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Post by Dave B on Nov 14, 2022 12:09:35 GMT
March next year, public booking just went on sale at noon. I had my usual multiple queue entries, I was 9, 11 and 31. Not sure demand as really stacked up back at YV, again I might be part of the problem as I have let my membership there lapse with good tickets usually easy to come by now.
Still £12 for front row always works nicely for me at YV - I can't remember the last thing I saw there fully in the round so hopefully all good this time.
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Post by Polly1 on Nov 14, 2022 12:36:59 GMT
Quite interested in this but:
"The Young Vic Main House has been transformed into amphitheatre style seating for this show, with audience members seated on tiered steps with cushions".
Anyone any idea of running time of previous productions before I decide if I can manage the cushion?! Thanks
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Post by mrnutz on Nov 14, 2022 13:52:44 GMT
I just saw the email for this and picked up a couple of Lucky Dip tickets. Polly1 - a running time I could find for a previous production seemed to be 2.5 hours including a 15 minute interval. May be different here, of course! |
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Post by cavocado on Nov 14, 2022 13:53:35 GMT
The cushions on steps are putting me off too.
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Post by n1david on Nov 14, 2022 14:41:44 GMT
It's an innovative way to lower the age profile of YV theatre-goers...
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Post by mrnutz on Nov 14, 2022 15:48:57 GMT
Aren't the YV benches basically cushions on steps anyway? 😂
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Post by ArbitraryGibberish on Mar 9, 2023 22:50:14 GMT
I was at the first preview tonight. Didn’t check when it started but it couldn’t have been far from 7:30. Interval 8:55-9:14, ended 10:22. The seating is completely circular. There was lots of confusion around me over the seat numbers since the first two rows don’t have backs. For anyone going, your seat number is behind you, not the number directly at your feet. (I don’t know if the Young Vic’s in the round seating is always like this, the only other show I have seen here was Who Killed My Father.) I was in row B, so no back. The cushion felt very comfortable at first but by the interval I definitely needed to stand. I’m curious what they’re doing with the balcony, it was mostly empty but there were a few people up there, I saw a notebook so maybe the creative team?
I was not familiar with the play before tonight. It’s quite slow and very character focused but I really enjoyed it. The dynamics of all the characters and how they interacted was really interested and kept me invested in how it developed and what was revealed. The whole cast was good but Jenna Russell was definitely the standout for me. There were quite a few visually impressive parts making use of lights, projections on the floor of the stage, the sound design, and other elements, and these definitely added a lot to the atmosphere since the theatre and set were relatively bare. The entire stage is a revolve, although it is generally used pretty subtly. It definitely helps with the in the round staging though, the whole thing felt very balanced.
Overall I’d probably give it 4 or 4.5 and say it was well worth seeing, although I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t for everyone since as I said before it was pretty slow and character focused.
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Post by dlevi on Mar 10, 2023 7:18:19 GMT
WTF? Ok so the seat numbering is ridiculous and the good-natured volunteer ushers haven't a clue. The running time is close to 3 hours but our usher said " I think they're going to make cuts later this week" The backless seating is a Godsend for the local chiropractors - they should set up massage tables in the lobby. The slow revolve is so slow that a third of the audience could not see the 3 magic tricks which were performed early in the play.
But what about the play?
Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. 5 geographically untraceable accents descend on a remote island and behave in a manner which has no basis in any reality. Jenna Russell gives a committed performance and I admire her for it but what must she be thinking? Actually what must any of them be thinking. The direction is vague and arrogant. The design is spartan and then obscure. This is pretentious crap and we were not alone as we escaped into the night at the interval (90 minutes in) . Which leaves me to wonder - does everyone abandon the first two rows at that point? Bleah!
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Post by alessia on Mar 10, 2023 7:42:54 GMT
Sigh...so tired to NOT look forward to something I've already got a ticket for :-( I really hope the show improves in the next weeks...
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Post by foxa on Mar 10, 2023 17:11:31 GMT
I haven't booked for this yet - and I book for most things in the main house Young Vic. I feared it was going to be uncomfortable and pretentious - one I can deal with but both!- no.
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Post by alessia on Mar 10, 2023 17:28:13 GMT
I'm booked on a Monday evening after work- strongly suspect I'll cut my losses on this one and just go home (or go see something else!)
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Post by jr on Mar 11, 2023 15:35:30 GMT
Did the cooking of an egg trigger any extreme reaction from the audience?  (They have removed it now from the warning list.) |
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Post by Steve on Mar 11, 2023 23:38:59 GMT
I enjoyed this tonight. The first half set-up is slow but the second half payoff is mesmeric. This is a play about a people's attachment to a place, but the people are better imagined than the place, which could have used more poetic writing and/or more illustrative design to imagine it. A gradually accelerating revolve coupled with haunting singing only gets us halfway to imagining that precious place, but Jenna Russell, in particular, convinced me that the people shaped by the place (that we cannot see), have a very special bond with each other and with that place. Some spoilers follow. . . This is based on a true story about an island people separated from their island by an impending volcano. I never felt enough of an attachment to the island to really care about it. There was insufficient Shakespearean-Tempest-style poetry, conjuring the preciousness of this island for me, so my dramatic bond with the island was lacking. My bond with the people did build, however, more through their various humorous conversations with an exploitative South African businessman (a wily, arrogant yet somehow still charming and urbane Gerald Kyd) than through various dramatic plot contrivances. However, it's the second half that really got me, as the truism that "you don't know what you have till it's gone" is really quite beautifully illustrated, and the way bonds form through shared tribulations is really powerful indeed. Jenna Russell makes a speech to said South African businessman where she really kills it. An excellent and hypnotic second half lifted this to 3 and a half stars for me.  PS: the £12 front row seats flagged by Dave B at the beginning of the thread provide excellent value, and the cushioned seat is comfortable beneath though being backless, uncomfortable behind. PPS: Tonight the show ended at 10:20pm, making for a 2 and three quarter hour running time, given a five minute late start. |
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Post by lilgirlbigcity on Mar 13, 2023 18:50:55 GMT
I’m curious what they’re doing with the balcony, it was mostly empty but there were a few people up there, I saw a notebook so maybe the creative team? There were definitely more people up there after the interval (and less downstairs) so I wonder if that's where they send the people that complain/can't handle about the amphitheatre seating? |
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Post by mrnutz on Mar 20, 2023 10:46:59 GMT
Any more recent visits to this one? Considering returning my Lucky Dip tickets as I'm not sure it's for me...
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Post by alessia on Mar 22, 2023 20:45:47 GMT
Any more recent visits to this one? Considering returning my Lucky Dip tickets as I'm not sure it's for me... Well I have returned mine, life is too short. |
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Post by mrnutz on Mar 23, 2023 9:37:44 GMT
Any more recent visits to this one? Considering returning my Lucky Dip tickets as I'm not sure it's for me... Well I have returned mine, life is too short. I did the same! |
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Post by theatrelover123 on Mar 23, 2023 11:29:24 GMT
Well I have returned mine, life is too short. I did the same! Me three! |
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299 posts
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Post by hadeswasking on Mar 23, 2023 12:34:18 GMT
After seeing Zinnie Harris' delightful Macbeth (an undoing) quite disappointed to hear the reception to this.
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Post by ArbitraryGibberish on Mar 23, 2023 16:36:11 GMT
At the risk of sounding like a shill, I’m confused about where the negative consensus on this thread has come from. There have been 3 posts: one mostly positive (mine), one very negative, and one mixed positive. Plus all the reviews I can find seem to either be 3 or 4 stars. I can understand looking at the description of a show and deciding it’s not for you, but I feel like I’ve missed where the consensus that the show is bad has come from.
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Post by mrnutz on Mar 23, 2023 17:18:19 GMT
At the risk of sounding like a shill, I’m confused about where the negative consensus on this thread has come from. There have been 3 posts: one mostly positive (mine), one very negative, and one mixed positive. Plus all the reviews I can find seem to either be 3 or 4 stars. I can understand looking at the description of a show and deciding it’s not for you, but I feel like I’ve missed where the consensus that the show is bad has come from. Mine was from the reviews I've read elsewhere - everything I saw seemed pretty muted at best! |
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Post by alessia on Mar 23, 2023 20:42:08 GMT
At the risk of sounding like a shill, I’m confused about where the negative consensus on this thread has come from. There have been 3 posts: one mostly positive (mine), one very negative, and one mixed positive. Plus all the reviews I can find seem to either be 3 or 4 stars. I can understand looking at the description of a show and deciding it’s not for you, but I feel like I’ve missed where the consensus that the show is bad has come from. I just went by the general vibe on here and the press, and I have decided that this year I'm not going to waste time/money with stuff that I am not sure about. Strongly considering returning my Black Superhero ticket too. Sadly |
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Post by foxa on Mar 30, 2023 10:10:03 GMT
After saying I wasn't going to go, got offered a ticket on a day when I needed an outing, so found myself on a backless bench watching this. I didn't hate it and if you go, I would say stay for the second half where (IMO) all the payoffs happen. Jenna Russell delivers an incredible monologue, really stunning, and Gerald Kyd's character is not what he at first seemed - more complex and empathetic.I would like to see more of his work. The script makes things unnecessarily hard on the audience - an unfamliar dialect; tonnes of repetition; general rather than specific - and then these irritations mount when your back is aching. The audience was exemplary, though a few either left or switched to different seats during the interval. The applause was warm. Noticed a few people even hanging back discussing what bits meant, so that's probably good. Overall, I was glad I saw it, but was confused in some part by why the YV chose to do it and some of the staging choices.
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Post by joem on Apr 15, 2023 21:16:35 GMT
I didn't know anything about this play other than it might be about Tristan da Cunha, which apparently it is. Except that where the narrative meets history it is less clear that some of the pivotal events are true or that they all relate to this particular island. The tale of exile, for example, seems more to reflect events on the Chagos Islands. I suppose though that it is essential to include this, and a crucial fiction which is essential to understanding the character of Bill (the troubled islander excellently played by Cyril Nri) in order to make this an anti-colonial play. Because the history of Tristan is not a colonialist expropriation in the accepted sense, the islands belonged to no-one and had not even been visited by anyone till like the 17th century. Such population as settled there did so voluntarily and accepting a harsh, lonely existence which was not foisted on them. Likewise the evil pantomime capitalist thrown in - with a South African accent for good measure, the play being set in the sixties - is also an invention and has no basis in anything which happened there. Bizarrely, from the point of narrative, he then turns up in England as some sort of government official. So I would take the history of this with an islet of salt and concentrate on the mood of the piece instead.
As someone else has mentioned the mish-mash of accents does not seem to serve any purpose, dramatic or otherwise, other than to mislead at least some in the audience to think this might be about the Orkney Islands or somewhere in the Outer Hebrides. The repetitive language at times sounds poetic and at times, well, repetitive.
The acting is mostly very good, at least from Jenna Russell, Cyril Nri and Gerald Kyd - not entirely convinced by the younger islanders I'm afraid. Not entirely convinced you need a vocalist on stage when she is rather underutilised.
I don't want this to sound negative. Despite it being a slow-burner, as described elsewhere, it is entertaining and at times even absorbing and it is an interesting idea on a quirky theme about far-off places about which we know little which I enjoyed.
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Post by jr on Apr 29, 2023 5:57:26 GMT
Really boring and I couldn´t understand a thing (or maybe I just did not care). I love Jenna Russell, that was the main reason I bought the ticket, but her annoying voice and accent made her performance very unappealing. I left at the interval.
I had a lucky dip ticket, was upgraded before the play started to a seat downstairs. Upstairs totally empty (a coupe of people but they might be from the production).
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