Summer and smoke - Almeida Theatre

The lack of any sort of set

Really put this production at a massive disadvantage

Particularly when the text refers to particular things

Which are not present on stage

In the end the acting does triumph

But the first 20-30 mins suffer due to the crappy scrappy staging

Lol, I walked past Matthew Needham today in the foyer after the matinee. All I caught was “if we transfer to the West End, she....”  

That snippet is of no consequence though, and probably worse than the jumbled up jigsaw featured in the play.🤭

Peggs and Theatremonkey - the answer isn’t here re 9 pianos, but some interesting information almeida.co.uk/composing-summer-and-smoke

Well. I thought it was really rather good. Although those people with podophobia should probably avoid it at all costs. There's nary a shoe in sight for the whole play. Although it does give the cast every opportunity to do some of their best toe acting.

Unless you count a few pianos and a couple of chairs, there's no set to speak of but it doesn't matter. The cast get to do that "let's pretend there's a door" acting which is nice. The acting is wonderful and there really isn't a bad one among 'em. Patsy Ferran rightly is getting all of the plaudits and it's quite a marvellous performance (it's really the first time I've seen her where I've considered her an 'adult') but for me the thing is stolen by Matthew Needham. I think his character arc is developed much better than Patsy's and he has the much more complex character - he's dark, sexy and a little dangerous to start with before the story takes his character elsewhere. And when he drops his voice to speak into the microphone, my goosebumps got goosebumps. Nancy Crane offers great support and Anjana Vasan successfully manages to play very different characters very distinctly.

But the real standout for the play is the sound and the lighting, especially the sound. The pianos are used to quite the most brilliant effect and there's a marvellous moment when they become fireworks which is fabulous.

And even thought it was like -20 outside, I still fancied an ice cream at the interval. Damn you Nancy Crane.

Members have access to sold out shows

Dependant on level

Given that Grinning Man has extended for three weeks now, whatever happens to this, it isn't coming straight in. But then it took Mary Stuart over a year to come in after its Almeida run, so I won't rule anything out. Luckily I have tickets for this Saturday afternoon and am VERY excited about seeing it. 

Not if you're sat behind one of the pianos . . . 

Saw this this afternoon. I have caught it in its two previous incarnations, with Pike and under the arches in London Bridge. It has moved on from the last version. No balloons, but lots of pianos. Liked the main leads and the production worked well. Having the female lead as a young woman (I think that was the intent and nothing to do with me seeing everyone as young these days) worked better than an older Pike. I think Williams had been reading Freud as women are hysterical and religion is a neruious in this play. Do not understand why they had no shoes, maybe hobbits in disguise. They had a notice warning of haze and the smoking of real cigarettes. I wondered what unreal cigarettes would look like. The pianos reminded me of the the old Julian and Sandy line 'a miracle of dexterity at the cottage upright.' Also a hanky was dipped into a jug of water and later two actors poured some water from it and drank it. Is that hygienic I thought, what about their vocal cords?

The worst thing was the constant coughing. It was throughout the performance, clearing of the throat, stifled coughs and maybe a few death rattles. two people left from the middle of the aisle during the performance. They left one before the interval and one after. Most distracting for me, do not know about the actors. I do not know if the coughing was connected to the smoking or if I was in a seat where the coughing was easily heard.

Either Ambassadors or else Duke of York's after King Lear, I'd say.

I saw this yesterday matinee. Glad I was upstairs as heard no coughing... Ferrari completely inhabited the character in every sense. Standout performance. Needham was fine. The rest functional, didn't intrude, but some of the doubling of the roles meant they ended up as fairly anonymous generic southern. Fortunately didn't diminish from the overall. Minimal staging worked well I thought, though not sure about the full semi circle of pianos, since they rarely needed even half for the music/sound effects. I guess the bare feet was an attempt to make the cast southern, but both superfluous and mildly distracting I felt.

foxa what a wonderful review, I agree with you entirely though could not articulate it anywhere near as clearly as you.

Which site did you use? I’ve been looking on Today Tix and cannot see anything.