Mary Stuart - Almeida / Tour

Oh Joshua James - guessing that he joined for the extension week. Would be interesting to see when Lia Williams is playing Elizabeth. Does anyone know if they have ever appeared in anything together before?

I've seen the show 3 times, I've never not once heard the set make a single squeaking sound. Not once.

I think it's because that's how I imagined the pairing to be. Juliet just seems more Elizabeth-like to me. Betty is also the better part of the two for my money - there's a bit more complexity to it. Lia Williams often leaves me a little cold so I'd have probably been a bit disappointed if I'd seen her with the meatier part. Granted though, she did seem lovely at the bows and she did improve once she stopped waving her arms around all over the place in the first half.

I've seen it both ways and I slightly preferred it like that, too.

You'd be the worst usher since Rupert Everett was an usher at the Warehouse for McKellen's Macbeth.

Saw this this evening and enjoyed enormously, I went with a soprano friend who is preparing Donizetti's opera based on the play which she is singing in Klagenfurt later this year as Maria Stuarda and she found it hugely useful.

I was very pleased to have Juliet Stevenson as Mary. It wasn't until after the coin toss that I realised that this was the casting I'd been hoping for (and I'd not checked the Almeida twitter feed so didn't know what was going to happen this being a two show day) and I found the beauty of her voice and the emotional honesty and vulnerability of her performance really compelling. The restrained hauteur and anger that arose in the confrontation with Elizabeth was astonishingly vivid and the translation works with the age difference (not historical) by emphasising that Mary's years in prison have aged her. She also captured Mary's relinquishing of the material world with what I can only describe as a spiritual fervour at the end. It was very moving.

Lia Williams was terrific too, increasingly nervy as Elizabeth (why did the screens say Elizabeth 1 at the end? There hadn't been any other Elizabeth on the throne before then as a reigning monarch) and capturing the peevish insecurity as well as an unexpected sensuality.

The supporting cast was mostly excellent. I particularly enjoyed Vincent Franklin as Burleigh and Rhudi Dharmalingam's charismatic turn as Mortimer, although John Light's projection as Leicester came and went and Carmen Munroe's Kennedy was frequently inaudible and seemed to stumble badly at the start. Wasn't over convinced by Melville as female either. "I am a priest" didn't ring true I in this particular historical context (and yes I appreciate the staging was updated).

The play remains a wonder, Schiller using historical events (as did Shakespeare) to explore ideas of political manipulation, historical record (history being written up after the event by the winners) and gender identity that seem extraordinarily modern, although I think there may have been some tweaks in the translation used. I will dig out my old OUP and reread to see how many of the more contemporary resonances are in fact there.

Certainly didn't seem long but was surprised, especially given that this was the last night of an run that was extended, how perfunctory the curtain call was. The audience obviously wished to express further and deeper appreciation to the cast but after one bow that was it. Great evening though :-)

I have never sat in the circle so am only commenting on stalls. There are £10 seats in the side blocks, where the angle can contribute to the visibility (or not), and the central block, where they're behind pillars. If you're in row F, there'll only be one pillar ahead. Further back, you run the risk of multiples. All the pillars are thin enough that they rarely obstruct anything important, and if they do it's not for long. A few of the seats are hardly behind pillars at all, but I don't have a list to hand. The £18 seats, presumably, are the same basic story as the £10 seats but with better visibility?

See Everett's first autobiography "Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins". As a jaw-dropper it is rivalled only by the Bob Monkhouse autobiography. There is also a strangely touching I glimpse into the home life of the great man when Everett finally succeeds in getting picked up by McKellen. Everett's efforts as an usher for Macbeth are eclipsed by his contribution to the Alan Howard Coriolanus.

I normally go for one of the £18 ones in Row G - the pillar is in view, two rows in front, but at only blocks the very edge of the stage so you don't really miss anything. I'd assume the pairs of £18 seats in H are similar.

Excellent news !

Great news! I loved it at the Almeida.