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Post by Phantom of London on Jan 29, 2016 22:35:15 GMT
Saw this tonight in Hampstead, Swiss Cottage. It was the first preview and boy doesn't David Lindsay Abaire just know how to do a cracking emotive play, he doesn't do anything by halves. After the superb Good People at the same venue about 2 years ago, which transferred to the West End. 2 very different plays, Good People would just shade it, as the better play as it was more nuanced, but not much separates them.
it was also a pleasure to see Sean Delaney take his first ever professional bow, he is one for the future and you read it first here.
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2,859 posts
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Post by couldileaveyou on Jan 29, 2016 22:57:58 GMT
It's a great play, I can't wait to see it!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2016 19:47:55 GMT
I'd forgotten this was happening, so thanks for the reminder! Booked now. I'm an admirer of Tom Goodman-Hill's TV work, so I'm looking forward to seeing him on stage.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2016 10:25:22 GMT
I really enjoyed this. It's much better than the film with Nicole Kidman.
Naturally it's very touching in places but it's also rather funny too. Great performances all round but for me Tom Goodman-Hill is the standout. There's a scene where he's watching TV which was just heartbreakingly sad and the way his voice catches in his big emotional scene is almost too much. Claire Skinner is excellent as always but I'd like to see her do something a little different - she seems to have fallen into a habit of variations on the same role recently though - this, 'The Father' and 'Outnumbered' for example. Penny Downie as Nat (Becca's mother) also particularly good for my money.
I am not ashamed to admit I had a few tears during the play which managed to leak out a few times.
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5,054 posts
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Post by Phantom of London on Feb 5, 2016 14:01:30 GMT
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2,859 posts
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Post by couldileaveyou on Feb 18, 2016 22:29:35 GMT
Just back from it and everyone was excellent, I really enjoyed it! (the sister was a bit woody). Claire was amazing and the kid was great.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2016 23:45:38 GMT
I thought the play was very slight. It felt like they'd gathered an excellent bunch of actors and then given them material that only let them get about 80% towards crescendo.
I only experienced a genuine emotional tug once or twice - when the father confronted the young driver, and when the grandmother spoke about her changing experience of grief. Skinner's character I'm afraid I simply found annoying. Liked the sister though.
I do take the writer's point that after the horror of the initial death, what grieving parents are left with is an inexorable numbness and the excruciating experience of having to ease other people's awkwardness around them. But I suppose I was just hoping for something more dramatic.
However, someone was enthusiastically shouting "Bravo" at curtain call, so perhaps it's just me.
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Post by mallardo on Feb 27, 2016 12:11:42 GMT
This is a gem, a beautifully wrought, eloquently understated study in grief management that never spills over into bathos and is all the more powerful for it. The tears were flowing in the audience, not - apart from two brief moments - on the stage. The five member cast is superb, pitch perfect, in Edward Hall's detailed and sympathetic production which takes place in a set configuration I have never seen before at the Hampstead theatre - the proscenium is gone, opened up into a wide thrust playing area with the audience on three sides. It works wonderfully, as does everything else. Don't miss this.
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Post by Polly1 on Feb 27, 2016 12:28:43 GMT
This is a gem, a beautifully wrought, eloquently understated study in grief management that never spills over into bathos and is all the more powerful for it. The tears were flowing in the audience, not - apart from two brief moments - on the stage. The five member cast is superb, pitch perfect, in Edward Hall's detailed and sympathetic production which takes place in a set configuration I have never seen before at the Hampstead theatre - the proscenium is gone, opened up into a wide thrust playing area with the audience on three sides. It works wonderfully, as does everything else. Don't miss this. Looking forward to seeing this next week. In recent memory, Stevie was done on a thrust-type area as it had come up from Chichester which has that configuration. Also the Glyndebourne thing wasn't a straightforward proscenium, was it? |
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Post by mallardo on Feb 27, 2016 12:39:00 GMT
This is a gem, a beautifully wrought, eloquently understated study in grief management that never spills over into bathos and is all the more powerful for it. The tears were flowing in the audience, not - apart from two brief moments - on the stage. The five member cast is superb, pitch perfect, in Edward Hall's detailed and sympathetic production which takes place in a set configuration I have never seen before at the Hampstead theatre - the proscenium is gone, opened up into a wide thrust playing area with the audience on three sides. It works wonderfully, as does everything else. Don't miss this. Looking forward to seeing this next week. In recent memory, Stevie was done on a thrust-type area as it had come up from Chichester which has that configuration. Also the Glyndebourne thing wasn't a straightforward proscenium, was it? I'm sure you're right, Polly, but I hadn't seen the shows you mention. It actually transforms the theatre in a good way. |
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Post by lonlad on Feb 27, 2016 13:14:25 GMT
Has Penny Downie's wretched American accent improved? God she was dire -- sounded like a Queens truck driver and from a different planet to (excellent) Claire Skinner as her daughter. Georgina Rich pretty ropy on the accent front as well.
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1,103 posts
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Post by mallardo on Feb 27, 2016 13:27:17 GMT
Has Penny Downie's wretched American accent improved? God she was dire -- sounded like a Queens truck driver and from a different planet to (excellent) Claire Skinner as her daughter. Georgina Rich pretty ropy on the accent front as well.
The author makes a point in the programme that Clair Skinner's character is college educated and formerly held a top job with Sothebys whereas her mother and sister are still back in the neighbourhood. The differences between them in speech and modes of conversation are deliberate. Downie's accent started off a tad overdone but she settled down. I thought Georgina Rich was fine throughout.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2016 15:27:23 GMT
This is a gem, a beautifully wrought, eloquently understated study in grief management that never spills over into bathos and is all the more powerful for it. The tears were flowing in the audience, not - apart from two brief moments - on the stage. That's interesting - when we sat down the night I saw this, the man next to me said he apologised in advance if he turned into a sobbing wreck. So far as I was aware, he didn't, and I wasn't aware of anyone else looking or sounding particularly moved. Maybe we just caught the cast on a less emotive night... |
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Post by showgirl on Feb 27, 2016 22:15:30 GMT
Saw this today and thought it was very well done and worth the time - and the rest of the run is now sold out.
Whilst it obviously deals with a sad subject, I'd say the treatment was dramatic and humorous rather than moving, and I really liked the way in which grief and loss were explored in a family setting - though it was odd to have a mother and daughter played by women who are only about 10 years apart in actual age, and for the younger, a 50-year-old, to be playing the mother of a 4-year-old.
I can't even recall whether I saw the film version but I doubt it can have been as good as this.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2016 1:00:08 GMT
The only good thing about this was the set
A travesty of a play and wasted opportunity to deal with exploring grief properly
The playwright seems to specialise in characterising insignificant characters
We all have our own ways of dealing with grief
However 10 months of the prolonged denial type behaviour shown in this play is not within normal limits and the mother character needed mental health intervention
I wasn't once moved and a 2 hour play (including interval) felt like 2 years
It felt superficial flimsy and an insult to real life emotions
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Post by Steve on Mar 6, 2016 0:07:24 GMT
Mallardo described this as "eloquently understated," and I couldn't agree more. I was hugely impressed at how much surging emotion was contained by such a muted frame. Nothing more to add, except I'm very glad I caught it. 4 stars.  |
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