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Post by Jan on Mar 4, 2017 13:47:12 GMT
Phew! Half hour wait on the BO queue but got two tix for the final sat mat, my son is at drama school in London so we are going as a treat. Most tix had gone unless you were alone or willing to sit apart! Looking forward to casting now. Took me 10 minutes to secure tickets, you need to be quicker on the draw. Oddly of the six sold-out performances when public booking opened three were previews - why would you shell out to join their membership scheme then save a few quid by booking previews ? |
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Post by martin1965 on Mar 4, 2017 17:10:28 GMT
Phew! Half hour wait on the BO queue but got two tix for the final sat mat, my son is at drama school in London so we are going as a treat. Most tix had gone unless you were alone or willing to sit apart! Looking forward to casting now. Took me 10 minutes to secure tickets, you need to be quicker on the draw. Oddly of the six sold-out performances when public booking opened three were previews - why would you shell out to join their membership scheme then save a few quid by booking previews ? So sorry o queen of the glass half empty! I logged on at five past nine and there were nearly 3000 ahead of me so dont think i did too bad. Please tell me you arent going on 28/10? |
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Post by couldileaveyou on Mar 4, 2017 17:13:18 GMT
I just booked a ticket for 5£, couldn't be happier!
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Post by Jan on Mar 4, 2017 18:47:51 GMT
Took me 10 minutes to secure tickets, you need to be quicker on the draw. Oddly of the six sold-out performances when public booking opened three were previews - why would you shell out to join their membership scheme then save a few quid by booking previews ? So sorry o queen of the glass half empty! I logged on at five past nine and there were nearly 3000 ahead of me so dont think i did too bad. Please tell me you arent going on 28/10? I aren't going on 28/10. |
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Post by showgirl on Mar 4, 2017 21:58:16 GMT
People don't necessarily book particular dates to save money; I think that because CFT announces these so late compared to many other theatres, frequent theatregoers can find it hard to fit more in. Not that I wanted Lear, but I did book for 7 plays, & in the knowledge that there'd probably be other productions elsewhere which I'd then have to miss. Just a constant juggling act, really!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2017 23:20:40 GMT
And some people do become members because it gets them early access to the cheaper tickets. If you're a regular and savvy booker, you can make your membership fee back easily in what you save by buying the cheapies instead of something more regularly priced. Rich people stay rich by being smart with money, not by buying the most expensive thing all the time.
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Post by lynette on Mar 4, 2017 23:42:20 GMT
Gosh I wish I'd known that.
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Post by showgirl on Mar 4, 2017 23:45:59 GMT
Earlier access to tix was certainly why I paid for membership for the first time this year, though not for cheaper tix. Ideally membership would provide both but as I nearly always need to book matinees at CFT due to trains, and it's one of those venues which doesn't have matinees during previews (grr!), I can't save by booking the initial performances. So the £35 cost of membership added an extra £5 to each ticket and I didn't benefit from any reduction on the price of the tickets themselves. However, it was still worth it for the choice of dates and in some cases - particularly with the NT - membership does indeed enable me to book cheaper tickets.
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Post by mrbarnaby on Mar 5, 2017 10:36:15 GMT
Couldn't imagine anything worse than seeing this. He is just too hammy these days it will be unbearable.
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Post by nash16 on Mar 5, 2017 10:44:58 GMT
Couldn't imagine anything worse than seeing this. He is just too hammy these days it will be unbearable. Especially as, in this gender equality production, he'll be playing Goneril. |
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Post by Rory on Jul 20, 2017 22:57:06 GMT
Baz is tweeting away about the cast for this and it looks brilliant. Includes Sinead Cusack, Dervla Kirwan, Jonny Bailey, Damien Molony, Tamara Lawrence.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jul 20, 2017 23:16:19 GMT
Am intrigued by the idea of a female Kent. I have always seen the Lear/Kent dynamic as being between two males particularly when Kent is disguised as Caius. I guess a lot will depend on the world created by the play and the overall concept of the production.
A female Gloucester would seem an easier transition to make.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2017 23:17:53 GMT
The false proscenium arch will be played by Brian Blessed.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2017 23:20:33 GMT
Am intrigued by the idea of a female Kent. No Deal is better than a drag Deal. |
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Post by Jan on Jul 21, 2017 5:43:34 GMT
Am intrigued by the idea of a female Kent. I have always seen the Lear/Kent dynamic as being between two males particularly when Kent is disguised as Caius. I guess a lot will depend on the world created by the play and the overall concept of the production. A female Gloucester would seem an easier transition to make. Kent is rarely done well, even McKellen himself was undistinguished in the role. A female Kent sounds wrong on the face of it but we'll have to wait and see. |
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Post by horton on Jul 21, 2017 6:23:19 GMT
I really dislike this fad for gender-bending the casting of Shakespeare. If you are going to re-invent the character dynamics and gender relationships, then call your production a play BASED ON 'King Lear', because it isn't what Shakespeare intended.
'Lear' is so delicately constructed with very intentional connections between Lear, Kent and Gloucester as paradigms of patriarchy and good sense, that to add gender into the mix is to have an entirely different discussion than the one Shakespeare wrote.
Do it, by all means, but don't call it Shakespeare's play.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2017 7:08:32 GMT
"Fad", like all the female roles weren't originally played by boys and Sarah Bernhardt never played Hamlet.  |
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Post by martin1965 on Jul 21, 2017 7:33:36 GMT
Am intrigued by the idea of a female Kent. I have always seen the Lear/Kent dynamic as being between two males particularly when Kent is disguised as Caius. I guess a lot will depend on the world created by the play and the overall concept of the production. A female Gloucester would seem an easier transition to make. Kent is rarely done well, even McKellen himself was undistinguished in the role. A female Kent sounds wrong on the face of it but we'll have to wait and see. By an odd coincidence Saskia Reeves is playing the same role at the Globe! |
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Post by bordeaux on Jul 21, 2017 8:02:48 GMT
I really dislike this fad for gender-bending the casting of Shakespeare. If you are going to re-invent the character dynamics and gender relationships, then call your production a play BASED ON 'King Lear', because it isn't what Shakespeare intended. 'Lear' is so delicately constructed with very intentional connections between Lear, Kent and Gloucester as paradigms of patriarchy and good sense, that to add gender into the mix is to have an entirely different discussion than the one Shakespeare wrote. Do it, by all means, but don't call it Shakespeare's play. It can work in other circumstances, certainly if the play is set in/updated to contemporary Europe. In the Ivo van Hove Roman tragedies Cassius was a woman (as she will be in the Hytner next year) and so was Octavius. The Guildernstern in the Icke Hamlet (or was it Rosencrantz) was a woman, and that wasn't an issue. I'm sure there are lots of times when it works, one or two when it doesn't. Few seemed to have a problem with the NT's Twelfth Night this year. |
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Post by Rory on Jul 21, 2017 8:40:03 GMT
Phil Daniels as The Fool
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Post by Jan on Jul 21, 2017 10:15:08 GMT
"Fad", like all the female roles weren't originally played by boys and Sarah Bernhardt never played Hamlet. That's not the point that's under discussion at all. In Shakespeare's day Cleopatra (for example) was played as a female character even though the actor was a boy. What we're discussing here is the gender of the character being switched - so the character Cleopatra played as a man. Not the same at all. So no need to roll your eyes. |
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Post by Jan on Jul 21, 2017 10:20:00 GMT
Oh. That's not good. He's hopeless. Still in shock from his Autolycus. |
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Post by alicechallice on Jul 21, 2017 10:50:35 GMT
"Fad", like all the female roles weren't originally played by boys and Sarah Bernhardt never played Hamlet. That's not the point that's under discussion at all. In Shakespeare's day Cleopatra (for example) was played as a female character even though the actor was a boy. What we're discussing here is the gender of the character being switched - so the character Cleopatra played as a man. Not the same at all. So no need to roll your eyes. I feel like we should just divert everybody to an old thread, where this conversation has been thrashed out before. The fact of the matter is, we're never going to know whether Shakespeare would approve and if it does actually do the piece a disservice. He's not as readily available for questioning as Stephen Sondheim is and it's all a matter of opinion anyway, which is not fact. If we were to speculate whether Shakespeare would still want his plays to be performed using the same rulebook 500 years down the line with no opportunity for re-interpreation, invention or, God forbid, to go some way to creating a certain equality between genders within the acting world, I'd probably hazard a guess that he'd probably be quite encouraging of the practice. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2017 11:06:53 GMT
Quite frankly, no-one is going to be taking a blind bit of notice of anyone else on stage in this production because the delightfully scrumptious Jonny B is playing Edgar.
Ian who?
'nuff said.
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Post by alicechallice on Jul 21, 2017 11:09:48 GMT
Quite frankly, no-one is going to be taking a blind bit of notice of anyone else on stage in this production because the delightfully scrumptious Jonny B is playing Edgar. Ian who? 'nuff said. Is Edgar the one that gets naked? |
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