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Post by altamont on Jun 23, 2018 21:55:46 GMT
Just back from Andrew Scotts brilliant performance at the Old Vic. I am still fizzing with anger. FIZZING! One arrogant pigheaded morons phone went off at a really key moment. He got up out of his seat phone still ringing and left auditorium prosumsbly to take the call. Outrageous OUTRAGROS bejzviour. He ruined it. He needs to banned from Old Vic forever and should be made to pay for everyones tickets to sse the show again and apologise to Andrew Scott. No respect. OUTRAGEOUS. Yes, we heard that too - luckily far enough away to only be a slight distraction. There are words for people like that - I might get banned from the forum if I used them
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Post by crowblack on Jun 23, 2018 23:04:07 GMT
Was underwhelmed by this at nt I thought Scott was fantastic but the piece itself was disappointing, given its reputation.
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Post by crowblack on Jun 24, 2018 8:57:04 GMT
I think seeing it a couple of hours after the blistering Notes From the Field probably didn't help.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2018 12:31:35 GMT
I am not as keen on Stephens’ work as others seem to be.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2018 13:15:04 GMT
Stephens is a bit hit and miss for me. The thing that keeps me coming back is that when he hits, he HITS. I'll forgive any number of Wastwaters if that's the price I have to pay for the occasional Carmen Disruption or Sea Wall.
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Post by sf on Jun 25, 2018 14:46:33 GMT
I am not as keen on Stephens’ work as others seem to be.
When he's good, I think he's very good indeed - but I hated his 'Fatherland' at the Manchester International Festival last year with a purple passion.
On the other hand, that didn't stop me booking for 'Sea Wall'.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2018 16:10:15 GMT
I am not as keen on Stephens’ work as others seem to be.
When he's good, I think he's very good indeed - but I hated his 'Fatherland' at the Manchester International Festival last year with a purple passion.
On the other hand, that didn't stop me booking for 'Sea Wall'.
I haven’t seen much of his work but i’ve Seen enough: Motortown, Carmen, Nuclear War, Birdland - all these plays are incredibly well written but Stephensland is not a place I wish to spend any more time in. I would see Sea Wall if I could because I rate Andrew Scott quite highly both as an actor and a person.
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Post by sf on Jun 25, 2018 16:32:03 GMT
When he's good, I think he's very good indeed - but I hated his 'Fatherland' at the Manchester International Festival last year with a purple passion.
On the other hand, that didn't stop me booking for 'Sea Wall'.
I haven’t seen much of his work but i’ve Seen enough: Motortown, Carmen, Nuclear War, Birdland - all these plays are incredibly well written but Stephensland is not a place I wish to spend any more time in. I would see Sea Wall if I could because I rate Andrew Scott quite highly both as an actor and a person.
Me too, and I booked for 'Sea Wall' largely because of Andrew Scott. I wouldn't have made the trek to London just to see such a short play, but it so happens that I'll be there later this week anyway and I found I could squeeze it in around my other commitments.
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Post by popcultureboy on Jun 26, 2018 6:51:10 GMT
I saw it last night and it was every bit as beautiful, funny, sweet and totally shattering as it was when I saw it at the NT five years ago. Was relieved, having seen posts on here and heard from other friends who had seen it, that the audience was VERY well behaved. Two phones went off, both earning a pointed look from Andrew Scott, but other than that you could have heard a pin drop. And rightly so.
Given that it was written for Andrew Scott, it'll be interesting to see what NY makes of it when Tom Sturridge performs it at the Public next year.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2018 7:41:26 GMT
Just back from Andrew Scotts brilliant performance at the Old Vic. I am still fizzing with anger. FIZZING! One arrogant pigheaded morons phone went off at a really key moment. He got up out of his seat phone still ringing and left auditorium prosumsbly to take the call. Outrageous OUTRAGROS bejzviour. He ruined it. He needs to banned from Old Vic forever and should be made to pay for everyones tickets to sse the show again and apologise to Andrew Scott. No respect. OUTRAGEOUS. I bet I know the exact moment you are talking about. I am staggered that this happened, and I feel really sorry for the audience (and Andrew.)
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2,960 posts
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Post by crowblack on Jun 26, 2018 9:55:07 GMT
the audience was VERY well behaved. Two phones went off I think I must have been very lucky in my audience experiences so far because two mobiles ringing in a 40 mins piece sounds rather badly behaved to me!
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Post by lynette on Jun 26, 2018 11:26:11 GMT
I suppose the bloke got up and went out to make it look like he is an important person who has to take the call. No excuse. If you are a surgeon on call for an organ donor you can still have your phone on vibrate and leave quietly. Mustn’t judge, mustn't judge.
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Post by dlevi on Jun 26, 2018 17:12:48 GMT
I saw it last night and while I admired Andrew Scott's performance the play itself was so bent on being elusive and elliptical that it left me cold. On the other hand I stayed for the 4 NHS monologues at 8:30 and they were superb. Beautifully performed and written. They packed quite a powerful punch. Everything that I was looking for from the Steophens/Scott collaboration.
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Post by foxa on Jun 26, 2018 18:17:10 GMT
I wanted to see the NHS monologues, dievi - what stood out for you? I'm cursing my disorganisation...
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Post by Steve on Jun 27, 2018 8:31:16 GMT
I loved this. So compellingly well written and acted, I entered a hypnotic state, whereby I couldn't move my arms and legs for a few seconds. Simon Stephens is rarely as warm as this, and it's refreshing to see him write a normal decent human being that you can identify with, rather than his usual alienated so and sos. I loved the way his storytelling mirrored the flight of birds, swooping at you from different angles. Andrew Scott is in another world. Simply mesmerising, the way he tells this story. Everything he does is calculated to put you at ease, from his open palms to his thoughtful nostalgic smiling. Ordinarily the lights being kept on would have disturbed me, as I like to be in the dark, unseen, but Scott's acting was like a warm affectionate hug, drawing you in ever closer. Glad I spent £40 for the front row. A bargain, given how wonderful this was. We're lucky to have both this and "Fun Home" in town at once: Peak London Theatre lol. 5 stars.
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Post by foxa on Jun 27, 2018 14:39:38 GMT
Curse you, Steve, even though I love Andrew Scott I was planning on giving this a miss, but now you've got me scanning for tickets.
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Post by foxa on Jun 27, 2018 14:40:21 GMT
And I'm seeing Fun Home on Friday, so if I get tickets for Saturday, I could think of it as my Steve recommends weekend.
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Post by bellboard27 on Jun 27, 2018 15:12:31 GMT
And I'm seeing Fun Home on Friday, so if I get tickets for Saturday, I could think of it as my Steve recommends weekend. It is good. As some have said, the performance is probably better than the piece.
We went to see it last Saturday at 5.30, with Fun Home at 7.30 and a visit for some food in between at Cubana across from the Old Vic - which made quite a nice evening out with a relatively early finish.
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Post by joem on Jun 27, 2018 19:55:46 GMT
I didn't know anything about this so had no expectations.
Andrew Scott's performance is impressive. He is a great raconteur and makes the Old Vic, a space "just the other side of intimacy", feel quite intimate at times as he draws the audience in. Quite a feat given the alienating effect of the lights on all the time.
The play itself though is less convincing. By making it a monologue and then having it delivered the way it is, this basically becomes an exercise in storytelling. And whilst there is definitely a climax, many of the earlier speeches ramble and give a feeling of anecdote rather than woven narrative. At times it was like those long rambling shaggy dog stories Dave Allen or Ronnie Corbett would deliver. It was entertaining but not, at that point, dramatic.
My second problem is the premise. What is the premise? The actor is at times almost engaging with the audience, is he telling (or acting out) a true story? Or is it a fiction within a fiction (unlikely). If the character is giving us a true version of events then it is difficult o understand the light tone which permeates most of the play. I cannot see how anyone involved in it would tell that story that way.
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Post by Steve on Jun 28, 2018 6:11:31 GMT
And I'm seeing Fun Home on Friday, so if I get tickets for Saturday, I could think of it as my Steve recommends weekend. Now I really really really hope you have a great weekend.
Don't forget to have a tipple, so you can't tell the difference, unless you can't, in which case don't.
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Post by sf on Jun 29, 2018 16:53:42 GMT
I loved it (last night), I'm very glad I saw it - and like many of you I thought the performance was better than the writing. Andrew Scott is superb, and it's a very difficult trick to preserve the intimacy of the piece in a space the size of the Old Vic; the play itself is engaging enough,but it's also predictable, and there's a point where you can see where it's going to go more than ten minutes before it gets there, which is an issue in a piece that's barely forty minutes long. Stephens's most interesting choice, I thought - and it's the most interesting thing about the entire script - is, well, silence (and if you've seen it you'll know exactly the moment I mean).
While I loved it, though, I am very glad I only paid £15 for it.
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Post by asfound on Jun 29, 2018 21:37:26 GMT
Well perhaps this play was excellent - judging by the standing ovation it was - but I'll never know because of the f***ing moronic audience. I kid you not, there was leaking headphone music in my vicinity for the first 25 minutes of this. I looked around several times trying to figure out where it was coming from but to no avail, during each silence and pause I just heard tinny beats and vocals driving me to distraction. I wondered if it was coming from outside or in the corridor and eventually gave up and tried to concentrate, only for somebody in the stall's phone to go off at a pivotal moment. Andrew Scott had the patience of a saint and actually waited for them to deal with it before continuing. Then a few dropped bottles and objects later, the tinny music reached a crescendo and I realised it was coming from the guy directly in front of me. Luckily he and several other people noticed it by then and it was switched off for me to enjoy the last few minutes in silence. By then I had completely lost the thread of the monologue and had no idea what was going on beyond the most basic narrative. Afterwards several people including me told the guy off but the damage had been done and the experience ruined.
I am so f***ing angry right now I'm actually considering giving up on going to the theatre in London until venues can get a handle on these idiots and phone obsessives who can't follow a simple instruction like turn off your phone. It actually seems to happen more often than not and I'm getting sick of wasting my time and money.
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Post by nash16 on Jun 29, 2018 23:16:44 GMT
Well perhaps this play was excellent - judging by the standing ovation it was - but I'll never know because of the f***ing moronic audience. I kid you not, there was leaking headphone music in my vicinity for the first 25 minutes of this. I looked around several times trying to figure out where it was coming from but to no avail, during each silence and pause I just heard tinny beats and vocals driving me to distraction. I wondered if it was coming from outside or in the corridor and eventually gave up and tried to concentrate, only for somebody in the stall's phone to go off at a pivotal moment. Andrew Scott had the patience of a saint and actually waited for them to deal with it before continuing. Then a few dropped bottles and objects later, the tinny music reached a crescendo and I realised it was coming from the guy directly in front of me. Luckily he and several other people noticed it by then and it was switched off for me to enjoy the last few minutes in silence. By then I had completely lost the thread of the monologue and had no idea what was going on beyond the most basic narrative. Afterwards several people including me told the guy off but the damage had been done and the experience ruined. I am so f***ing angry right now I'm actually considering giving up on going to the theatre in London until venues can get a handle on these idiots and phone obsessives who can't follow a simple instruction like turn off your phone. It actually seems to happen more often than not and I'm getting sick of wasting my time and money. I know of 3 people who have gone to 3 separate nights of Seawall and had similar experiences. Why aren't the Old Vic doing more to control these outbreaks? They need their ushers to a) be briefing audience members on arrival, and b) in the auditorium take action. I must say Andrew being onstage when the audience arrives does negate a formal theatrical tannoy announcement about phones etc so maybe this piece invites its audience to think they can carry on conversations/calls etc? But really?? Yes, this is a delicate piece, especially with the house lights up, to intervene when people are talking throughout the play (two businessmen just chatting throughout last week) or on phones, etc etc. The ushers should be inside the auditorium and shutting down this behaviour with their presence and with words and ejections if needs be. You're right in that it's gone beyond now.
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Post by asfound on Jun 30, 2018 8:48:56 GMT
Well perhaps this play was excellent - judging by the standing ovation it was - but I'll never know because of the f***ing moronic audience. I kid you not, there was leaking headphone music in my vicinity for the first 25 minutes of this. I looked around several times trying to figure out where it was coming from but to no avail, during each silence and pause I just heard tinny beats and vocals driving me to distraction. I wondered if it was coming from outside or in the corridor and eventually gave up and tried to concentrate, only for somebody in the stall's phone to go off at a pivotal moment. Andrew Scott had the patience of a saint and actually waited for them to deal with it before continuing. Then a few dropped bottles and objects later, the tinny music reached a crescendo and I realised it was coming from the guy directly in front of me. Luckily he and several other people noticed it by then and it was switched off for me to enjoy the last few minutes in silence. By then I had completely lost the thread of the monologue and had no idea what was going on beyond the most basic narrative. Afterwards several people including me told the guy off but the damage had been done and the experience ruined. I am so f***ing angry right now I'm actually considering giving up on going to the theatre in London until venues can get a handle on these idiots and phone obsessives who can't follow a simple instruction like turn off your phone. It actually seems to happen more often than not and I'm getting sick of wasting my time and money. I know of 3 people who have gone to 3 separate nights of Seawall and had similar experiences. Why aren't the Old Vic doing more to control these outbreaks? They need their ushers to a) be briefing audience members on arrival, and b) in the auditorium take action. I must say Andrew being onstage when the audience arrives does negate a formal theatrical tannoy announcement about phones etc so maybe this piece invites its audience to think they can carry on conversations/calls etc? But really?? Yes, this is a delicate piece, especially with the house lights up, to intervene when people are talking throughout the play (two businessmen just chatting throughout last week) or on phones, etc etc. The ushers should be inside the auditorium and shutting down this behaviour with their presence and with words and ejections if needs be. You're right in that it's gone beyond now. Well in the cold light of day I'm now just sad that I didn't get to really experience it and you're right, the Old Vic are ultimately culpable. There is always going to be forgetful people unfortunately, but there was nothing from front of house - no quick announcement to turn off phones from the ushers when entering, no signs on the wall or projection to the sides of stage, no message or anything. And judging by what you're saying and others on this thread this is a persistent problem that they couldn't try and mitigate by the penultimate performance? I see concerts and operas in far bigger venues with far more people and very rarely have a problem. In West End theatres it seems that more often than not there is something to piss me off. Honestly, even cinemas seem preferable right now. At least they make some effort to control patrons.
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Post by andrew on Jun 30, 2018 9:26:20 GMT
We should be building Faraday cages around our theatres from this point onward. The problem is in an audience of a thousand people there will always be a few dickheads who think they know better, or don't care, so leave their phones on vibrate or on the ringer. Telling audiences 20 times to turn their phones off doesn't help, you'll always get someone who'll just ignore the advice. Anyone seen with their phone out by the usher should be ejected and banned from the theatre, maybe after this is seen to happen a few times some minds will be changed...
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Post by Steve on Jun 30, 2018 10:04:46 GMT
My second problem is the premise. What is the premise? If the character is giving us a true version of events then it is difficult o understand the light tone which permeates most of the play. I cannot see how anyone involved in it would tell that story that way. I think he would tell the story that way if he were resigned to his own frailty. If he wanted to share with us, his friends, or indeed, all humanity, with whom he now feels more kinship, how not to be. I just heard tinny beats and vocals driving me to distraction. I am so f***ing angry right now In a play that goes as whisper silent in this one, there should have been signs all over the place.
It's horrible that people are having this ruined for them. Sounds like someone (recounted above) even left their ipod playing tunes, for heaven's sakes!
"Unbelievable," as Ivan Lendl used to wail on court, to no avail.
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Post by sf on Jun 30, 2018 14:47:02 GMT
I'm now just sad that I didn't get to really experience it and you're right, the Old Vic are ultimately culpable. Policing audience behaviour doesn't appear to be the Old Vic's strength, and that's putting it kindly. I had an absolutely horrendous experience there during a performance of Groundhog Day - a group of four or five (rather drunk) people sitting to my right who obviously considered themselves super-fans of the show, to the point of singing along (bearing in mind that I saw it two weeks after press night, months before a cast recording appeared, so they'd obviously seen it several times already). When a woman in the row in front tried to shush them, one of these charmers emptied his drink over her head. She complained at the start of the interval, and so did I, and the house manager reseated her, her partner, and I in the company box (the performance was otherwise sold out) - but they didn't throw the perpetrators out. Given that the incident included something that, legally, constitutes common assault, that's inexcusable. I've been a front-of-house manager, and I understand better than most people that dealing with that kind of patron is not a pleasant part of the job, because I've actually done it. It IS part of the job, though, and giving idiots like this a stern talking-to is pointless. The only way they'll learn is by losing something - that is, by getting thrown out and not being given a refund. Box office terms and conditions invariably allow for this - there is always a clause telling you something along the lines of that admission is at the management's discretion and that they reserve the right to eject patrons who are disruptive. The fact that the Old Vic couldn't be bothered to do that after an incident in which one patron emptied a drink over another - when independent witnesses confirmed that it had happened - suggests rather strongly that their house manager is either clueless or incompetent or just couldn't give a toss. Theatre is ephemeral. If the experience is spoiled by bad behaviour, that's it - you can't recapture it, and it isn't always possible to go back. The management need to take some responsibility - you are a paying customer too, and it is their job to ensure you experience the performance without disruption from other audience members. Having said all that, in a piece where there's no interval it becomes a lot more difficult, because throwing someone out under those circumstances is going to cause even more disruption. To be fair, the usher at the door where I went into the auditorium on Thursday made a point of telling every single patron to turn off their phone. I have no idea whether that happened at every door, though; given that ushers on the doors to the stalls would have had to deal with about twice as many people as the ones stationed in the dress circle where I was sitting, I suspect it didn't. Of the four shows I saw in London this week, Sea Wall was the only one where there was not some kind of blanket warning to patrons to turn off phones. (And the next step is to extend that warning to wearers of smart watches, because light from notifications on watch screens was noticeable at some point during all four performances I saw this week. I would have no argument if the warnings involved duct tape and a taser.)
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Post by crowblack on Jun 30, 2018 15:16:55 GMT
I was impressed at The Lowry recently - they have 'older' ushers and one went over to have a quiet word with the person next to my Mum who was looking at their lit mobile during Mary Stuart.
I think they should bring in an old 'swimming pool' style code of conduct poster (similar to the Kermode code) . And after the couple next to me in Three Sisters, defo 'no petting'.
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Post by NeilVHughes on Jun 30, 2018 15:58:42 GMT
Now that the preferred ticketing method is an e-ticket could be seen as legitimising the use of a mobile phone.
Difficult to say please switch off your phone whilst asking for your e-ticket.
Maybe they should once scanned say now switch that bloody thing off.
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Post by sf on Jun 30, 2018 18:39:18 GMT
Given that the incident included something that, legally, constitutes common assault, that's inexcusable. I'm fairly surprised the victim didn't just dial 999. I would have.
She was on her feet to find an usher to complain as soon as the lights went up for the interval (so was I). I think she assumed the theatre would deal with the perpetrators. Like me, she was surprised (to say the least) when they didn't.
The thing is, if you're on the receiving end, you're probably acutely aware of the need to avoid disrupting the show, whereas the people who are actually disrupting it are so monumentally selfish that that won't be a consideration for them. If you're a polite, considerate theatregoer - as most of us are - you'll probably try to avoid making a fuss while the house lights are down.
I did write to the Old Vic afterwards to tell them why I thought their response to the incident had been inadequate. Unfortunately they couldn't be bothered to respond to the letter.
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