controlling intelligence of women and the helplessness of men in the face of it, to the degree that Dodds' only recourse is the one men have always used when confronting such superiority - violence. No play isn't misogynistic, neither is Othello. And Debicki doesn't appear nude and neither does she "constantly" get her kit off. Good points. I don't think Othello is misogynistic, so I agree with you there. The reason I suspect this one might be is the total absence of a normal woman in it. It feels like "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers," where a fightback might be necessary for us poor men (who just happen to be the ones who actually do most of the killing, and don't need any more reasons to do more of it). That hovering female eye looked like an attacking spaceship, at the beginning of "War of the Worlds." The females/aliens are equipped with supernatural powers of detection, and total dispassion, like alien pod-creatures. So when Dodd takes up his weapon, it's like he's leading the resistance. Obviously, that's just opinions and feelings, but I think they are ok to express on a discussion board where we express opinions and feelings, and I accept, that for unstated reasons, you read this play differently to me. Debicki is, of course, not nude in this play, but merely bare-breasted (sometimes referred to as "partial nudity," but wrongly I concede), and I would agree that it is the uncanny repetition of this scene from "The Night Manager" in such detail that engendered my use of the word "constant," though of course, she is in fact actually "nude" elsewhere in "The Night Manager."
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Post by Steve on Jan 18, 2017 11:28:07 GMT
I saw the last show, and I found it thrilling, stylish, and unique but misogynistic. Since the show is over, mega-spoilers follow. . . This show reminded me strongly (pun unintended) of a strangely intense, fiercely controlling but always affable acquaintance, from a couple of decades back, who would rave about a patterned black and white shirt I used to wear, and jokingly threaten to take it from me. After discovering his wife was leaving him, he shot her, shot his daughter, and shot himself. . . In hindsight, Mark Strong's Donald Dodd feels like that man, someone with a vision for how life should be, a vision for how women should be, a vision for how he himself should be, and when his delusions collapsed, turned to extreme violence. The thrill in this show was knowing something was off with Donald Dodd's life, knowing something terrible would happen, but not knowing what and when. How perfect the casting. Mark Strong, an actor whose very name tells you he's "strong," and whose ever-threatening physicality seems to confirm this, playing someone ostensibly so meek and mild. The suspense and inevitability of the worm turning had me squirming. The horrible thing about this show is that it seems to encourage him to turn, at least partially to justify his murder of his wife, and to a degree, the murder of all women. Clearly, the creatives intend us to view this show as a kind of fever dream, the misogyny in the lead character's head expressionistically writ large: it's not the show that is misogynist, they would argue, it's Donald Dodd. Thus the huge all-seeing eye of Hope Davis' Ingrid Dodd, the first image we see, projected onto an immense screen at the optician's office, can be read as Dodd's paranoid male fantasy of the omniscient controlling woman. That is why, inevitably, the last sentence he utters in the play, after killing Ingrid, is "I shot her in the eye." However, male paranoia in this production reaches beyond the character of Donald Dodd to pervade every scene of the play. All the men are short-sighted dreamers: Dodd dreams of an empowered life, Ray seeks release through sex, Dodd's father hopes his son will treat his wife better, Lieutenant Olsen believes he's solving a case. In fact, all of them are shown to be dupes of robotic omniscient women, who manipulate everyone around them. Elizabeth Debicki's Mona at first appears an uncalculating dreamer, like the men, until we realise she's been playing Dodd all along, that he never had a hope with her, as she was taking flowers from another man even before her affair with Dodd began. Mona's maid sees everything that happens in the apartment, dealing with those flowers, grinning knowingly at Dodd as she puts the flowers away. The omnipresence of this maid, even when Dodd is having sex, shows just how dispassionate, knowing and calculating Ingrid and her maid are, both women conspiring in the understanding that sex is just a tool of power and manipulation, and that Dodd's real affections and dreams of intimacy are merely a male weakness. Cuckolding her billionaire husband, young bride Patricia Ashbridge (played at the final show by understudy, Arabella Neale) lasciviously lures the doomed Ray (Nigel Whitmey) to her private bathroom for uncomplicated sex, like a spider lures a fly. After all, Ray is destined to so tucker himself out in this bathroom, that he can barely stand in the storm that ensures, and stumbles to his death. But the most emblematic female in the play is the omniscient Ingrid, she of the all-seeing-giant-eye who even Mona fears, brilliantly played by Hope Davis like a bored supervillain, whose subdued omnipotence seems civilised, but in fact, kills the joy and spirit of every man in her orbit. She effortlessly turns Donald's father against him, fools the Lieutenant by hiding evidence, and manipulates every facet of her husband's life, even planning his affair with Mona by asking him to sleep between herself and Mona, where he can literally be squished and sandwiched and suffocated by scheming women. It stands to reason that she has given Donald only daughters, and has tricked him into believing that raising more women in the world is his main and only satisfying function in life. The vision of this play is that females are threatening. The key symbolic image of the play is when Donald Dodd is lured by the feminine spherical beauty of the round hanging chairs in Mona's flat, tries to sit in one, and is swallowed up by it. Also, all the scene changes are like lady parts opening and closing to give birth to the stupid dupe male protagonist's delusions and ultimate doom. Truly, if ever a play has managed to visually conjure up the mechanical inevitability of doom and fate, it is this one, with the Lyttelton functioning like a machine, cranking it's way smoothly and methodically through the noirish plot, opening then cruelly closing portholes of hope. The realisation of filmic scene changes, as well as the superb storm sound effects, swallow up the lives of two men (and one female supervillain) with dazzling efficiency. Mark Strong restrains his emotions to the level of a machine in this play. It was exquisite and thrilling to see him check his natural explosiveness for so much of the duration of the show, giving the play a tantric aspect, whereby the thrill was in the wait. I got a major charge from watching this play, but I was disturbed by the po-faced male fear and misogyny that underlies it. On a side note, this production may be the first Elizabeth Debicki project where her nudity is completely warranted, as the underlying misogyny which requires her to constantly get her kit off, pervades and is the subject of the play. Overall, a unique and fascinating evening, in stagecraft, in acting, and for the slow-motion investigation of a disturbed mind. But to the extent that this play suggests that disturbed minds are not disturbed, that women are robots invented to manipulate men, and that terrible violence can be justified, well, that's plain wrong! 4 stars
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Post by Steve on Dec 29, 2016 18:54:16 GMT
Saw the matinee yesterday. Great fun, with Layton Williams and Lucie Jones standouts! I wished I sat further back than the cheap front row seats I opted for. While immersion in the show was thrilling, the sound mix for smaller voices was fogged by actual proximity to the instruments. Most of the performers had the belt to make themselves heard, but subtleties in Ross Hunter's performance of Roger, in particular, could only be appreciated from mid stalls or further back, I should imagine (somewhere, anywhere, closer to the sound desk). This contributed to an experience, for me, in which ostensible lead character, Roger's story, including his romance with Philippa Stefani's Mimi, was a mere breeze to be brushed away by the tornado of Leyton Williams's Angel and his relationship with Ryan O'Gorman's Collins. The staging contributed to this biasing, as O'Gorman and Williams were charging about two feet from the front row, whereas Hunter and Stefani were typically staged to the rear of the set, where Roger would sit with his guitar. Williams is a star. His Angel stole every scene he was in. Dynamic, generous, flamboyant and gorgeous, he was Matt Henry in Kinky Boots, but younger and, yes, much more "angelic." Pairing him with O'Gorman's beautiful baritone meant that the Collins-Angel duo ate up this production (at least from where I was sitting). For me, the show started with William's effusive entrance with "Today 4 U" and ended with O'Gorman's overwhelming elegiac "I Cover You (Reprise)." Everything else was epilogue. Williams was not alone in chewing scenery. . . Lucie Jones had the fortune and wherewithal to perform a hugely rousing "Over the Moon." Fortunate because the band was mostly silent, allowing her voice full command of our ear drums. And boy, did she TAKE command. Everything about her "Over the Moon" worked for me. If Eden Espinosa in the Broadway Recording brought an artistic sincerity to the number, and Idina Menzel brought unhinged hysteria, Lucie Jones' background on the X Factor informed her take: it is pure personality, a force of ego, the voice that Simon Cowell promised had been hungrily slavering for attention in Thimbletown, Wales, desperate to take over the world, unleashed. There is an infectious GLEE to the rise and fall of Jones' powerhouse belt, combining Menzel's hysteria with an empowerment savoured, borne of years waiting in the wings. If the X Factor was good for anything, it was good for this! Like Williams', Jone's Maureen's storyline gets sterling support, in this case from Shanay Holmes' furious Joanne and Billy Cullum's somewhat swaggering Mark. In their number together, "Tango Maureen," Holmes and Cullum build a head of steam, but in their scenes with Jones, they whistle. Ironically then, for me, Rent's story of community and communality (which still powerfully reverberates in the anthems, "La Vie Boheme" and "Seasons of Love") becomes, in this production, a tale of triumphant individualism: the story of Angel and Maureen, two egos who rise to the top, the creme of the charisma tree, by sheer force of personality. It is in Angel's story that the heart of this production lies, though, and it is because of Angel's story, and the captivating duo of Leyton Williams and Ryan O'Gorman, that I couldn't help welling up all over again. 4 stars.
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Post by Steve on Dec 24, 2016 22:58:20 GMT
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Felicitations to everyone! And thank you to Theatremonkey, BurlyBeaR and the mods who make this site possible.
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Post by Steve on Dec 23, 2016 10:20:09 GMT
Oops, sorry. I meant Callum Howells above, when I referred to Alastair Brookshaw. (It's too late to edit the post above). Alastair Brookshaw came across as sly and furtive, half weasel, half squirrel, but managed to come across as a likeable human regardless, perhaps because he gave himself so totally to his "Perspective" number. Foxa, Mark Umbers' smiley face is the best smiley face.
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Post by Steve on Dec 22, 2016 14:17:15 GMT
Loved Foxa's review!!! This show is less vanilla ice cream, and more chocolate pralines and cream with caramel, a guilty moreish pleasure that had me rushing to buy tickets to see it again and as gifts! Guilty, because I see where Parsley's coming from when he says this show is "dated." The they-hate-each-other-because-they-love-each-other romantic comedy formula has been frozen in aspic since at least 1934, when Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert wittily hated on each other in the movie "It Happened One Night." Miklos Laszlo created his spin on the formula, three years later, Parfumerie, on which this musical was based. This is the sort of wish-fulfillment you'd find on a perfume box, and the show is as trivial and seductive as sweet smelling perfume, which is probably why Laszlo set it in a perfume shop. But life would be distressing (Trump, Brexit and Leonard Cohen's exit feel particularly upsetting) without trivial beautiful distractions. And for me, this show is a perfect thing. At it's core is Scarlett Strallen's Amalia, who embodies Foxa's lovely description of herself as an "intense, bookish, awkward girl." The keyword is "intense." Strallen's roiling emotions explode her eyes out of her head as if on stalks. Lost in fiction, Strallen's Amalia is so angry at an imperfect real world, especially condescending men like Mark Umber's Georg, that she simmers, a head of steam surrounding her at all times, boiling over into brilliant eruptions of emotion, like "Where's my shoe?" This is an actress who is an expert at effortless intensity! Romantic comedy movies have been dead for at least 15 years, since the heady heyday of Four Weddings/Pretty Woman/Bridget Jones ended. Musicals fill this void, and this is the best of the genre, with Strallen's Amalia Balash the most endearing romantic comedy character I've seen in ages, a stage character who really really seems to need a hug. If the focus of Strallen is the "romantic" aspect of romantic comedy, the focus of Katherine Kingsley's Ilona is the "comedy." All coiled fury, like Strallen, but with added knowingness, Kingsley is like a spiteful shark, trawling for victims. Her abrupt cockney mannerisms, and impeccable comic timing, ground Kingsley's Ilona in a cynical wisdom of the commons, yet Kingsley simultaneously suggests with micro expressions of hurt, that tenderness lies beneath her scarlet-clad powerful predatory physicality. For that reason, she is as loveable a character as Strallen's. Her songs "I Resolve" and "At Trip to the Library" are laugh riots. Mark Umbers' gentlemanly demeanour and delivery seem to emanate from another time, and coupled with Georg's chippiness, his Georg feels appropriately Cary Grant, the ideal romantic comedy protagonist. Slightly too much the gentleman, Umbers' Georg's passions need a tad more stirring, but Umber's winsome charm is a magic ingredient, for me, that lifts this show out of our gaudy present into a genuinely sparkling world of fantasy. Cory English is hysterical as the Waiter, his precise pernickety pickiness in complete contrast to the chaos of the choreography around him. I had belly laughs for his scenes, and will be interested to see how Norman Pace essays the role when he takes over later in the run. Alastair Brookshaw is youthful joy incarnate, a toothy grinning lump of geniality that supplies the sugar in his depressed boss, Maraczek's bitter crunchy pralines. Les Dennis is elemental casting as Maraczek, but if playing a depressed cuckold is a bit on-the-knuckle and Dennis' range never seems to stretch far beyond, his presence gives the show that bitter undertone that deepens the formulaic plot machinations, a tether of dark reality for this kite of a show, that poignantly we must return to when it finally stops flying. Dominic Tighe sings wonderfully as Ilona's partner and nemesis, Kodaly, but he is better at performing the caddishness she now resents than the seductive surface that must have enticed her in the first place. He needs to borrow a whisker of Umbers' charm to thoroughly convince. The songs in this show are wall to wall winners from Scene Four's "Tonight at Eight" through to "Grand Knowing You" towards the end of Act 2. That is about 15 brilliant songs in row, the best run of great songs I can think of anywhere. They are smart, witty and offbeat, spanning the grandeur of illuminating the smallness of the Earth compared to a vast Universe to the specific smallness of hunting down the location of a shoe. These are timeless lyrics, even if the romanticism of the core story is dated by it's fantasy. But this is a fantasy I have already booked to return to, and apart from "Funny Girl," I haven't done that for any show (I can think of) this year. I look forward to experiencing again Scarlet Strallen's intensity, Mark Umber's charm, Katherine Kingsley's comic timing, Sheldon Harnick's lyrics, and Jerry Bock's 15-in-a-row peerless melodies. With this moreish show, one more trip still may not be enough. 5 stars.
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Post by Steve on Dec 18, 2016 12:18:08 GMT
Saw yesterday's matinee and loved it! A feelgood triumph-of-the-underdog story, boosted by tremendous singing of tremendous songs. Some spoilers follow. . . On one level, the show makes for a terrific concert, with a programme that includes a variety of different song-types, singers and choreography, each number as dazzling as the glitter on their costumes. One reason why the show resembles a concert is the thinness of the book (remarked upon by others here), skipping through history like a join-the-dots exercise, eviscerating complexity by abandoning the aftermath of key moments. Fortunately, the complexity still lingers: the duality of Joe Aaron Reid's Curtis, a progressive pioneer in breaking down societal racism but also a cruel regressive force of patriarchy; the simultaneous attractiveness and repulsiveness of Adam J. Bernard's unpackageably wild and magnetic trouser-dropping love-cheat Jimmy Early; the degree to which ambition limits The Dreams' friendship when success is a zero-sum game. These factors work to bolster the dramatic heft of what is otherwise a by-the-numbers underdog story. Although it is by-the-numbers, Effie's story carries an iconic resonance because it is super-charged. No underdog in society being more historically disadvantaged than an overweight black woman, Effie's plight makes Elphaba's moaning about being "green," in Wicked, seem super-petty. "Dreamgirls" graces our underdog protagonist with a superpower: a voice that can break down any barrier, which crashes through skulls straight into bleeding hearts. Amber Riley embodies that superpower, which is why she is such perfect casting, and is why the audience cheer every time she comes on stage. Amber Riley is not yet an exceptional actor, her Ryan-Murphy-educated-big-gesture-acting-style not honed for subtlety. Her fellow Dreams, Liisi LaFontaine and Ibinabo Jack act her off the stage in the delicacy of their ability to express emotion. But Riley's voice doesn't seem to know that Riley's face can't act. Riley's voice has a range of expression that is majestic! She can come in with a whisper of a song, and build through every grade of emotion, crash through the barrier where you think she's at a ten, and go further until. . . well, I was in tears at the end of "And I am telling you I'm not going!" The best actor on the stage though, for me, was Adam J Bernard. He's astonishing, for his stage-swallowing charisma, for his wild yelp, for his ability to depict Jimmy Early as both a charging bull and as a timid mouse. He was so captivating that I preferred the double act of "Jimmy Early and the Dreams" to "The Dreams" alone, with "Fake Your Way to the Top" being a personal highlight. Choreographically, "Steppin' to the Bad Side" was my favourite number, starting with the martial regimentation of Joe Aaron Reid's Curtis Taylor Jr, all those men moving robotically in lockstep with him, to the way the number ended by showcasing the individualism of Adam J. Bernard's Jimmy being Jimmy. I was delighted that Tyrone Huntley, so electric in Jesus Christ Superstar, got a song, "Family," where he was able to show entirely another side to his talent, namely how tender his singing can be. Towards the end of the show, Amber Riley and Liisi LaFontaine (a wonderful singer, albeit lacking the belt of Riley) duetted on the number "Listen," and the interplay of their voices was vital and thrilling. Despite it's thin book, the underlying story here is so rich, the songs so strong, Adam J. Bernard so special, and Amber Riley so supercharged, that this show shouldn't be missed. 4 and a half stars
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Post by Steve on Dec 15, 2016 22:29:37 GMT
Great review, Steve! Made me smile ) Wondering who was playing who (as 'two rocks and a lump of jelly') in that version you've mentioned with Gatiss/Pemberton/Shearsmth Shearsmith was the lump of jelly. Gatiss bought the painting, of course, cos he's always funny when he thinks he's marvellous, Pemberton thought it was "sh*t."
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Post by Steve on Dec 15, 2016 22:00:17 GMT
Thoroughly enjoyed this tonight. The translation can't quite disguise the French origins of the play, as there are a few moments when phrases used feel wordy and unnatural, but this is thoughtful and funny throughout. Two rocks (Rufus Sewell and Paul Ritter) and a lump of jelly (Tim Key) are best friends, and have disagreements over the value of a work of art. Deep thoughts are triggered about the meaning of friendship: can two rocks be friends? Can a rock be a friend with a lump of jelly? While such thoughts wash over us, three great actors get to gradually descend into Basil Fawltys, which process delightfully fires on all cylinders from 45 minutes in. This is more effective than the only other production I have seen, with Gatiss, Pemberton and Sheersmith, as the acting here is more sincere, with zero mugging, which ironically makes the clashes between characters funnier. It also gives added fire to the Peep Show fourth wall breaking moments, when characters tell the audience what they are really thinking! Tim Key is a marvellously floppy and emotive bowl of jelly, Rufus Sewell is a marvellously hard lump of rock pretending to be a bowl of jelly, and Paul Ritter is a sterling lump of rock who simply can't help being a lump of rock. Great fun! 4 stars
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Post by Steve on Dec 15, 2016 14:16:11 GMT
Saw this last night. Absolutely brilliant, uncontrived, meaningful theatre.
While some may find the pared back drama uneventful, this for me was more impactful than the National's earlier minimally contrived dramas: "The Flick" and "Beyond Caring."
Some spoilers follow. . .
As an antidote to the by-the-numbers dramatising of most plays, "The Flick" felt fresh, involving three characters simply sweeping a cinema and living life. But for all it's exceptional characterisation, vivid observation of moment to moment interaction and authentic pace, "The Flick" was a hoary old love triangle.
In "Beyond Caring," Alexander Zeldin also opted for a meticulously slow and detailed observation of life, involving endless sweeping and factory work through the night. But he snuck in obvious contrivances to ram his points home. Janet Etuk's character not only had to sweep through the night, she had to do it with arthritic hands, constantly bullied by her unnecessarily cruel and pedantic boss, played by Luke Clarke.
In this play, Etuk and Clarke are back, but now there is nothing contrived. They are a couple, just like any couple, with two kids, the girl excitedly rehearsing her nativity play, the boy lost in a laptop. This is a world the National audience will recognise: it's them.
The couple happen to be living in temporary accommodation, Apartment 5, and each day, off stage, Luke Clarke's Dean visits the requisite Government Office to sort out permanent housing.
Next door, in Apt 6, Nick Holder's character cares for his infirm old mum, played by Anna Calder-Marshall, so he can't work. He's also off each day to the benefits office.
No doubt the National audience also have mums and sons, who would look after them, if it came to it.
The play is these two families interacting, in their shared living space, in believable, and for the most part, in apparently uncontrived ways. The details of their interactions are routine and relentlessly credible, and through small well-observed scenes, we come to know and relate to everyone in the play. For everyone, a different detail will signal the moment you are completely sucked into this world: for me, it was when Dean put up Christmas decorations to make the anonymous housing cosy for his kids. From that moment, this show upset me more than any show this year.
The lights are on in the auditorium, so in the least intrusive, most effective Brechtian way possible, we are forced to acknowledge that the characters we are watching are just like us.
The danger for a show like this one is that people who need to see it, won't. Which is why the National Dorfman is the perfect auditorium. If any space is booked in London, as a matter of rote, it's this one, where the danger of a great show selling out prompts regulars to buy tickets to every show regardless.
This isn't as entertaining or as well-characterised as "The Flick," but it's more immersive, it's more recognisable, and it's ultimately more hard hitting.
Anna Calder-Marshall as the Old Mum, Janet Etuk as the expectant Mum, Luke Clarke as the Dad, Nick Holder as the Carer and Darcey Brown as the exuberant little girl are pitch perfect.
5 stars
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Post by Steve on Dec 13, 2016 10:33:00 GMT
Dawnstar, thanks very much. Sister has booked for January. Fingers crossed.
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Post by Steve on Dec 12, 2016 18:49:56 GMT
Charming, but dramatically inert. Like Farinelli, at this same venue, it's about the quasi-spiritual value of music. Handel's music, to be precise, since half the arias sung in "Farinelli and the King" were by Handel, including Farinelli's closing number "Lascia ch'io pianga." This time, it's all about Handel's "Messiah," the writing of it, and putting it on. Where music was a matter of life and death in Farinelli, with Rylance's depressed King saved only by the music, and Farinelli's life stolen from him because of it, here everyone is just short of cash, particularly Handel, whose operas are tanking, and who needs a hit. David Horovitch's grumpy German-accented Handel is irreverent, repeatedly using the word "sheisse," Sean Campion's sly narrator, Crazy Crow (and part-time bodysnatcher. . . he needs the cash too) is equally irreverent, repeatedly using the word "fecking," and Kelly Price's singer is on the run from a scandalous past. Thus the mood and backstories contrast with the spiritual nature of the production they are all putting on. Unfortunately, the play stops at backstory, and has no story. The singing and acting are great, but this is a huge dramatic step down from Farinelli, which used it's drama to super-charge the spirituality of the singing. I was blown away by that production, but this one never added up to more than the sum of it's beautiful parts. At least I had fun imagining the Kelly Price was still playing Sister Brown in Grandage's production of "Guys and Dolls," and that Adam Cooper's Sky Masterson would rush in and rescue her from the mundanity of the dramatic construction. He didn't. 3 stars.
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Post by Steve on Dec 12, 2016 18:17:08 GMT
Dawnstar, do you know when the original cast leave this show? My sister and brother-in-law want to see them. Is it too late? Thanks in advance.
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Post by Steve on Nov 30, 2016 1:29:56 GMT
This is the story of first world war poet, Charles Hamilton Sorley. An ordinary frame contains an extraordinary portrait of an extraordinary poet. The frame is ordinary. There is something safe and staid about this. There are no fevered conversations in smoky dug-outs between panicking soldiers, on the verge of death in the trenches, which make "Journey's End" so dramatic. There is no artistic vision boldly imposed over the storytelling, like the scabrous "oh What a Lovely War." Instead, this is like late night BBC2 or Radio 4, in the way it combines a performance of Sorley's letters and Sorley's poetry, with a depiction of Sorley's parents reacting to his fate and story, with songs and music from the era. But oh what a performance this is of Sorley's poetry and letters! Alexander Knox IS Sorley. Being with him in this tiny theatre is like travelling back 101 years in a time machine, so convincing, subtle and moving is Knox's performance. Connoisseurs, of young actors giving career-defining brilliant performances, need to see this! I felt a similar frisson of discovery to when I first belly-laughed at "The Play that Goes Wrong," or to when I welled up after Cynthia Erivo collapsed in a weeping heap at the end of the overwhelming final performance of Dessa Rose, both in this same contained electric space. This is a transfer from Finborough Theatre, and I understand work has been done on this since it played there, including sending Knox to Sorley's Marlborough School to absorb the atmosphere, breathe the school's sweat, to help him transform into Sorley. Sorley was extraordinary himself. A Scot who attended a British public school, he gravitated to Europeans, and spent his gap year in Germany, where he fell in love with the Germans (albeit revulsed by the pervasive anti-semitism), only for war to break out. Then he had to kill the people he loved. Unlike Wilfred Owen, he never believed in "Dulce et decorum est," so the trenches to him were always a tragedy, a violation of a European union he believed in. He was a Remainer in an age of Brexit, 100 years ago. Overall, if the storytelling is conventional, Alexander Knox's performance makes this unmissable, and Charles Sorley's European sense of identity makes this topical. 4 and a half stars. PS: This run ends on December 3rd.
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Post by Steve on Nov 30, 2016 0:41:12 GMT
I saw this Saturday night, and loved it. Don't go if you want a narrative. There isn't one. This play is a compilation of the prose poems of Louis Jenkins, shaped by Mark Rylance into a series of vignettes, comic, downbeat and surreal. The description "pseudo-Beckett" is accurate in so far as it is about two men hanging about, who then hang about with two other people, but this didn't seem pretentious (aka pseudo) to me. Rather it is a warm, affectionate reflection of Louis Jenkin's sometimes wacky, sometimes forthright, always honest appraisal of life. Here's the most fun Jenkins poem I found on the internet, for those who want a taster: www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=97Not so long ago, Jeremy Paxman was bemoaning the death of poetry, saying that even the top-selling poetry collection today sells an unprofitably low amount of copies. He pointed out that selling 15,000 copies puts you in the top ten titles sold in a year, and he suggested that the way to rescue the delights of poetry, that Shakespeare so successfully once shared with the masses, would be to abandon poetry collections and package poetry differently. That's what this production succeeds in doing, just as "Cats" once did with TS Elliot's poems, or Dylan Thomas did with "Under Milk Wood." On seeing the set, I had deja vu, as some twenty years ago, I was part of the audience that watched the live recording of the "Ice Fishing" episode of "Frasier," in which Niles and Frasier bickered over how much Niles loved ice-fishing, and how much Frasier didn't, the two men perched over a hole in the ice. This is more surreal than Frasier, or it's parent sitcom, "Cheers," but what "Nice Fish" and "Cheers" and "Frasier" all have in common is that they depict how lovely it is when very different people are simply together, the importance of some form of community, even when there is little common ground. I liked Jim Lichtscheidl's downbeat monosyllabic Erik, who reminded me of the deadpan comedian, Steven Wright, with his downbeat take of the human condition. I loved Mark Rylance's feckless Ron, whose wired enthusiasm, which rises to vertiginal heights, is delightful in itself, but also because we anticipate the comic fall to follow. And most of all, I loved the gobby cheeriness of Kayli Carter's Flo, whose ingratiating expressions would suddenly drop away to reveal the terror, fear and emptiness concealed beneath. Yes, it's not a story, but it's far too modest, warm and affectionate to be taken as an attempt to top Beckett. And I imagine it's more likely to put a smile on your face, and less likely to leave you baffled. To me, this felt like a warm fire on a cold night. 4 stars.
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Post by Steve on Nov 14, 2016 16:33:32 GMT
Went Saturday night. This production starts up as dauntingly baffling, and ends up as excessively explanatory, but in between there is an involving mystery and distinctly offbeat humour to tickle the funny bone. Some spoilers follow. . . In the 1700s, young Maggie (Fiona Glascott) joins a sewing group, which sews in virtual silence. From the start she struggles to fit in, wanting to make conversation while others want to sew. She is a 1700s Mr Bean in her clumsy attempts to fit in. . . Audience members had no idea how to react. Is Maggie's behaviour offensive or funny? Is the silent sewing group benign or threatening? Is the audience supposed to behave like the sewing group or like Maggie? Are audience members who laugh disruptive or are they the only ones who get it? To this extent, the show is a game in which the audience are participants, and how the audience adapt to the actions and revelations of this always intriguing 1 hour and 20 minutes is as important as the content of the play itself. Not only does the play disguise it's tone, it's entire genre is slippery. Is this Beckett? Pinter? McDowell? Mischief Theatre? Having played a game with the audience for most of running time, EV Crowe rushes at the end to make everything explicit, and underestimates her audience by being a touch didactic. As with the ending of Hitchcock's Psycho, I wish this play had spelled out less. Fiona Glascott walked the wire of a character, who wants to fit in, yet is intrinsically a misfit, wonderfully. She is well-supported by the entire cast, especially by John Mackay (mostly recently seen persecuting Jack Farthing's Snowden character at Hampstead Theatre), the boss of the sewing group, precariously poised between understanding Maggie and being frustrated by her. I loved the games this production played, I found Glascott's antics relentlessly amusing, I enjoyed the discombobulation of the audience, and the play left me with plenty to muse about. 3 and a half stars
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Post by Steve on Nov 14, 2016 15:38:37 GMT
Is it possible to argue Trump isn't a racist?
(1) Trump was twice successfully sued by the federal government for racially discriminating against black people living in his properties. He could argue that society's racism, at the time, meant that allowing black people into his properties would have reduced their value. So society, not he, was racist;
(2) Trump refers to black people as a mass, as in "the blacks." He could argue it's just a semantic slip, and he really doesn't group all black people together as the same;
(3) Trump felt that a Judge, born in Indiana, was unqualified to hear his Trump University lawsuit because he was "Mexican." Trump could argue that he thinks all people of all backgrounds are incapable of exercising fair judgement, except over someone of the exact same background;
(4) Trump suggested that Mexican Immigrants to the US numbered more "rapists" and "criminals" than in an ordinary population sample. He could assert that he generally believes that immigrants of ALL backgrounds tend to include rapists, ie that rapists are more likely to emigrate than non-rapists;
(5) Trump claimed Obama was born in Africa and a Muslim. Trump could claim that he would accuse any politician of being Muslim and African, and not only black politicians.
(6) Trump said "If Black Lives matter, go back to Africa." Ok, I've had enough, I'm not defending this racist Pr**k any more!
NB: This doesn't mean voters are racist, of course, because it is not wrong to vote for a racist if you believe the alternative is worse.
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Post by Steve on Nov 9, 2016 8:59:41 GMT
The Americans wanted change. Even if that meant electing a great big ignorant divisive racist sexist impulsive baby, prone to lying every time he opens his mouth. It seems that any candidate using the phrase "making America great again" always wins, even if they offer the exact opposite. I'd join Mark Twain in laughing at the human susceptibility to hucksterism, if this wasn't such a hellishly regressive moment for the world. What fear-based, other-demonising nonsense comes next? If everything comes in threes, please protect me from what comes after Brexit and Trump!
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Post by Steve on Nov 9, 2016 0:52:51 GMT
For me, this is wonderful. Some spoilers follow. . . Some things about this show I've liked for a decade: the luscious musicality, the Sondheimesque freeform lyrics, and, especially, the way it wraps up history like a present, with the outer wrapping of "The last 5 Years" enclosing the pivotal central moment of "The Next 10 Minutes," a shrunken perfect moment of time that represents the purest love at the heart of the piece. Originally, I took against what I perceived as shallow characterisations of shallow characters. This was the story of a peacock and a doormat, the former priapically obsessed with his own potency, the second defining herself only in relation to a man. He was unlikeable, she was uninteresting. In the film, Anna Kendrick brought so much sensitivity and heart to her part, as the doormat, that I changed my mind about her character, Cathy. I began to see her as someone who could speak for the doormat in all of us. But I still hated her wretched partner, the smug shallow peacock, who gleefully dismissed partners for their ethnicity, and who seemed singularly focused on himself. Then I saw Jonathan Bailey in this, and I was won over. Sure, he's shallow and egotistical, but he's funny too, and wistful, and well-intentioned. Bailey's "Shmuel Song" has many facets to it, but above all, he is playful in the part, magnetically funny: I loved him. Just as Cathy represents the doormat in us, Jamie represents the dork in us, and together they represent the dreamer in us. Samantha Barks was equally fabulous, as sensitive as Anna Kendrick was in the movie, eeking out Cathy's every tentative hope, bleeding emotion from every springy elasticated lyric. I welled up. This is a touching production of an exceptional show. The weaknesses in the characters, that I had previously perceived as weaknesses in the show, are in fact the production's greatest strength. We can all be flawed: egotists and doormats, shallow and whatnot, but we still deserve those ten perfect minutes of love regardless. This show embraces the imperfections of people. In my experience of the last ten years of this show, the last ninety minutes were what made it worthwhile. 5 stars
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Post by Steve on Nov 9, 2016 0:08:17 GMT
The comedienne, Samantha Bee, makes a wonderful (and funny) case why Hillary Clinton comes across as "inauthentic." It's because she was forced to be, by Southern Conservatism (aka The Patriarchy), obviously: I admire her tenacity, and I hope she wins. The racist, misogynist, divisive, narcissistic alternative is unfathomably awful.
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Post by Steve on Nov 3, 2016 0:18:47 GMT
Saw this tonight, and was left cold by some of it, but loved most of it. There is a villain-shaped hole in the production, partly due to the Brechtian staging, which unbalances the play. For me, Brechtian distancing techniques, designed to reduce audience emotion in favour of promoting an activist political response, work best if the production is actually saying something specific and topical. For example, the Jonathan Church/Henry Goodman production of Brecht's own Arturo Ui brilliantly skewered the pathetic powermongering pettiness of our politics, and with the dawn of Trump, Goodman's clown of a fascist would be even more chilling and funny today. By contrast, this production offers no singular vision of Lear, no topical commentary, no reason for deliberately distancing the audience from our natural emotional response. Some spoilers follow. . . The bright white boards, the generic bright lights that defocused the action, the surtitles delineating the Act and the Scene, the modern costumes, the words on costumes, the chairs, the modern masks, the use of multiple accents, the use of spectacles as a prop, all this served to reduce the impact of the acting for no discernible reason. There were no placards directing our thoughts, no costumes that pointed to specific topical concerns, no ideas directed at our defocused and distanced minds to make the Brechtian approach worthwhile. I have never felt so little in some of the most horrific scenes in this play, and bar having a laugh at an eyeball tossed into the audience, I couldn't find much profit in the reduction of the impact of important moments. The villains suffered most (with the exception of Danny Webb's Cornwall), and of the villains, Simon Manyonda's Edmond, typically a key character, felt trivial. His characterisation was neither emotive nor sociopathically cold, but occupied a strange, tepid and silly middle ground, involving some unenthusiastic masturbation. The principal protagonists, Lear, Gloucester, Kent, Edgar, Cordelia and Albany were all wonderful. Terrific acting overcame Brechtian obstacles, and when Deborah Warner chose, she removed those obstacles, covering the white boards to create a spectacular storm amidst a scary and sudden darkness, which multiplied the effect of the great performances to a gripping degree. As a rule, I found the show dramatically effective in direct proportion to the degree the white boards were hidden away. Glenda Jackson's Lear was exceptional, reminding me of McKellen's Lear, though less noble and more anguished. Like McKellen, Jackson's face has an lightning rubbery responsiveness to whatever she is thinking. Like McKellen, her eyes are hugely expressive moment to moment. Also great were Sargon Yelda's Kent's beautiful diction, Harry Melling's Edgar's off-the-wall expressiveness, Karl Johnson's impassioned and vulnerable Gloucester and William Chubb's sensitive Albany. I really enjoyed this, but it would have been emotionally devastating if the sets and costumes and direction had been in sync with the performances. Perhaps I should be grateful it wasn't, but I have no idea what it was about Lear that Deborah Warner wanted me to learn, that merited her distancing me from her production. 3 and a half stars
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Post by Steve on Oct 24, 2016 23:27:33 GMT
An ebullient Lloyd Webber referred to the fact that the dress rehearsal went well at the start of the show tonight, when he took to the stage with director, Laurence Connor, for the customary "please be gentle with us, it's the first show" speech, but instead he told us he wouldn't make that speech precisely because the dress rehearsal went smoothly. Instead, he took the opportunity to point out that the kids really play their instruments, which comment was primed to enhance the enjoyment of suspicious types, who would otherwise sit there all night musing that kids couldn't possibly be playing this well. The kids' musical proficiency and exuberance certainly went down well with kids in the audience, as I heard at least a couple of young ones enthuse to their beaming dad that this was the "best show" they had "ever seen." It wasn't the best show I've ever seen, but it was an excellent one nonetheless, rousing and mindlessly entertaining in the manner of Kinky Boots, a sort of Kinky Boots for the young and the young-at-heart, with drag queens replaced by bouncing children and glam replaced by rock. At first I was worried. A fan of the film, and a fan of rock in general, I found the general absence of rock for the first half of the first half dispiriting. Where the film had Jack Black belting out Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," this show had only a couple of Viking wails, followed by a prompt change of song. Where the film had Jack Black's wired enthusiasm for rock's transformative power, this show had a general lethargy to it's opening scenes, with the hardest rock in the first quarter being Mozart's "Queen of the Night" aria. And David Fynn lacked Black's comic precision. Fynn is, however, a better actor than Black, with a more believable and naturalistic stage presence. And while I didn't immediately appreciate this, over the course of the evening, his loveable slob of a character grew on me exponentially. In the second half of the first act, the musical finally earned it's moniker, as the rock classes got under way. Songs like "You're in the band," "If only you would listen," and the twice reprised "In the End of Time" and "Stick it to the Man" really up the ante in the rock stakes, as our lethargic lead turns into an energiser bunny in the presence of his bouncing rock tot students, who sing and bounce their hearts out, as well as play instruments, as only multi-hyphenate students of the Sylvia Young and Italia Conti Schools can. Earning Most Valuable Player status in the "they're so small but how do they do that" stakes were Toby Lee as Zack, on lead guitar, who got the most raucous cheers for his crazy finger-picking, Amma Ris as Tomika on vocals, who got "oohs" and "ahs" for her powerful warm tone, and Isabelle Methven, as Summer, who did the most precocious acting. The most typical Andrew Lloyd Webber moment of the night came when the wonderful Florence Andrews, as quirky School Principal, Rosalie Mullins, gave heartfelt tender expression to his sentimental and touching song, "Where did the Rock go?" If Florence Andrews is ever off, I see she is covered by the talented Rosanna Hyland, whose comic quirkiness and fulsome singing, are otherwise totally wasted in a nothing ensemble role. By the end of the night, David Fynn fully inhabited the role of Dewey Finn (can their names really be so similar?), and I thoroughly enjoyed his rock antics with the ensemble of fired-up kids for the last few songs. I can't claim that any dramatic moments really hit home in this show, bar that one Florence Andrews moment, but the let-your-hair-down-and-be-silly rock numbers are infectious, and engendered a standing ovation at the end. Fun! 4 stars
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Post by Steve on Oct 2, 2016 12:29:24 GMT
Saw this Saturday night, and liked it alot. Could have loved it, if it were more wild! It's a deliberately lurid story that needs to be unhinged in it's telling, especially as the narrator's presence alerts us to the fact that it is also ABOUT the process of telling lurid stories, how the audience revels in the story's exploitational elements, the sex and the violence. From the first number, "Murder Ballad," we are told it's a love triangle, and someone is going to die. I didn't know who dies, or how they die, going in, but I was primed for a coy there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-go-I rollercoaster ride of attraction and anihilation, and to a great degree, I got it, from a well-told yet predictable story, which has a surprisingly terrific payoff. I absolutely got it from Victoria Hamilton-Barritt, who is the undoubted star of this show. Hamilton-Barritt has a coiled unhinged huskiness, that suggests she's holding back bullets, even as she subtly and tenderly circles dark and dangerous emotions in her singing. She is like a gun that ever-threatens to go off, and that is what the whole production needs to be. My highlight of the evening was Hamilton-Barritt's explosive rendition of "Clubs and Diamonds," towards the end. That this production just misses the headiest heights that the show is capable of, at Saturday night's preview anyway, is mostly down to Kerry Ellis' inability to fully connect with her inner bad girl. Her singing is exquisite in it's nightingale fullness (noone sings a better "Born Free") and has a Mary Poppins preciseness, a tad too precise in fact to threaten the night of insanity this musical calls for. Her casting, of course, is the only reason we have this production at all, as Soundcheck Productions was formed to find projects for Kerry Ellis, and this role is undoubtedly an attempt to stretch her acting chops, an attempt which she somewhat succeeds at, though she never comes close to conveying the aura of danger that surrounds the delivery of Victoria Hamilton-Barritt. Ramin Karimloo looks dangerous, as the bad boy in the threesome, and has an endearingly tender core, revealed by his rangy delivery of the love ballad "Sara," which was another highlight. He just needs to add a soupcon of unpredictable craziness, and he'll be where he needs to be. Norman Bowman is pitch perfect as the good boy, Michael, fully inhabiting ever aspect of the character's civility and tenderness, but also blazing in his worm-turned searing jealousy, when he finds himself with a love rival. He rocks with hard hate in the hardest rock song of the night, the reprise of "You Belong to Me," which in fact features excellent on-point hard rock angst from all 4 performers, in one of the most rousing songs of the night. This is a good show, but is shy of being great, as it needs to simmer twenty degrees hotter! When it ended, I immediately wanted to hear it again, but if I go again, I will venture to see if Natalie McQueen raises the temperature on the part of Sara at the Friday Matinee, and hope that the whole show comes to a boil harder and faster. Everything about this show should take it's cue from the scorching magnificence of Victoria Hamilton-Barritt! 4 stars
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Post by Steve on Sept 30, 2016 0:52:34 GMT
I went to this, loved it, and found it built my anticipation for a couple of upcoming projects. Sadly Julian Ovenden couldn't make it, but Michael Saviour xaved the day! You could tell he came in at the last minute, not because his performance was in any way under-rehearsed (he was his usual charming, sometimes sensitive, sometimes cock-of-the-walk, self), but because he got a shabby introduction from the Royal Philharmonic Conductor, who introduced him as the man who "played Joe Gillis opposite Petula Clark at ENO." I almost choked, realising that the Petula Clark in question was "Petula Glenn Close Clark," who usually refers to herself as neither "Petula" nor "Clark." I recall Xavier beautifully duetting on "People will think we're in love," and soloing on "Oh What a Beautiful Morning," "Younger than Springtime" and "Edelweiss," but it was Xavier's solo rendition of "Some Enchanted Evening" that I can't forget, wishing it to go on forever, so smooth and charming and gentle was his build, and so swooningly romantic the payoff. But it wasn't Xavier that had me thinking about upcoming projects, since delightfully, he's in everything anyway. The shows I had in mind were "Side Show" at Southwark Playhouse, with Louise Dearman, and "Rent" at St. James Theatre, with Ryan O'Gorman. Dearman was cheekily chirpy in her tongue-in-cheek rendition of "I Enjoy being a Girl," wistful delivering "So Far," driven and fun singing "My Favourite Things," but it was the sheer scope of her romanticism of "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy" that has stayed with me. Now, I can't wait for "Side Show." O'Gorman's epic deep barritone filled his "Lonely Room" with passion, and provided a perfect foil to Emma Kingston's sweet soprano for "My Lord and Master," yet it was his performance of the unremarkable Allegro number, "A Fella Needs a Girl," that really demonstrated that O'Gorman can magically turn a mediocre song into a showstopper. It was SO MUCH more rousing and storming than the version of that same song in Southwark's recent production. Had O'Gorman been at Southwark, he would have made the audience weep, or alternately, wake up. Emma Kingston was my favourite Vanessa in London's "In the Heights," on account of the warmth of tone of her soprano voice, so it was lovely, when after the orchestra played that famous intro, it was her scaling sweetness that brought the raked hills of seats of the Royal Festival Hall wonderfully alive to "the Sound of Music." The evening climaxed to a quartet of voices, performing "You'll never walk alone" together, reprised immediately for an encore, as it appeared the performers had not actually prepared a specific encore number, (nor had organisers prepared to memorialise the evening by printing a programme, for that matter) though the audience demanded one. Still, this suited me, as this song is truly one of my favourite things, and with Ryan O'Gorman's bass flowing directly into Michael Xavier's tenor, which then floated into the clouds of the duetting sopranos of Emma Kingston and Louise Dearman, it was utterly lubricious and luscious, soaring and sentimental, and I squeezed a tear out, or two, before checking my diary to make sure I was booked for "Side Show" and "Rent."
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Post by Steve on Sept 29, 2016 23:49:30 GMT
If Stone had given Yerma a rounder, richer life from the beginning, this would be a two-hour-plus drama of profound humanity with an utterly devastating ending, but as it is it’s a slight 1hr45 study of an over-simplified protagonist given far more depth than she deserves by a wonderful, wonderful central knock-out performance. Fantastic review, Nicholas! I made it to the last show, and I was overwhelmed by it. I agree that if you use your brain, the characterisation comes off as thin and one-note, but for me, this is essentially a primal howl, so I preferred to throw my brain out the window. If you think about it, of course Yerma's offhand dismissal of adoption is ridiculous, and her goal of having a genetic child shouldn't isn't logically the be-all-and-end-all of life. If producing a mini-me is the only goal of me, then life is intrinsically pointless, after all. But biology isn't about rationality, and the play captures her irrationality, and descent into mental illness, as a slow inevitable march into biological hell over 9 years or so, that reaches such a fever pitch of intensity that I found this magnificent and unforgettable. It's all been said about how brilliant Billie Piper is in this, so I will focus on one specific thing I loved, which was how playful her performance was, from beginning to end. At first, she's effervescently playful, then she's quizzically playful, then sardonically playful, then bitterly playful, then bonkers playful, and only at the very very end does the playfulness end, and we get Yerma's pure unadulterated scream of agony. It's that moment the play drops out of Piper's performance that it kicked me so hard in the gut! A brilliant play, burying it's primal scream in an otherwise recognisable and topical milieu, with the best performance of the year from Piper, and excellent support from Brendan Cowell! 4 and a half stars.
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Post by Steve on Sept 23, 2016 17:02:51 GMT
I didn't pick that up at all. I remember the line, but didn't read anything into it. Interesting. Me neither, too subtle for me. How did it reference the TV show? I'm doubting myself now lol, but here is what I remember: We are introduced to chatty Kathy's fetish for "Over the Rainbow" in her first rendition of "An Organised Life," in which she enthuses about decorating huge rainbows made out of chicken wire, her other fetish. She is chastised for the theme, on the grounds that it doesn't suit a football party. Later, in the show, I think in the book, the girls reminisce about "Over the Rainbow," but instead of Joanne and Mary rolling their eyes at Kathy, it is Kathy and Joanne who roll their eyes at Mary (Lauren Samuels, isolated on stage left), and they stage a big pause of a moment, staring at Mary until the audience laughs, except, the laugh can't be at Mary's expense, since "Over the Rainbow" was Kathy's thing, thus, the laugh must be a meta-easter-egg-of-a-joke at Lauren Samuels, a cheeky reminder at her having appeared in the "Over the Rainbow" tv show. Regardless of whether I'm right or wrong, I'm stocking up on chicken wire at B & Q to make my own rainbows.
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Post by Steve on Sept 21, 2016 23:07:15 GMT
Saw this tonight, and absolutely LOVED it! I agree with everything Mallardo said, although perhaps I don't rate the book quite as highly. For me, it's a three star book, with 4 star music and lyrics, and an unmissable 5 star cast. The book trades in archetypes rather than fully realised characters, and certainly isn't as nuanced in it's depiction of the friendship and journey of three women through life, as, say, "Di, Viv and Rose." Nonetheless, I enjoyed this MUCH more than the aforementioned play, as the music and lyrics here are terrific, perfectly pitched between sincerity and camp, transparently aware of the limitations of the archetypes (reactionary, rebel, and control freak), exaggerating those archetypes for comic effect, yet completely sincere about the underlying sentiments of the characters. The reprised numbers, "Mystery" (sung 4 times with variations) and "An Organised Life" (sung three times, with variations) excellently sum up and structure the themes and progression of the characters over time. It is the perfectly cast performers who make this unmissable, however:- Lizzy Connolly has been amusing in her previous West End roles, but heretofore, only her fringe stints in "Jest End" and as the mischievous Calliope in "Xanadu" suggested how laugh-out-loud funny her comic timing and comic exaggerations can be. This is her breakout role, in which she takes an insufferable reactionary archetype of a lead character, Joanne, and alchemically turns her every smallminded utterance into hilarious oneliners. Her solo number, "The Same Old Music," in which she gets rolling drunk, uber judgmental, and heartbreakingly vulnerable, by subtlely incremental degrees, is an absolute tour de force, and had me belly laughing uncontrollably. Ashleigh Gray is astonishing in a different way. Her voice is like a caress. Even singing toe-curlingly awful lyrics about "cute boys with short haircuts," in her own solo, which she is compelled to dumbly repeat one too many times, she broke my heart, with her slow build of passion, and ability to stretch and deepen every sentiment of the song. If a song makes you cry, Ashleigh Gray and her magic voice will make you cry harder. Lauren Samuels was cleverly made the butt of a meta joke about her stint in the "Over the Rainbow" tv show, which flowed naturally from a reference in the musical's lyrics. But somehow, this joke felt unfair, given how far she has come since that tv show. Her ability to embody glacial bitterness, while simultaneously sympathetically suggesting how that ugliness stemmed from a tortured childhood, won me over completely. It's a seriously good dramatic performance, and her schizophrenic turns from ugliness to hope and back again, were beautifully embodied in her rendition of her solo, "Fly into the Future." Overall, due to the limited scope of the book, this production was more simplistic and silly than it could have been, but thanks to some apropos songs, that play on multiple levels (comic, dramatic, meta) and thanks to the best casting of a musical all year, this is one musical that afficionados of musicals should NOT miss! 4 and a half stars.
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Post by Steve on Sept 17, 2016 7:55:16 GMT
Has anyone ever seen Oliver Ryan as Faustus, apart from press nights, it seems like it is set up for Grierson to be Faustus on most nights. I saw Ryan as Faustus. From my one-time anecdotal observation of the match lighting, which supposedly beckons blind fate to choose the winner (the longer burning match plays the bigger and better part of Faustus), this is a competition that Grierson is better at. Grierson held his match almost horizontally, and it burned weakly, exceedingly slowly, whereas Ryan held his match at 45 degrees, and it burned so fast and so furiously that an enormous flame almost scorched his fingers. It was an unexpected twist that Grierson infinitesimally overplayed his strategy of maintaining a slow burn rate, when his feeble flame unexpectedly burned itself out half way down his stick, less than a second before his inevitable victory. This resulted in a typecasting that worked well for the play. Ryan's lived-in face suggests the weatherbeaten look of a man who plunges headfirst and hungrily forward, like his match flame and Faustus himself, and gets repeatedly beaten about the face by life's punches. By contrast, the taller graceful Grierson's unspoiled smooth facial features have the silky sophistication of a Bond villain who has found a way to sneakily slide through life, placing his vicissitudes squarely on the shoulders of others. Ryan's recklessness in his match-burning strategy appeared to inform his subsequent performance, which was one of unabashed abandon. Ryan's Faustus is like a rollicking rollercoaster, without a landing platform, wherein even his vacillations about his deal with Mephistophilis appear as the doomed highs of the rollercoaster car before the inevitable dips ahead. Not once do we really doubt that Ryan's hunger for experience will ebb sufficiently to give him genuine pause in his riotous plunge to doom. Personally, I found Kit Harrington's suicidally static Faustus far more intrinsically interesting than Ryan's blazing bullet of a man, but there is no doubt that this production is the more viscerally exciting of the two, and that is down to Ryan's unstoppable momentum. There is one moment, involving his encounter with Jade Croot's virginally youthful and desperately innocent Helen of Troy, that smacks the audience in the face with the sheer eerie horror of what a hungry careening unconsidered life can mean when it collides with the life and experience of another person. Shocking, meaningful and memorable. All the while, Grierson's smarmy sly brilliant Mephistophilis slimes and oozes his way through oiling the tracks, of Faustus' headlong plunge into hell, with easy grace and the slightest trace of a smirk. I very much enjoyed the somewhat simplistic typecasting of Ryan as Faustus, just as I once enjoyed the equally obvious typecasting of Cumberbatch as a cold uber-intelligent Frankenstein (which role, when played by the more warm and gentle Jonny Lee Miller just did not work at all, Miller being more sympathetic as the much maligned Creature). However, I will not see Grierson in the Faustus role, so unlike in the Cumberbatch-Miller case, I can't assess the ramifications and rewards in this production of seeing the actors play against their types. 4 stars from me.
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1,227 posts
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Post by Steve on Jul 24, 2016 15:43:43 GMT
Really? I'd heard Bernie was extreme left-wing. I imagine Hillary would be Conservative or Lib Dem, but I reckon Bernie would be Labour. If the Democrats were to take part in an election in Europe as they are, they'd be considered centre-right, and the Republicans far right. If one of our European left/centre-left parties were to compete in an election in the US, they'd be decried as socialist or even communist. That is true. Bernie Sanders is an exception though. He is on the left, even by our standards. He only joined the Democrats officially last year, having been a socialist independent for years previously.
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