Till The Stars Come Down - Dorfman NT

[Being Alive]

Dorfman (if I'm right) doesn't employ understudies whereas Lyttleton and Olivier do (as the increased capacity allows room in the budgets I imagine)

Unfortunately one of those things but has been the way in the Dorfman for as long as I can remember?

[Rory]

Some tickets now available on the NT site for performances for the remainder of this week.

[bigredapple]

Caught this tonight

Loved it! It deserves a WT transfer. I think I saw someone mention sohoplace, it would fit well there.

Genuinely funny, I laughed out loud which doesn’t happen often. Really great mix of drama and comedy, and it felt relatable.

Loved the vibe, intimate staging, and the cast are phenomenal!

I sincerely hope this has a second life after the NT

[eatbigsea]

I really loved this. A bit melodramatic but so well written and acted, and the plot twists really worked (why are adolescents the way that they are?) There was a school group in this evening and I’m not sure they were ready for the material, but they were engrossed and generally well behaved (apart from a few shrieks at the plot twists) and one lad raised his fists in the air in triumph when a particularly significant plot twist landed. It is always nice to see young people falling in love with theatre.

[mrbarnaby]

Feb 22, 2024 21:09:49 GMT bigredapple said:

Caught this tonight

Loved it! It deserves a WT transfer. I think I saw someone mention sohoplace, it would fit well there.

Genuinely funny, I laughed out loud which doesn’t happen often. Really great mix of drama and comedy, and it felt relatable.

Loved the vibe, intimate staging, and the cast are phenomenal!

I sincerely hope this has a second life after the NT

Yes it would be perfect there!

[jennssz]

Hi, I have a ticket available for this for tonight posted on the noticeboard if anyone is after a ticket.

[mkb]

There is a strangely powerful moment when family members, pretending to be celestial bodies, simulate orbits about one another. It shouldn't work; it's quite silly, but, aided by a bare, revolving circular stage (in the round) and effective lighting, it absolutely does.

This moment gets to the heart of Till the Stars Come Down, the magnetic bind between one another that is necessary for order to prevail. Unlike others, I do not see this as a "state of the nation" play, as what we're witnessing is timeless, namely the importance of family ties -- blood -- over other relationships. That it happens to take place in Nottinghamshire at a particular time seems less important. It could be any time, anywhere, just with different historical references.

Beth Steel's dialogue rings true, and the performances are first rate from all involved. The promise Steel showed previously, lastly in The House of Shades, is fully realised here. This is a must-see play that cannot fail to move you. I was in shreds by the end. There were plenty of laugh-out-loud lines along the way though. Like a real rollercoaster, the summits and troughs can be seen a mile off, but that just adds to the anticipation.

Five stars.

Act 1: 19:35-20:45
Act 2: 21:06-21:57

[jampot]

Is this being filmed for ntlive?

[cavocado]

Feb 27, 2024 20:20:42 GMT jampot said:

Is this being filmed for ntlive?

It's being filmed next Wednesday, but could just be for NT@Home.

[Being Alive]

God this is good.

Easily the best play I've seen so far this year. Cracking script, unbelievably relatable and real and a first rate cast.

Really hope it has a second life somewhere - it's great.

[theatrekiwi]

Another 5* from me after seeing this last night. Best play I've seen in a while, such a great cast.

Booked on a bit of a whim via NT Friday Rush, was looking for something to see this week and the 6:30pm start was very appealing alongside the reviews. Would be interesting if a few more productions did an earlier start one night a week.

[avfan]

Saw this last night and loved it. Fantastic cast and a really great script with some nice hooks and tension points to keep the audience engaged. Highly recommend if you get the chance.

[Rory]

Just out of the matinee. I adored this. One of the best new plays I've seen in aeons. They're all superb but Lorraine Ashbourne just chews the whole thing up and spits it out. Her performance is a tour de force. Yeah, it gets a bit soapy by the end but hell, I went along with it hook, line and sinker. This just simply must transfer somewhere!

[showgirl]

I liked, but didn't love this, so after all the rave comments here and reviews, it didn't live up to my expectations & the closest view to mine was eatbigsea's
"A bit melodramatic but so well written and acted". Nevertheless I enjoyed it and definitely found it the best of all Beth Steel's plays so far and yes, Lorraine Ashbourne's character and performance were priceless. I hadn't noticed that Sinead Matthews was also appearing but as soon as I heard her squeaky, rasping voice, I recognised it and her; however, hers was the least annoying performance I've ever seen her give. What didn't work for me was that both the situations and scripts reached such a pitch in the second half that they had nowhere to go other than to continue at that level or rise to even greater complications and histrionics so imo, less would have been more.

[bram]

I loved this for its honesty and fun. Excellent performances all round.

[harry]

I’m another one in the like not love camp. I was really enjoying it at the interval bar a few clunky bits of exposition (“remember when we were in that place and that person was doing this and you and me were doing this? Well I felt like that then.”)

I just wish so much more had remained unsaid or below the surface. Instead the last 20min of the play just seemed to be people screaming over one another and the final scene was so screechy.

It seemed to split the audience with a good half on their feet and loving it at the end but I also overheard another couple of conversations on the way out with people saying it was a bit shouty and soap opera-y at the end which pretty much sums up my feelings. Definitely pleased I saw it but for me it is by some way the second best of the two plays I’ve seen recently in London about a group of northen sisters with past secrets.

[sherbetlemon]

Which seats do the Friday Rush tickets tend to be? Any seats that should be avoided?

[jek]

sherbetlemon We had Friday Rush tickets for this last night. We were in the restricted view side circle seats - Row P - and they were fine. Miss a view of the odd bit but not much at all - and you can certainly still get the gist of what's happening. For a tenner they are a very good deal for an enjoyable night at the theatre.

[prefab]

Thanks to parsley and everyone else who suggested I go see this even though I disliked House of Shades. I just came back from the NT, and I thought it was a great play, full of well-drawn characters and memorable dialogue. It was also a lot funnier and warmer than I expected, even in the 2nd act. There were a few moments in that second act where I remembered one of the main problems I had with House of Shades: the cliched melodramatic scenes sometimes come so quickly one after the other that they seem comical to me. Overall, however, I thought she had a good control of tone throughout the play.

[sf]

Overheard in the lobby:

“I don’t really know anything about this play at all. Is there sex in it?”

So much of it is so good. Beth Steel knows the territory, she knows how to get big laughs, and she knows how to use family relationships to give a close-up on a bigger picture. It's cleverly directed and superbly performed, and Lorraine Ashbourne's Aunty Carol is a spectacular comic creation...

...and if you set out to write a play that is partly about latent racism, it's probably a good idea not to make your one non-English character a two-dimensional cardboard cutout, or to prove with his every line that you have no ear at all for the rhythms of Polish-accented English. It doesn't help, either, that Mark Wootton - who is otherwise very charming as Marek, and who does manage to transcend some of the bad writing - supplies such a bizarrely inconsistent accent, although the inconsistently-accented dialogue he has to deliver probably doesn't help.

It's a shame. This is a very entertaining evening, it's a play with a lot to say, it includes several memorable (female) characters and some raucously funny lines... and it shoots itself in the foot.

[thistimetomorrow]

Booked to see this after seeing all the positive comments and comparisons to Hills, but preferred Hills tbh. Another for the liked, but not loved camp.

[Rory]

This finished yesterday at the Dorfman. One of my favourite theatre experiences of all time. It has to be transferring, surely?

[bordeaux]

Mar 17, 2024 10:54:22 GMT Rory said:

This finished yesterday at the Dorfman. One of my favourite theatre experiences of all time. It has to be transferring, surely?

One would hope so.  It should tour, of course.  When was the last time the NT toured a play?

[Being Alive]

Mar 17, 2024 11:37:20 GMT bordeaux said:

Mar 17, 2024 10:54:22 GMT Rory said:

This finished yesterday at the Dorfman. One of my favourite theatre experiences of all time. It has to be transferring, surely?

One would hope so.  It should tour, of course.  When was the last time the NT toured a play?

The Macbeth that Kinnear and Duff did on the Olivier toured (but it was dreadful)

[Rory]

The Ocean at the End of the Lane was the last to tour, I think.