A Pacifists Guide To The War On Cancer - Home MCR and NT

[BurlyBeaR]

I'm really not sure I'm brave enough for this...






"If you like your musicals with an edge, you can’t afford to miss the world premiere of A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer, an all-singing, all-dancing examination of life with a cancer diagnosis.

This brand new musical takes you on a whistle-stop tour through five unconventional stories about cancer, confronting the highs and lows of the scariest word we know.

Expect big anthems, shiny costumes, blood, tears and real cancer patients in this rip-roaring, heartbreaking celebration of ordinary life and death, scratching at the battle metaphors that surround cancer to reveal what really lies beneath."



homemcr.org/production/a-pacifists-guide-to-the-war-on-cancer/

[Phantom of London]

Cannot see this taking the London Palladium after its run at the Home, Manchester and National. The subject is about as popular as pedophilia.

However I look forward to seeing this.

[Deleted]

Also curious - and may see it in Exeter, straight after the Manchester previews and prior to the London official opening.

[firefingers]

Didn't realise Complicite had a hand in this. Definitely has my curiosity:

[djdan14]

Decided to give this a go. Can't go wrong for £5 when its on at Home MCR.

[zak97]

I'll definitely be giving this a go too, it would be wrong to deny the opportunity to see something a bit daring in London in the midst of all the Broadway transfers

[boybooshka]

Watched the first preview of this at Home on Tuesday, for a first public performance I thought it was pretty damned strong and there wasn't anything that stuck out as needing major fixing. The score isnt one you will come out raving about, it's very pastiche but that kind of is the point. It's very self consciously a "Musical" in that sense. Anyone who has seen work by Bryonny Kimmings before are likely to find the tone and feel of it very familiar, she's a very strong presence in the show. As expected a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, tears of laughter and sadness intermingled fairly frequently. Very striking visually too.

Coincidentally, I'd been discharged from a couple of days in hospital for an eye op the morning of the show, which added greater resonance to a lot of the show. But I think even if you haven't had any direct experience of Cancer or other health issues, you will connect with it. Definitely strongly recommend 4/5.

[Deleted]

Sept 23, 2016 11:35:22 GMT boybooshka said:

Watched the first preview of this at Home on Tuesday, for a first public performance I thought it was pretty damned strong and there wasn't anything that stuck out as needing major fixing. The score isnt one you will come out raving about, it's very pastiche but that kind of is the point. It's very self consciously a "Musical" in that sense. Anyone who has seen work by Bryonny Kimmings before are likely to find the tone and feel of it very familiar, she's a very strong presence in the show. As expected a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, tears of laughter and sadness intermingled fairly frequently. Very striking visually too.

Coincidentally, I'd been discharged from a couple of days in hospital for an eye op the morning of the show, which added greater resonance to a lot of the show. But I think even if you haven't had any direct experience of Cancer or other health issues, you will connect with it. Definitely strongly recommend 4/5.

Very much agree. Saw this on Wednesday and what starts out as pretty facile ends up hitting you in the gut, the second half really does go to some dark places.

Great work from the cast too, invidious to single anyone out really but it was nice to see Golde Rosheuvel again, having seen her a few times in musicals at the Bridewell back in the nineties.

[showgirl]

Didn't sound at all my sort of thing, either in terms of subject or treatment, but the positive comments above have persuaded me to take a chance and hope to be pleasantly surprised. Still a good choice of £15 tix available for early dates, too, which must say something...

[meso77]

Saw this on Saturday. Not my cup of tea at all, I really wish I had left at the interval. Note there is some audience participation for those who are wary of such things.

[Mark]

Got a rush ticket for next Saturday. Open mind and all that!

[raiseitup]

There's no interval at the National - 1hr40 straight through

Still processing my thoughts about this one, but bottom line - it made me sob, as did many others. I've also never felt an atmosphere quite like it as the audience left the theatre - no one really talking to each other.

Also, the programmes are pretty cool - made to look like case notes, complete with folder, well worth £4 if you're a sucker like me for that sort of thing. 

[showgirl]

Looked like a full house tonight and the show seemed to go down well with most people. I feel a bit mean criticising material which is obviously not only personal to the author but a on subject generally to which many of the audience members could relate; however, it did not engage me personally. I can't fault the performers but the treatment was quite amateurish and cartoon-like and imo provided no new insights or approach to the issue of cancer; plays have done this better though the singing was perhaps the best part and the saving grace in this case.

I shall be very interested to see how the professional critics negotiate the fine line between sentiment and callousness...

[andrew]

I saw this tonight. This is the third musical I've seen this week that I'd never seen before. Floyd Collins was interesting but somehow left me cold, and Murder Ballad was fun but just not really my sort of show. I walked into the Dorfman and saw the hospital set up and felt a twinge of having already seen this show. There's a lot of plays (although I suppose less so musicals) about illness of varying sorts. And doing a musical about cancer was going to take that sort of trope and put an ironic, aren't-we-so-edgy spin on it. I could see it all coming.

Which to a certain degree, it did. The voice of the writer booms out at the start pointing out almost how clever it was to make the subject palatable by doing it with music. And a lot of the songs felt cliched, there was the "aren't hospitals bad" song, the "I hate everyone and everything" song, etc. There's a lot of dramatic license, like there usually is, in the journey the character takes through the healthcare system, and there was at least one line stated as a fact designed to shock the audience, which as someone with a small amount of professional insight rung to me as blatantly untrue.

But some of the songs surprised me in their angle, all were beautifully performed and directed, and there were some great moments of musical theatre in this. The set (with some teething troubles) was nicely done, I wouldn't want to spoil it but there's some good metaphorical prop action to enjoy. I thought the central character actually not being a cancer patient was an interesting alternative to the obvious route. The 'cancer blobs' seen on promotional material were brilliant, and it's a shame they sort of get thrown away halfway through. There were moments in this which were absolutely spot on, and moments that made me see things I thought I understood quite well in a new light. Which I suppose was probably the principle aim of the writer.

And then, again not wishing to spoil anything for anyone, the plays third part was the bit that I think plays on people's minds as they leave the theatre. If I'd seen it written down I would have been extremely wary. Lots of theatre cliches all rolled into one, with the audience participation that was mentioned above thrown in for good measure. But I thought it worked. It felt a bit awkward but I was genuinely moved, and for a moment moved to tears. I don't think it's hard when you have an emotive subject like terminal illnesses to play with to make it emotional for the audience, but it's hard to do it in a way that I wasn't expecting. I have mixed feelings about this play, but it was the best thing I saw all week, and certainly the most interesting thing for the last several weeks, so the mixed feelings are melding into a fairly positive outcome.

[showgirl]

Just to add re seats, if anyone has booked the £15 tix or is planning to book: I can't speak for the higher levels (which I no longer book anyway), but my Pit level seat in row L (the front row of this side-facing section), though advertised as "restricted view" was nothing of the sort and, as the gentleman next to me and I agreed, an absolute bargain. Not sure how this happened unless the staging for this venue hadn't been finalised when the seating plan was done, but I could see my seat location when I booked. Being at right-angles to the stage and fairly close to it, I might have missed a tiny part of the stage at the end closest to me but if so it was negligible and so far as I could tell, I missed none of the action.

[Deleted]

Oct 15, 2016 21:43:37 GMT showgirl said:

the treatment was quite amateurish and cartoon-like and imo provided no new insights or approach to the issue of cancer

Oh, what a shame. I quite expected Bryony Kimmings to find a cure.

[showgirl]

Naming no names, but can anyone here please suggest why someone - who evidently finds my posts so annoying that s/he frequently quotes them with critical and/or sarcastic comments - doesn't simply ignore what I say? I am as entitled to my opinion as anyone else here and interested in others' views on productions, not their views on me and my opinions. #Justsaying!

[DuchessConstance]

The personal connection bit intrigues me. I read an interview with Kimmings recently where she said she started work on the musical without any personal connection to the material, but her son became ill later on during the process. I do wonder why someone without experience of cancer would decide to do a musical about it, and what it would have been like if her son hasn't later become ill.

[showgirl]

I also read that interview or a very similar one, and BK uses a LOT of that experience in the show, plus that of others and each performance will apparently include a personal testimony from a cancer patient. This is partly why I hesitated to criticise it as much as I would had it been entirely imagined, as how can I or anyone dispute or deny what someone else has undergone? What I do however question is the way this material has been used and whether it best serves what BK was aiming to achieve.

[Deleted]

This article may shed a little light on why Bryony Kimmings decided to do a musical about cancer. Spoilers: as with everything in theatre, it did not boil down to just one person alone.

www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/sep/11/musical-about-cancer-bryony-kimmings-judith-dimant-national-theatre

[Marwood]

Oct 16, 2016 17:12:10 GMT showgirl said:

Naming no names, but can anyone here please suggest why someone - who evidently finds my posts so annoying that s/he frequently quotes them with critical and/or sarcastic comments - doesn't simply ignore what I say? I am as entitled to my opinion as anyone else here and interested in others' views on productions, not their views on me and my opinions. #Justsaying!

You don't need to be Sherlock to work out who you are talking about, but the term that comes to mind regarding their seemingly unending, unwitty comments is 'sad.' They're not worth wasting any more thought and effort on.

[dgjbear]

I am seeing this and Amadeus in one day next month - but relay looking forward to this one. I love anything new that pushes musical theatre form on - a bit tired with all the Sondheim revivals to be honest! I thought London Road was the best night in the theatre I've had in years when I saw it at the National - and that was hardly Hello Dolly! Congrats to the National for supporting new work - long may it continue.

[Phantom of London]

Oct 14, 2016 12:19:14 GMT Mark said:

Got a rush ticket for next Saturday. Open mind and all that!

Oh Mark are you at the matinee, as I am?

[Mark]

Evening POL!

[MrBunbury]

I am going tonight because I volunteered to review the show for work. I hope it will be great (and I have prepared the Giant Handkerchief, just in case...).