A German Life-Bridge theatre

Thanks Monkey, did have a look at your site, but as I'm not a regular dayseater I was looking in the wrong place. Got it now and will know where to look in future!

Saw this on Wednesday and though Maggie Smith was incredible but agreeing on the annoying audience but for me it wasn't phones it was electric watches! A man next to me was checking his every five or ten minutes once we were past the halfway point and clearly he must have thought since it was a tiny screen he was getting away with it but just because it is small doesn't mean it doesn't give off light equivalent to the surface of the sun!

The only drama in this piece is what Maggie squeezes out of it, a teeny bit lazy of the playwright not to have worked the woman's story into an oppositional piece to see how parts of it crumble.

But a bravura performance from one of the finest actors to have graced our stage. Worth every penny. If it's the last time we see her on stage (I hope not) thank you ma'am.

I will say, I don't think she *was* struggling with her lines. The character was very clearly a rambler, and audiences are always falling for Polonius's "what was I saying?" in Hamlet and talking about how great it was that the actor stayed in character while admitting his memory failure and got back on track so well, even though he's just doing what Shakespeare wrote. I bet Maggie was fine, and anyone who's seeing this twice who remembers a particular seeming-flub from their first visit will see the same seeming-flub on their return trip.

The original documentary film, featuring the interviews with Frau Pomsel, will be shown on BBC4 on Monday May 13 at 10pm.

This seems to be attracting a fairly awful standard of patron, when I was there a week or so ago there were numerous alarms and ringtones going off, a heavy nose-breather to my right, and the most heinous thing of all, someone in the stalls tried to take a photograph and forgot to turn the flash off, so we got a brief addition to the lighting plot for a few seconds.

We talk about this all the time but truly I believe that phones will never be solved in an auditorium. People will always demand to have in their pocket, people will always forget or demand that they be left on during a performance, people will always not give a fig about lighting up in their row when they get a bit bored mid-play.

Dame Maggie was rapturous, I'm intrigued about where the line between her accidentally stumbling/forgetting lines and deliberately stumbling/forgetting lines lies. Really glad to have gone.

Pre performance a very persistent usher stopping people taking photos of the set, it's copyright apparently. She was very polite but very firm and I asked since we had exchanged your busy tonight type conversation, if I could rely on her being as hot on any phones going off. She said it was a real problem and in general the problem of phone or watch phones not only irritating the audience but very visible to actors and causing issues for lighting cues etc. It was quiet fortunately tonight and an older lady ask me if I could check her phone was off as it was new and she wasn't sure how it worked. I'm choosing to believe she asked me as I looked youngish.
DMS just great, it's subtle but captivating. Never thought I'd see her on stage, very glad I have.
They sold out of programmes so we're giving out their email address to mail and apparently they'll ring you up to take payment and post, bit of an oversight there, they had to know people would buy them.

Me there too tonight. All I can say is Wow! A masterclass. Very interesting material which I was vaguely aware of but given life by this tremendous actress. The Olivier Award right there and every other accolade they can chuck at her.

I was the woman stuffing a big hankie into her mouth three quarters through to stop a cough.  In row D 21. Sorry to miss you. 

I don't think Bridge Theatre productions are eligible as they aren't a SOLT member (someone please correct me if I am wrong!)

If the venue isn't a member of SOLT, they can still pay SOLT for a production to be considered if they think it warrants it. The Young Vic did it with their revival of A Doll's House a few years back. I can't imagine The Bridge not sorting eligibility for this, though I also can't imagine that next Saturday will be the last we'll see of it.

Dialogue? What dialogue?? :-)