Wild Duck-Almeida theatre

Appreciate your review, Andrew. I can't decide if it sounds interesting or ultra-irritating. I loved Icke's Oresteia, Hamlet and Mary Stuart and even The Red Barn (didn't see Uncle Vanya) so it might be worth a punt.

Reading my own review back, I make it sound terrible, the first act was just very mediocre, and it really does pick up in the latter half. The problem with leaving at the interval is you’ve sat through the worst bit at the expense of the best one, but I suppose if you really can’t stand it then maybe your hope of a pleasant evening is lost. I really did like this. I promise.

I had a fantastic ticket for tonight (middle of row F) but I finished work early and felt knackered so popped up to the Almeida at 5.30pm and the BO lady kindly swapped my ticket for a matinee ticket in a few weeks. Not nearly as good a seat (Row D side stalls) but she said it’s a completely open set and so nothing is missed (just a side angle obvs). So now I am home on my sofa in my pants and looking forward to dinner, TV and an early night. BOOM SHAKALAKALAKA!

😔😔😔😔

Spring for premium seats to this show.

I saw this last night too and I have to say that I think it is a brilliant adaptation. It was like a Freudian analysis of the play’s subconscious, revealing truths and connections with the author’s life that Ibsen may or may not have been conscious of. I was hooked from the word go. I loved the stripped back set and was interested by my initial response to that: a yearning for theatrical artifice that the production at first denies us because the audience is being exposed as much as the characters are. We are however let off the hook as the play progresses and given what we want - a beautiful production of Ibsen’s poignant play. At first I found some of the meta-theatrical devices a bit trite - the bare stage, the actors’ commentaries - but as this went on I felt i’d been given tools to understand such a production. Highly recommended.

More wild duck, less tame cock, please.

Indeed L, this kinda thing seems to be viewed as acceptable, not quite sure why.

By the way, it’s so embarrassing when that photo appears when you are out in public.

I am pretty much with Andrew on this play. I have to say, I needed to look up “meta” before the play, and it certainly is very knowing and workshop-like during the first half. This does illuminate the text though with references to the real life events that influenced Ibsen, and his own behaviour. The wish to “tell the truth” or just present one’s own version of it. My only criticism here is there was a lot of this - much of the first 1.5 hours, which was perhaps too much. I can see how this would divide the audience and the board, with some people seeing this as pretentious or just waiting for the play to begin. It was very Almeida, I liked it.

Fortunately, I was forearmed by the comments here, and the play really took off in the second half. So much drama, and, as with say Oresteia adapted freely by Robert Icke or Hamlet, the focus on the family drama and consequences so well done. I have been a big fan of Robert Icke’s work, and here he only slightly missed the mark with the exposition of the first half.

The acting was superb - particularly good to see Lyndsey Marshall again after her superlative performances some years ago in The Pride and Three Days of Rain. Clara Read as Hedwig was superb too.

8.5/10. 2hours 55min currently.

PS The front central stalls (not front row) suffer from the usual issue here with no rake, but particularly poor as the stage is at the same level as row AA so a lot of moving of heads to strain to see what was happening.