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Post by jr on Apr 17, 2023 7:33:53 GMT
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Post by zahidf on Apr 17, 2023 8:05:24 GMT
Going next Sat. Seems to be 90 mins with no interval
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Post by Latecomer on Apr 17, 2023 11:44:57 GMT
Going on Wednesday,Looking forward to it ,big fan of Liz White! Guessed the running time would be about 90 mins when they are having a few post show talks starting at 9.15pm. Do let us know thoughts afterwards as am doing that “trying to decide what to fill my precious available theatre slot with” and am very tempted by this….Liz White is great isn’t she! |
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Post by mkb on Apr 17, 2023 12:25:04 GMT
I wish they'd be upfront about likely running times. With pretty much any play, I can tell by the number of pages in a playtext what the ball-park running time is going to be. Why can't the National?
They will have known from the get-go that this was a no-interval affair somewhere between 75 and 105 minutes, and not a two-act 2-hour-plus event. Knowing that would have been really useful. I wouldn't have bothered booking an expensive hotel and would have got the last train home.
No-one is expecting accurate predictions before performances begin, but some information would be helpful. Something like: "We cannot give a running time until performances begin but initial expecations are that the show duration is likely to be between x and y minutes."
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Post by Jon on Apr 17, 2023 12:31:01 GMT
I wish they'd be upfront about likely running times. With pretty much any play, I can tell by the number of pages in a playtext what the ball-park running time is going to be. Why can't the National? They will have known from the get-go that this was a no-interval affair somewhere between 75 and 105 minutes, and not a two-act 2-hour-plus event. Knowing that would have been really useful. I wouldn't have bothered booking an expensive hotel and would have got the last train home. No-one is expecting accurate predictions before performances begin, but some information would be helpful. Something like: "We cannot give a running time until performances begin but initial expecations are that the show duration is likely to be between x and y minutes." I think beating up the NT over not knowing the running time for a new play until it starts is a bit OTT and a bit entitled. |
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Post by mkb on Apr 17, 2023 12:47:54 GMT
I wish they'd be upfront about likely running times. With pretty much any play, I can tell by the number of pages in a playtext what the ball-park running time is going to be. Why can't the National? They will have known from the get-go that this was a no-interval affair somewhere between 75 and 105 minutes, and not a two-act 2-hour-plus event. Knowing that would have been really useful. I wouldn't have bothered booking an expensive hotel and would have got the last train home. No-one is expecting accurate predictions before performances begin, but some information would be helpful. Something like: "We cannot give a running time until performances begin but initial expecations are that the show duration is likely to be between x and y minutes." I think beating up the NT over not knowing the running time for a new play until it starts is a bit OTT and a bit entitled. My funds for indulging my theatre-going hobby are not unlimited, so yes I think it would be considerate if theatres, not just the NT, could pass on as much information as they have as soon as possible, with whatever caveats they need, so that people don't unnecessarily waste money. Sorry if that makes me sound entitled, but, if it does, so be it. It's not easy or cheap trying to see London theatre when you don't live there. The NT doesn't even publish running times after a show has started, witness this one. |
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Post by Latecomer on Apr 17, 2023 13:21:01 GMT
Yes, as someone who comes from outside London to see plays it really helps to have a rough idea, doesn’t it! And the reverse of the “short play” too, where the play is 3 hours + and suddenly you can’t get a train home! (The Ferryman I’m looking at you here!)
And, as you say, they can tell from the play length and an interval would only make a half hour difference at most!
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Post by Rory on Apr 17, 2023 17:27:02 GMT
I think beating up the NT over not knowing the running time for a new play until it starts is a bit OTT and a bit entitled. My funds for indulging my theatre-going hobby are not unlimited, so yes I think it would be considerate if theatres, not just the NT, could pass on as much information as they have as soon as possible, with whatever caveats they need, so that people don't unnecessarily waste money. Sorry if that makes me sound entitled, but, if it does, so be it. It's not easy or cheap trying to see London theatre when you don't live there. The NT doesn't even publish running times after a show has started, witness this one. Completely agree. Bugger all entitled about it. Booking a theatre trip when you live well away from London takes considerable planning, not to mention the fact it's now absurdly expensive even without hotels, trains and/or air fares to factor in. |
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Post by londonpostie on Apr 17, 2023 17:51:55 GMT
The NT doesn't even publish running times after a show has started, witness this one.
FFS, it's in preview for another week: it doesn't have a running time, and an estimate might be misleading depending on last-minute changes, and which might annoy those running for a train.
They could tell you for sure in 10 days time i.e. after Press Night.
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Post by mkb on Apr 17, 2023 18:01:52 GMT
I suspect that what we have here is different opinions between those who live in London and those who don't.
No-one's expecting bang-on estimates at this stage. +/-15 minutes would do.
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Post by jr on Apr 17, 2023 22:37:36 GMT
I've been to the play this eve. Exactly 90 minutes, out at 21h.
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Post by cavocado on Apr 18, 2023 9:35:01 GMT
I've been to the play this eve. Exactly 90 minutes, out at 21h. What did you think of the play? |
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Post by jr on Apr 18, 2023 12:10:13 GMT
I've been to the play this eve. Exactly 90 minutes, out at 21h. What did you think of the play? I don't know how many plays I have seen lately about abuse, and I am getting bored with the topic (my problem, obviously). While it is an important issue, it is very unlikely an abuser is going to attend plays like this one and think about what they do, or have done, and change their behaviour. It becomes an exercise of preaching to the converted, and repetitive. I liked the play up to a point. I found the last 30 minutes shouty and preachy, going a bit over the top. I didn't know any of the actors and I thought they were all quite good; I really liked Bríd Brennan, which is the most complicated character and difficult to pull off. Really nice set, and direction and pace are good too. There are a few effects that I wasn't sure what they were about but it creates and unsettling environment that works in favour of the play. I would love to read other opinions, I might have missed some points they were trying to make. One more thing, as a non-native English speaker I found difficult to understand some of the accents, specially Liz White's. They mention Bradford, I think; is this suppose to happen in Northern England? I don't know why I thought it was an Irish play but I don't think so... |
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Post by barelyathletic on Apr 18, 2023 14:03:44 GMT
Interesting that Brid Brennan is in the Dorfman, having been one of the original cast of Dancing at Lughnasa at the Abbey and then at the NT Lyttelton in 1991, where she gave a phenomenally poignant and moving performance as Agnes, and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress when it went to New York. Reason enough to see this.
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Post by jr on Apr 18, 2023 14:15:34 GMT
What did you think of the play? I don't know how many plays I have seen lately about abuse, and I am getting bored with the topic (my problem, obviously). While it is an important issue, it is very unlikely an abuser is going to attend plays like this one and think about what they do, or have done, and change their behaviour. It becomes an exercise of preaching to the converted, and repetitive. I liked the play up to a point. I found the last 30 minutes shouty and preachy, going a bit over the top. I didn't know any of the actors and I thought they were all quite good; I really liked Bríd Brennan, which is the most complicated character and difficult to pull off. Really nice set, and direction and pace are good too. There are a few effects that I wasn't sure what they were about but it creates and unsettling environment that works in favour of the play. I would love to read other opinions, I might have missed some points they were trying to make. One more thing, as a non-native English speaker I found difficult to understand some of the accents, specially Liz White's. They mention Bradford, I think; is this suppose to happen in Northern England? I don't know why I thought it was an Irish play but I don't think so... I really should edit better before posting.... It should read: "it creates an unsettling environment" "I really liked Bríd Brennan, which is the most complicated character and difficult to pull off." She is not a complicated character!, the role she plays is. [Or she might be a complicated person but I wouldn't know since I haven't met her  ] |
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Post by foxa on Apr 18, 2023 14:33:38 GMT
Really interested to read your review jr . This production has really flown under the radar for me. Sounds like it will be a hard sell for the NT (though having said that, the previews look like they've sold pretty well.) |
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Post by Jon on Apr 18, 2023 17:23:43 GMT
I think someone at the NT reads this thread as the runtime of The Motive and the Clue and Dixon and Daughters is up.
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Post by Rory on Apr 18, 2023 17:56:39 GMT
I know Brid Brennan and she is a fabulous actress and a lovely person.
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Post by drmaplewood on Apr 21, 2023 7:11:07 GMT
Found this an intriguing but flawed drama, with some really excellent performances (Brennan is terrific in a very challenging role) but overall felt once it reveals its secrets, didn't really know where to go next. I would have done without the Leigh character entirely (what a name Posy Sterling is, though!) and the tacked on subplot at the end was jarring.
Still, an interesting evening and worth seeing - just wish some of the ideas were fleshed out more.
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Post by zahidf on Apr 22, 2023 20:32:26 GMT
I thought it was very well acted overall and intense. Some good jokes surprisingly as well
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Post by caa on Apr 22, 2023 20:51:44 GMT
I try and get to most productions at the National but haven't booked for this one waiting for the reviews
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Post by Steve on Apr 23, 2023 14:13:30 GMT
Saw this last night, and although there are programmatic and predictable elements, I was gripped by the sheer intensity of it, and Brid Brennan's central character is brilliantly written and acted. Some spoilers follow. . . I don't think the purpose of a piece like this is to deter abusers, but rather to understand what happens to everyone around them. By the time this story begins, the abusive father is dead. The set-up is that Mum, Mary (Brid Brennan), is coming home from six months in prison, and she's got a lot of animosity for the daughters who didn't visit, and the stepdaughter whose testimony put her away. This is not an Agatha Christie style whodunnit, but a Colombo style whydunnit, a consideration not of who is guilty, but how guilty, a study of denial, coping behaviour and survival. The style of the piece is very "2:22" horror, with the set, Mum's house, emitting clanking and piercing musical cues between scenes to suggest horrible secrets concealed therein, a house haunted by history. This significantly ups the intensity. As with 2:22, characters are in different degrees of denial about whether and how haunted the house is, but the director and sound designer leave the audience in no doubt. The only question is when and how many horrors crawl out of the woodwork, and the main body of the play builds to the moment they do. . . Brennan's Mum character is pivotal: a twisted version of Aunt Maggie Faraway, her character in "The Ferryman," similarly blank about the past, similarly carrying potential for lucidity, but lost not in the fog of Alzheimers, but in the depths of denial. Where Aunt Maggie was benign, Mother Mary is bitter. Brennan is remarkable in the role, a Lady Macbeth who has washed her hands so many times, she half believes they are clean, and she's damn well going to savage anyone who suggests, or even reminds her, that they might not be. Just about the only person Brennan's Mary isn't bitter about is her fellow jailbird, Leigh, who she invites into the family home, to the consternation of her daughters. Posy Sterling's Leigh is so childlike and upfront, such a welcome contrast to everybody else, that she is a scarce and welcome source of comic relief. I felt the entire cast were strong, but Brennan and Sterling were my highlights, and the ironic warmth of their surrogate mother-daughter relationship was well realised. Ultimately, this play plays out quite predictably, but it is intense, illuminating, funny at times, and ultimately what fascinates the most is not the devil we know, but the details we don't. 3 and a half stars from me. |
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Post by zahidf on Apr 26, 2023 13:53:51 GMT
3-4 stars in the review for this
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Post by wiggymess on Apr 28, 2023 11:15:28 GMT
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Post by Latecomer on Apr 30, 2023 16:59:05 GMT
I quite liked this play, without loving it. Some great performances. Front row rush seats are great (not at all restricted) and set is good too. It did take me to another world….that feeling you get when you walk out of the theatre at the end and you aren't sure what time of day it is, and you are a bit too shaken to talk properly? I liked the spooky sound effects, think they could have taken that further.
As an “amateur director” I’m not quite sure what could have just elevated it that tiny bit for me…..but I enjoyed it a lot and my husband was quite traumatised “I’m so sorry I’m white and male and part of the Patriarchy”. Bless!
Well worth seeing!
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