Hedda Gabler - NT / UK tour.

That's subjective though, I thought it worked very well and could equally present my opinion as bald fact if I were that way inclined.

Medea was one of the best productions I've seen in the Olivier. Dunno why I said 'outrageously'; maybe I was recalling reactions at the time.

I agree, and remember being so surprised that Helen McCrory never got nominated for the Olivier. I would have given her the award that year.

I thought the NT Medea was superb personally but not presenting that as a fact. Just shows how we all have different tastes, as with this Hedda.

I'm coming out in favour of this, my expectations were practicually floor level, was most excited about meeting up with friend and getting my hands on cursed child programme than going to see play but whilst I took quite a while to warm to this by the end i was in some sort of shocked starring state (and gloriously splashed in tomato juice). I found the approach really quite different to my previous Hedda's, not sure the modern staging, use of wide open set etc. but the different portrayal of Brack and Tesman. This Brack was threatening from the start, I found his 'change' quite plausible as he seemed so creepy, sinister. Had forgotten to look out for and missed the funny walk, but i remember stuff Spall has done on tv when he was evil and menacing and for me he can really do this. Tesman was not the usual sort of head in the clouds husband i've seen before, he knew how unhappy his wife was and wasn't so happy himself, again this worked for me. Ditto liked Sinead Matthews. Love Ruth Wilson, yes she was pretty unappealing from the off but so obviously unhappy, i felt for her, was horrified by the closing net on her.

Direction wise tick from me as a different way of doing this great play, i loved the great wash of flower scent when they all went flying and the sparseness of their apartment. Front row was harrowing at the end, all that sort of torturous tom juice, there seemed all these new awful possibilities about what Brack might be ready to demand from Hedda.

Possibly their gunfire notice should have contained splash warning for front row and firing pistol bits flying out and hitting audience though i admit for me this gloriously added to my experience, i do like to feel involved!

Best not to wear any, if you want to be on the safe side.

Mixed feelings about this. Just from an aesthetic point, I thought it was absolutely beautiful - almost designed to make amazing production photos!

This is one of my favourite plays and I don't like it when Hedda is played as too 'nice' or sympathetic - she is bored out of her brain and stultified in a society that doesn't know what to do with intelligent women, so of course she's in a foul mood and not particularly affectionate towards the husband who is probably less bright than she is. So I loved Ruth Wilson's performance in isolation from the production, and I also thought the other performances were very strong and interesting - done quite differently from other productions I've seen in somecases, which felt fresh.

What I thought was missing though is a strong sense of why Hedda is so bored, fed up and self-destructive; Ibsen's proto-feminism seems to have disappeared almost completely. Without it, Hedda comes across as a terrible attention-seeking brat or someone with a diagnosable mental illness.

I really liked this and I think it's a strong, valid take so no complaints at all; but for me it misses what's driving the whole dynamic of the play.

Yeah, I liked it. I liked it so much that I was very surprised to see that some people didn't come back for act two. I thought Ruth was great and so was the rest of the cast (I wasn't crazy about Aunt J). I remember Sinéad Matthews from Evening at the talk house, she was the only good thing in it, isn't it incredible how much her voice sounds like Bernadette Peters'?

I really liked the direction, I liked how everybody slowly turned against Hedda in the last few minutes, it was very effective. I went to see it with very low expectations and ended up loving it.

Ha, thank you Peggs! Looking forward to it!

Research into the use of mordants in the dyeing industry. I hope.

Actually I can understand people leaving. It is a play that depends on your knowing or feeling that disaster for Hedda looms big. And they didn't really achieve that. 

Has a tour been announced for this? It's just been announced to be playing Hull when the New theatre reopens in November.