Death of England Rafe Spall at NT

I saw the second preview in which Rafe fell off the stage during a transition, onto a lady in the bar seat - breaking the chair in the process and leaving the women flat on the floor.

Made for a hilarious moment but did feel for the women!

In case people haven’t noticed, Rafe Spall is talking about the show in a platform at the NT on Monday. 3pm, unfortunately for the 9-5ers amongst us, but they generally release these platforms as podcasts later. I’m thinking it may be one of the more interesting actor platforms.

Rafe Spall at today's platform said there were talks to bring this to the West End.

Regarding the cloakroom, the Dorfman does have its own cloakroom. Not too sure about the seating for this production.

Your Pit ticket should state if you are sections A-D. We went in around 15 minutes before the show, and there were about 6 people seated in our area already. The seats were comfortable and give you a great close up view of the performance. As you noted, the tickets ask you to deposit your bag and coat in the cloakroom. Not everyone did, but the main thing is that you do not have anything on the floor, which they mentioned twice in our seats. Don’t worry, it not that they will get wet or anything, just to keep the area clear for you to swivel round and Mr Spall to move freely. His performance was wonderful.

I don’t think it warrants going into the West End but it’s exactly the sort of thing Sonia Friedman would take into the Ambassadors as part of her new season. 

The Jungle at the Playhouse had a similar staging, so could go in there after all the Jamie Lloyd plays finish. or any other medium sized theatre willing to rip its seats out.

Was there at the talk as well, quite enjoyable. Rafe mentioned that it was 14,000 words he had to learn for this. quite staggering really.

Playhouse has Good directly after the Jamie Lloyd plays, which takes them to the end of 2020.



That's actually a really good shout. Trafalgar 1 currently doesn't have anything on sale past On Blueberry Hill and a similar staging would be possible in that space.

went last night, what a performace from Rafe Spall. Absolutely mesmerising. and all the more admirable as he managed to keep his focus despite a drunk audience member shouting at him three times. He dealt with it brilliantly, first and second time asking the man to shut up, then at the third intrusion, asked him to leave-the guy was escorted out. and after all that, Rafe went straight back into the character and carried on as if nothing had happened! Everyone was standing up at the end, for a long time. I urge everyone to go to this if you can (and sit near the stage-I had a high stool to the side and wished I was closer), I feel it will be one of those that will be remembered and referred to in years to come. I do hope it moves to the West End so more people can see it, but at the same time I don't know how Rafe can possibly keep this role for much longer without his health being compromised...

Didn’t do it for me or my friend either. Interesting it stemmed from a 10min short film as it felt like the style and tone kept shifting as if lost of short plays / sketches had been stacked together and ultimately added up to much less than a whole. The audience interaction seemed unclear - at some points near the start it felt like the actor Rafe Spall (as opposed to the character) was talking to someone in a “we’re all here watching a play” kind of way (comments like “nobody’s done that before” etc.) But then that interaction just stopped so it felt like a mistake rather than a device.

I HATED the funeral home set. Why do the whole thing in one in-the-round blank canvas style then build a ludicrously detailed set for 10min of the show? And if you are going to do that, why choose that particular 10min which seemed no more significant than any other bit except that’s the bit they’d made the film of a few years ago?! When they did a similar thing with the set at the Almeida for Our Town it was the most striking coup-de-theatre, completely unexpected and loaded with meaning and emotion. Here it just felt like they went “oh we’ve got a NT budget and all we’ve bought is some swivel chairs, let’s put a great big set in the back”

Rafe is undoubtedly to be admired for his performance and dedication to the material, but ultimately it felt like middle class people watching middle class people imagine “un-pc but ultimately golden-hearted” working class people (like the worst of Mike Leigh).

Not sure if that's the whole story. At least some of his childhood sees to have been spent in south London (he supports Crystal Palace, fwiw)- he was also claiming at the talk on Monday he was in a white minority in his school class - IMDB says he was born in Camberwell.