Juno and the Paycock w/ Mark Rylance - Gielgud

I may need an eye test as I clearly wasn’t reading the reviews closely enough!

As others have stated, I think the main let down appears to be amongst the leads. Overall the production was great and the audience seemed to love it, especially the Irish audience members around us, We were front row and I think as another review stated, J Cameron seems to be the reason the production doesn't fly. I agree that she seemed to concentrate more on the accent than act, she didn't look entirely comfortable being on stage and the performance needed to be bigger. I think wrong play for her, would be better in something more naturalistic or American I think. She's great on screen but was the weak point. All the cast were good though - and the seats were a bargain for a Saturday

I must say I was reluctant to pass comment on any of the others.  As I said in my first comment, I couldn't actually think of any compensatory virtues in the production but I feel compelled to add now that I'd think it unfair to blame Smith-Cameron or anyone else because, with Rylance hamming it up for cheap laughs, it's hard to know what anyone else could have done to restore balance.  

My first thought when I heard about this project was that Rylance would be perfect for Joxer - a sly, self-serving user - rather than the pompous, self-deluding Jack.  Even before the detailed casting was announced, though, I knew that Sir Mark wouldn't be anything but the male lead.  And I'd always liked him so I booked on the expectation that he'd do his character justice.  Having seen the production, though, I'm even more inclined to think Joxer would have suited him better if he wanted to be a character who seemed to be outside the main group.  Just a thought.

You will be well placed maybe then

To spread the word in the relevant communities then

The box office are going to need all the help they can get

Sales are dire and the reviews are not going to shift the unsold tickets

I saw this recently. I was not going to post as I did not enjoy it but just want to say that as an Irish person I found this a cringe fest that portrayed every Irish stereotype going. The cast has some well known and established Irish names in it so it was disappointing to see this was the route the production went down. I wouldn’t recommend.

Luckily Oliver! is coming in December.

Although much of 'Mrs Brown's Boys' is awful (and got worse and unwatchable as the series went on), there were also moments of brilliance that reminded me of O'Casey in the whiplash shift from bleak to comic:

They certainly seem to be split on Rylance. For all the comparisons with Mrs Brown's Boys, you also have

"flashes of boozy brilliance" (Telegraph)
"dominant" and "imperious" (London Theatre)
"delightfully Chaplin-esque" and "charisma(tic)" (The Guardian)
"shamelessly twinkling, drawing us in with a knowing side-eye" (The Arts Desk)
"brilliantly, bizarrely funny - an auteur" (TimeOut)
"A riveting focal point... a wholly committed performance" (The Stage)
"jittery comedic delivery,reminiscent of a modern day Charlie Chaplin" (London Box Office Reviews)

Whereas in truth, it's a massively self-indulgent and selfish performance. He spends the entire time trying to pull focus and doesn't pay his colleagues the courtesy of even looking at them for the vast majority of the time. Everything is played out front whilst the rest of the cast attempt to act with some kind of naturalism. Just horrible.

That does sound horrible - I (genuinely) wonder if he modified his performance a bit over the run so far. The one I saw Saturday imo wasn’t as over the top as this. Yes more audience interaction than I expected but his relationship with Juno felt authentic as it progressed to the latter stages.

I think there's a big difference between a selfish and horrible character and a selfish and horrible performance... 

It's been a while now since she's transferred anything from the Gate or anywhere else in Dublin.