Fanny & Alexander (Old Vic)

We're going tomorrow £10 Row P seats - will report back.

Started late, maybe a third if audience decided to wait til 7 to come in. Lots if audience set moving, we've had a camel and I really thinking just been oases by Danny de vito on th stairs but a part from the fact that seems to be slowly through time not sure how this will fill so long a time.

Oh dear it really can't be selling well if ticketing for a fiver. Well it's rather surprising me and do want to see how it all ends. Think going to end later than 10.45 though as running slow. Scebe changes are pretty swift but there is a lot of talking to fit in.

Oh dear. I'm due to see this tonight but I'm so tired. But I love Penelope Wilton.

Maybe I'll give it to interval number one and see how I feel.

Looking at those comments, I'm not feeling any enthusiasm for this at all - thinking I'll probably do a Parsley and not bother going.

I find long shows are often amazing, because they can be so richly layered and because the demands they make involve a special level of intellectual and emotional investment. I'm thinking of things like The Roman Tragedies and Angels in America. I won't deny that I have seen shows that vastly outstayed their welcome, but some of those haven't really been that long, they've just felt that way.

I'm not opposed to long plays inherently and some feel shorter than a 90-min-straight-through job. But theatres have got to remember that their audiences have other things in their lives - they might have had a really long week already, they need to get trains, get up early the next day, etc. After a full day sitting down at work, I don't necessary feel like I have the arse-endurance to sit for another four hours... For most people, going to the theatre is approached as an enjoyable leisure activity not a feat of endurance. It just feels indulgent sometimes. I mean it might be absolutely necessary and wonderful for this but I understand why they are having to give their tickets away.

I haven't broken it to my husband yet how long this play is. I think I'll just let that be a fun surprise for him tonight.

foxa just make sure you hubby doesn't leave at the second interval. Queue for ladies took up whole stairs last night so getting back up was something of a challenge but as others have noted you could get to the young Vic and back in Time, timed it last night and it's doable without having to resorting to running. Well as long as you don't hit their interval I guess.

First interval. Enjoying it so far. Somehow filmic and theatrical. Husband is content and hasn't mentioned leaving. Haven't braved loos yet.

I did forget lynette and was sat that way, still was end of row so the sprint in each interval probably did me some good, must remember that next time though.

Loved this tonight. Life vs Death, Imagination vs Rules, Theatre vs Reality, Free thinking vs Fanaticism, Earthly delights vs Heavenly Strictures, all the beautiful oppositions of Ingmar Bergman's 5 and a half hour masterpiece of a film distilled and reimagined as a wonderfully alive piece of theatre, beautifully acted.

Some spoilers follow. . .

Back in the day, I saw both the three hour, as well as the five and a half hour, versions of Bergman's film. The longer version is infinitely better, as crucial moments are missing from the three hour cut. I'm pleased to report that this theatrical presentation includes those crucial scenes, including Alexander's vision of the Grim Reaper in the Prologue (here played by Michael Pennington) and the fleshed out role of Alexander's father (here played by Sargon Yelda) as First Storyteller and conjurer of the imagination in the lives of Fanny and Alexander.

Bergman loved the theatre as much as he loved film, and this story is very much about the theatre (a knowledge of Hamlet enriches this story ALOT), and the value of the theatre in life, so presenting this story IN a theatre makes absolute sense.

Key plot threads involve young storyteller (and Ingmar Bergman's semi-autobiographical avatar) Alexander's tussle with an authoritarian Bishop (Kevin Doyle), and his actress mother's enigmatic and vacant search for her own identity. The fact that Doyle and Catherine Walker, who plays the mother, are both pitch perfect terrific (with Doyle doing his best creepily-reasonable-but-possibly-bonkers and Walker giving great human vacuum) is critical to why this piece works so well, as these are the characters who are dramatically developed over the course of the play.

All other characters form a rich, rounded, grounded tapestry of naturalism, so I found it slightly jarring that the ghosts and visions of Alexander's internal world here break out and share scenes with other characters, in absence of Alexander himself. For me, this unnecessarily dilutes the meaning of these surreal visions, though I can see how these other characters are themselves fantasists and storytellers, which could justify them sharing Alexander's imaginative world.

I loved the whole ensemble, and am particularly fond of Jonathan Slinger's Uncle Gustav, the most wild and crazy and moral of supposedly immoral men, and Thomas Arnold's Uncle Carl, a self-pitying other-blaming monster, who nonetheless can rise to an occasion, Penelope Wilton's self-important but caring grande dame of a matriarch, and Michael Pennington's warm and waning old storyteller, Isak. Gloria Obianyo also soars in multiple distinctively different roles.

And kudos to the lighting person: the shimmering backlights, threatening half light, silhouettes, and what not, were incredibly atmospheric and effective.

All in all, despite the dilution of Alexander's imaginative world, I think Ingmar Bergman would adore this show! Beautiful, human, necessary.

4 and a half stars.