Ugly lies the bone - National Theatre

Ralf Pissin Little! He's the Bobby Davro of the acting community!
Is the play any good do we know?

Meh, what are forums for if not to tell u how to live ur life?

A bit harsh, I can't stand Two Pints of Lager, and he was just OK in The Royle Family, but I thought he was rather good in Dead Funny (apart from the Benny Hill/Chinaman bit).

Anyone see the first preview last night?

I saw it and, as they say, am still processing it. First of all it is a truly astonishing performance (if one can even use that term - such was the reality of it) from Kate Fleetwood. She plays Jess, a horribly wounded veteran of three tours in Afghanistan who has returned to her home town on Cape Canaveral, Florida, after 14 months in a military hospital. Her face is badly disfigured, her body holds so many wounds and fractures that she gets around only with the greatest difficulty via twists and contortions - she uses a walker. She is in constant pain.

To deal with that pain she is undergoing a sort of experimental Virtual Reality treatment and much of the play is given over to this. She is in a kind of cyclorama being guided by a disembodied voice as CGI images of a fantasy landscape materialize and morph around her. The big Lyttleton stage is ideal for this and used to its full capacity. The idea behind the experiment is that the mind is so involved in this constantly created landscape that it has no time for the pain. It seems to work and, one gathers from the programme, this is all in fact true. Pain IS being treated this way.

The main body of the play though is in the quotidian world of a small Florida community suffering from its own brand of pain - the Space Shuttle programme is closing down and this once booming area is quickly becoming a depressed ghost town. So one is kind of a metaphor for the other.  But it's not as blatant as that. Playwright Lindsey Ferrentino is very skilled at her craft and keeps the focus firmly on Jess and the three other people who now share her life.

If the subject is grim the play itself is not. It's full of humour - Jess is a sardonic wise-cracker who never resorts to self-pity, never bemoans her fate. Her sister, Kacie, (Olivia Darnley - wonderful) is a bit scattered and a bit overly solicitous but she rises entertainingly to the occasion when the occasion calls for it. The two men, Kris Marshall (hilarious) as Kacie's super-positive boyfriend and Ralf Little (convincingly confused) as Jess's wary ex are both expertly drawn and enliven things whenever they appear. The town scenes and the VR scenes transition beautifully in Indhu Rubasingham's slick production which went off without a hitch in its first outing.

But in the end it's all about Kate Fleetwood and no words of praise can do her justice. She is so fully invested in Jess that lines of separation just fade away. We care so much for her and about her that - and here's the rub - we desperately want her situation to have a resolution which, of course, is not entirely possible.

At the final curtain the audience's response was loud and vociferous but the cast took only a brief bow and trooped off, even though we all kept applauding. If ever an actress deserved a solo bow it's Kate Fleetwood in this. Let's hope they arrange for her to get one.

Thanks mallardo . I'm hoping to get tickets when booking re-opens tomorrow. Do you think the CGI stuff would be annoying to those of us who are technophobes? I think from your review it's right up my alley, apart from that!

Looking forward to reading your thoughts Marwood .

^Thanks mallardo . Technology bores me rigid and I don't even really understand what CGI is, but somehow everything about this looks intriguing. One of the young Tibidabos has a long-term dream to go into plastics (burns, not boobs) and this is right up her street as she loves her serious drama too!

Thanks for the review. I think you may have sold it!

The programme says 90 minutes but it ran 100 minutes last night - no interval.

Hooray, as the NT website still didn't have the running time when I last checked this morning. I booked for PN as that's 30 minutes earlier, so the combination of a 7 pm start and a running time of 90 - 100 minutes should enable me to stay awake AND reach home before I turn into a pumpkin.

Hope you make it, Marwood - as if some TOCs aren't bad enough without bad weather adding to the disruption. I'd probably set out earlier in case the journey took longer, but not everyone has that option and there's something to be said for your hope that if you wait, things will have calmed down.

Thanks Monkey. I'll pack my blow-up cushion in my handbag just in case!  Booked for April 1st.  Really looking forward to it.

ETA - just kidding about the cushion - I take a big coat and fold it up to gain extra inches.