Network NT

Trump that, Wrighty!

Absolutely. Id rather stick to talking about theatre rather than someone like Trump    

Using U.S. politics as an easy theatrical trope in British productions gets on my nerves a bit - not because I'm not highly critical of (fill in the blank) but because it just seems lazy and pantomime-ish (sp?). There were a number of productions that would use George W. Bush to provoke a similar reaction (for example,the Complicite's Measure for Measure.) The recent 'Julius Caesar' at the Bridge uses a lot of Trump imagery (the red tie, the red hats, a poster with Caesar styled very similarly to Trump) but as someone else pointed out, perhaps comparisons with Corbyn would have been better/more relevant (a U.S. production of Julius Caesar went further with the Trump comparison and there were threats to the theatre's funding.) The night I went to see 'Network' someone loudly cheered when the image of (controversial U.S. president) was shown - - perhaps ironically, perhaps sincerely, who knows? If they want to confront the audience's beliefs - wouldn't it be more honest to present British politicians (I suppose they would say that Network was set in the U.S. but then they showed presidents far beyond the time period of the production.) I didn't think the montage added.

But overall I was really grabbed by the production. The use of videos was exciting, some terrific performances - it felt like real event theatre. Anyone who did the restaurant option - were you given any special guidance? It looked to me like everyone was wearing dark clothes, for example.

In the American system the President effectively IS the law, he is head of the executive branch and so is, for example, head of the FBI and can order it to act as he sees fit. A curious outcome of this is that he can also pardon himself if he is charged or convicted of a crime. 

I was wondering about this too foxa

Thanks so much for describing that baladorn - it sounds like a lot of thought went into how to make it work for the restaurant/the show/the audience. The night I went (Tuesday) I thought the diners looked smart and were dressed so that they didn't distract. As someone in the audience, having the people on stage worked much better than I expected and there was a real frisson when the Dockery/Henshall scene moved from outside to the restaurant.

Trump isn’t really a racist nor a misogynist, well he does to serve his purpose, if to become president he had to hug Mexicans and Muslims and give homeless people lollipops, he would have just done that. So in some respects he is no different to Boris Johnson.

Saw this today and a a fine play, that only the National could have staged. Bryan Cranston is mind blowing brilliant, maybe breaking excellent?

Hi!

When this production was first announced, I thought it would be either bloody brilliant or bloody awful, and couldn't see any room for the middle ground. My verdict? The former, as any quibbles I have are minor.

I went for the Saturday matinee and was still thinking about the issues raised all day Sunday. What really struck me after the event, was the fact that the way this is staged made the point about us all being 'corrupted' by what we experience as media consumers so well. How? By making the theatre audience into the TV audience for the Howard Beale Show.

The warm-up guy had everyone shouting "I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!" (and I was shouting it too!),before Bryan Cranston walked onto the set. We were all made complicit in Beale's tragedy and the network's machinations against him, and it's only afterwards I realised how well I'd been pulled into it.

Before I went, I was worried about the whole restaurant-on-stage aspect of it, probably the most 'gimmicky' thing about the staging, but I was pleasantly surprised how little a distraction it was after only a few minutes. The glass-walled production gallery set worked well and really added to the humour of Beale's on air suicide announcement as you can clearly see they're not taking a blind bit of notice. I also loved the duality of seeing the actors on stage and camera at the same time, and didn't find it confusing at all.

Douglas Henshall and Michelle Dockery gave me a slight pause for thought during their intimate scene on the chair, as I was wondering how they keep a straight face having to do such a scene! The walk outside did take me out-of-the-moment as the story is supposed to be set in America but the obvious London/NT background was a little off-putting.

Other performances.... I thought Tunji Kasim was fine, and I wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of the rant Hackett makes at Max before he fires him. to me that was very intimidating. Richard Cordery's scene from on high with Bryan was very effective as he didn't play it all fired up 'Wrath-of-God'. His quieter more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger approach worked very well and the final line "Because you're on Television, Dummy!" made much more of an impact because of it.

I loved Bryan's performance, after a lot of wondering how he was going to tackle it. One thing I was certain of, was that he'd never be able to outdo Peter Finch's histrionics in the original film, certainly not over a run of performances. I was happy to see that he wisely hasn't tried it. The scene where he almost can't speak at all and makes several attempts (under threat of being cut off from the gallery) before he does so was painful and moving to watch. The final speech's plea for simple human contact was beautifully spoken... as was all his dialogue. No mumbling here, just beautiful clear diction and lovely to listen to.

After a couple of day's discreet monitoring of the website, I have managed to bag a £15 row A stalls seat for the matinee on 21/03. Really looking forward to seeing this again before it finishes.