Ugly lies the bone - National Theatre

Saw this last night. Have to say it didn't quite hit the spot for me. It was good, but not great. All the cast were very good and I thought the characters were nicely realised. But it was just too fragmented for my liking and seemed like it was jumping around too much. I agree with the above that it's at its best in the scenes between Fleetwood and Little, but even those scenes just felt like they ended before they really got going. Loved Devlin's designs for it and there are some nice transitions near the start - this is a really nice example of set design and projection coming together as one.

If anyone is interested, I've popped full thoughts up on the blog: westendwanderer.com/2017/02/25/review-ugly-lies-the-bone-national-theatre-london/

Cheers

Have to side with Ade and bellboard27 in not liking this tonight. It started promisingly enough, with a different type of set from Es Devlin (looks a bit like the inside of an inverted Death Star with 3hours hindsight), and nice video projections on top of it.

But the play itself is weak. A balancing of niceties, and never any real drama or propulsion in making us the audience meet these characters, who seem to be suffering slightly at one minute, then laughing along with life the next. But neither at any extreme at any point. My friend and I both came out saying we didn't really care, which isn't a good sign, and not the expected outcome of an evening about a soldier returning from the wars with such horrific injuries.

Fleetwood acquits herself well, with obvious attention to detail, especially in the movement. But Ralph Little gives her little (oops) to work with, but then it's a fairly lukewarm and thankless part. Kris Marshall is fine, but plods along. And I have to agree with whomever said Olivia Darnley was bad. She shouted everything. Maybe she had been given a note about not being heard, but they're all mic'd up, as is the way these days at the NT, so why the bellowing? She is a good actress normally, but here, awful. Like something out of a 50's set American musical

Left wishing the writer had been braver and gone deeper and more truthful with her presentation of these people in this situation. As it is, it's almost a nice evening out, that bores its audience gradually over 90minutes. And you don't even need to see it for the set, as the production photos will do that for you. A shame.

Well. I don't know if it was the play or the insanely large glass of Merlot washed down with a Double Decker but I found myself tearing up at a few moments in this play. It looks great, it's a bit funny, it's a lot sentimental, there's some great special effects and you've got Kate Fleetwood galloping around the stage like the monster in 'Young Frankenstein' - what more could you want for 90 minutes of your time?

It's all very slight and there's not much meat on the bones but Kate Fleetwood is rather good in it (and this is coming from someone who Ms F has left pretty cold in the past) and she's supported well by the cast. I rather liked Kris Marshall and Olivia Darnley too. And as I said, I did find something in my eye on a couple of occasions.

I think it might have been the Merlot.

Saw it last night, at the same time as the press.

Completely agree with everything Mallardo said, so will focus my thoughts instead more generally.

Some spoilers follow. . .

About ten minutes into the production, I thought this is a "the-sun-will-shine-tomorrow" (TSWST) play.

Anyone who sees a bit of new writing in fringe venues will see a lot of TSWSTs. Writers of such plays avoid melodrama, fantasy, extremes and exaggeration of all types, so as not to appear forward or silly. Such plays consist of a modest character with an immodest problem who engages in small tangible real moments of empathy with other characters, after which, the play modestly concludes with the coda "the sun will shine tomorrow." This coda avoids the dreamy optimism that life's problems can be solved, as well as avoiding the equally large pitfall of excessive pessimism.

I like these kinds of plays. They usually teach me something about something, and frequently the characters and situations are recognisable in my own life. However, with the passage of time, these are not the plays that I remember best. It is the writers who go somewhere unsafe, exaggerated, dreamy, insane, who risk being thought incredibly silly, that write the plays that sear into my memory.

With respect to the soldier-home-from-the-war scenario touched on in this play, I think of Sean O'Casey's bitter "The Silver Tassie," which I saw on this same Lyttelton stage, which presented the returning soldier with the cynical and miserable message "absolutely nobody cares about you." No rays of sunshine for that poor fellow, and it upset me so much I won't ever forget it lol!

Anyway, I just throw it out there without knowing the answer: are many of today's playwrights limiting their longevity by being too reasonable?

I don't answer the question about whether this particular production turned out the way I expected, of course, as that would be too much of a spoiler.

But what I will say is I do love Ralf Little. For some reason, unknown to me, he gets a bad rap. But in "The Nap," "Dead Funny" and this, he's been pitch perfect every time. In this, he's incredibly likeable, tentative, sensitive, as Kate Fleetwood's character's ex-boyfriend. Excellent.

And like Mallardo said, Kate Fleetwood nails this part. She made me feel her physical pain by the way she appeared to not want her agonised flinching to be noticed.

4 stars

The TSWST theory is indeed fascinating; I too am now wondering about other plays to which it may apply. Shame though that it makes me think of that ghastly song from Annie!

Yes, I do suspect that recent American playwrights have been more likely to add an optimistic coda, as well as more likely to feature characters that are across-the-board empathetic.

Even Neil LaBute, who I NEVER thought would write one of these plays, given how misanthropic he used to be, now seems to want to write a whole trilogy of TSWST plays. Well, we shall see, as the third part in the "Reasons" trilogy hasn't yet surfaced, but I'm predicting he stays "reasonable," that Tom Burke will star, and the title will be "Reasons to be Reasonable."

I love Theatremonkey's way of putting it lol!

Just come out of the matinee. I found it OK, nothing more. Underwhelmed by the Es Devlin design as I've now seen too many of her efforts and they are all very samey (the Royal Opera House seem to love her for some reason.)

I was put in a bit of a bad mood since I was seated in the middle of the front row stalls which are pretty narrow seats and the woman next to me had a MASSIVE arse - she was practically sat on my lap and the bloke next to me on th other side was a rugby type with a well developed posterior. A pretty uncomfortable 90 mins.

I was sitting behind you, that lady had a huge head that obstructed my view... but I'm quite petite, so I live at tall people's mercy

Going to see this tonight. Looking forward to it despite the lukewarm reception. Will report back!

I'm catching the matinee of this today. Intrigued to see what I think. Probably one of the shows I'm going into not really knowing much about it.