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Post by lynette on Apr 13, 2018 11:49:02 GMT
I’ve been covering my eyes in the theatre recently. The first was at The White Plague at the Landor. A piece about an infectious plague that makes almost everyone blind, but it is a white blindness. So, after a short introduction you don eye masks that turn everything white and you can see nothing. Being led to another room, you find that the blind have been quarantined into a building and left to fend for themselves. As you sit there, the actors tell a story of organisation, degradation and humanity reaching out. The story and effect are interesting and worth experiencing. The audience’s eyes are covered for about 1 hour 15 minutes. While this might seem long to be simply listening to a story unfold around you without vision, it would be no different to listening to a play on the radio! The second was Frogman at Shoreditch Town Hall. A piece from Australia about a young girl that went missing over 20 years ago, but with the recent discovery of the sunken boat that she had been on, the investigation is re-opened. In this case, there is live action with the police interviewing one of her friends, but this is punctuated with periods when the audience wears VR headsets to visit the children 20 years ago and also the original investigative dives that took place on the barrier reef. The repeated switch between live action and VR worked for me. Again an interesting story. I might try covering my eyes in more productions (I’m sure some on this Board may have suggestions where this might improve the experience!). One of the many joys of this Board is that I learn what not to go to. |
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Post by duncan on Apr 14, 2018 5:33:44 GMT
13 - Art - Theatre Royal - 13th April
Serge has just spent 200k on a painting - its white on white with white lines (if you squint!). Serge is showing it off to his friends Marc and Yvan. Marc hates it and calls it sh*t, Yvan tries to placate them both by agreeing with the pair of them at different times. One night as all 3 prepare to go out for dinner the scales fall from everyones eyes as their views of the validity of the painting as art tests their friendship.
Somehow this is one of the most successful comedies of all time.
Here we have Nigel "The Charmer" Havers, Denis "Justice Game" Lawson and Stephen "Brassed Off" Tompkinson playing the roles.
A breezy 80 minutes with the occasional chuckle - just not something I can get worked up about in any way. I guess I'm Yvan about it, I'd tell people I had fun but the reality is I'm just confusing myself in an attempt to please everyone. it just seemed a long winded way of saying that people are different and that our friends are our friends even though we don't like the same things. Tompkinson steals the show with his 5 minute rant on wedding invitations and Havers and Lawson are perfectly competent but it’s a fizzer than never does anything more than fizz along.
6/10
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2018 12:34:32 GMT
Tremor- Sherman Theatre The directorial debuet from David Mercatli since taking up the post there, and a new play from Brad Birch. One review here: www.miromagazine.com/theatre/review-tremor-sherman-theatre/And a longer one on the writing a bit later. Didn't have time there to go into it (Miro cap at 500 words for a review) that although the premise/writing is a fascinating use of the couple to ask bigger questions, it gets quite heavy handed/issue listing at one or two points. Overall it still works- and the ending, a long politically rooted rant by one character doesn't offer answers and instead lets the audience go away thinking about it. While the set up a couple, scarred by an event they were involved in, meeting up years later, isn't novel, and nor is the idea of pushing political ideas through them, Birch does it well. It's a nicely written piece and it allows for the airing of a number of 'big questions', and at an hour of 'real time' theatre it's a nice snappy way to do it. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2018 19:20:29 GMT
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Post by crowblack on Apr 18, 2018 21:33:37 GMT
A Clockwork Orange at the Liverpool Everyman was great - very energetic and (being scripted by Burgess) truer to the novel than Kubrick's film. The actor playing Alex also looked plausibly mid-teens - the gang in the film were clearly adults which changed the whole sense of it. I won't add any spoilers about staging in case any of you are going.
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858 posts
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Post by duncan on Apr 28, 2018 6:27:49 GMT
14 - Gut - Traverse 1
Maddy and Rory are parent to 3 year old Joshua, when granny Morven takes him to the Supermarket she opens a can of worms around who you can trust. As Maddy falls into a state of paranoia about people harming her son she cuts off those close to her….but would a loving mother go as far as hurting her own son?
Turgid for the first half. Histrionic nonsense in the second. One parent over reacts and from this the drama comes but the drama is small potatoes as for the first half it’s a series of scenes that don’t actually have an end, they just stop -
that man in the park, STOP,
the work colleague round for tea, STOP,
the trip to the Police, STOP.
And then we get exposition after exposition in the following scenes to explain what we haven't seen. SHOW DON’T TELL!!!!! And then the second half lost me totally when its revealed that our Mother character has a history of mental illness and thus we become focussed on that rather than the more interesting story of a family torn apart by doubt and suspicion. Also a bit of a Busman's Holiday for me with talk of Glitter and Saville. 4/10
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2018 12:56:59 GMT
Caught 'The Effect' at The Other Room yesterday...despite being a VERY depleted audience (I blame rugby, no sane person ventures into Cardiff for anything else on a match day) it was a very good production, and worked well in the space. Standout for me was the ever brilliant Nicola Reynolds. And continued love for Neal McWilliams flaunting his Irish charm. www.miromagazine.com/theatre/review-effect-room-theatre/ |
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858 posts
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Post by duncan on May 4, 2018 22:40:04 GMT
15 - Creditors - Lyceum
Gustav and Adloph sit and talk one afternoon, having recently met - Adolph is awaiting the return of his wife from a trip on a School committee whilst Gustav seems content to be in the presence of the artist Adolph. Over the course of an afternoon Gustav seemingly points out all of the flaws and imperfections in Adolph, his relationship with his wife Tekla and his life in general. But when Tekla returns its clear Gustav is her abandoned ex-husband. Can love survive? Is Gustav motivated by hate?
A game of two halves, the subtle manipulation by Gustav is well done and Stuart McQuarrie is exceptionally still and yet menacing in the role but in the second half the actual impact of his words just don’t hit home. We get 50 minutes of very subtle manipulation that should set up a dramatic confrontation between husband and wife, wife and ex-husband and husband and ex-husband but instead things just meander along and the only fireworks are supplied by a campfire that is lit on the stage. The lack of an emotive finale, for me, was because the confrontation between Gustav and Tekla is played inside an onstage hut but filmed and projected onto a screen hanging above said hut - we cant actually see the actors as they are inside a hut on the stage (although at times they walk past the window of the hut and are followed by the cameralady) and if I wanted to watch a film I'd go to the cinema. I connect differently to live productions than I do with film and spending 20 minutes watching a couple go over their previous relationship effectively killed the tension stone dead for me. Couple that with some utterly baffling directoral choices around a group of girl guides that slow things down twice to a glacial pace and its just a complete meh! Of a production.
5/10
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2018 8:11:12 GMT
I think for me, if I'm honest it's because the board is very London- centric I think it's not worth posting a separate thread for regional tours or shows because I assume nobody is interested? Like last night I have a LOT of thoughts about a show which I know that nobody else is likely to see...so I figure it'll disappear into the ether. Maybe this thread can be used to tag people as @theatremadness suggested for a 'follow up' on them going? The board is London centric partly because people don’t post about shows elsewhere. I have been known to travel out of London to see a show that sounds interesting and which I know won’t transfer to London. And what about people who DO live in those areas? Also, I like reading reviews of plays I may not ever get the chance to see. |
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Post by Dr Tom on May 5, 2018 14:56:45 GMT
Made In Dagenham - Mountview - Cast 2
(Bernie Grant Arts Centre)
Think this may have been my first ever theatre school show.
An excellent professional standard production with very clear sound. Actor musician style performance, which is good for the graduates looking for jobs as that’s where the industry seeks to be going.
Also reminded how much I like several of the songs.
Standout for me was Alex Spirdikis as Rita. Great voice and presence. Bit of drama too though as she was taken ill during the interval and her counterpart from Cast 1 replaced her (also good).
I do think this is a challenging show for such a young cast being a historical, but featuring people of living memory of many of the audience.
The bit that just didn’t work was the ending. The cast tried but failed to get anyone on their feet, so it fell flat. And it does seem like it ends at a pivotal moment where you want to know how things unfolded.
Running time 2 hours 40. Comfortable raked theatre with good views everywhere. And not full but also nice and cool on a hot day.
Most people in the audience, I imagine, were connected with the show or cast. I paid for a ticket and it’s a good value choice. Runs another week.
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2018 15:28:44 GMT
I think for me, if I'm honest it's because the board is very London- centric I think it's not worth posting a separate thread for regional tours or shows because I assume nobody is interested? Like last night I have a LOT of thoughts about a show which I know that nobody else is likely to see...so I figure it'll disappear into the ether. Maybe this thread can be used to tag people as @theatremadness suggested for a 'follow up' on them going? The board is London centric partly because people don’t post about shows elsewhere. I have been known to travel out of London to see a show that sounds interesting and which I know won’t transfer to London. And what about people who DO live in those areas? Also, I like reading reviews of plays I may not ever get the chance to see. I'm not quite sure why a post of mine made over a year ago it being dragged up....when this thread has been going strong-ish as a place for people to post about other shows. But as it's been dragged up- the point was/is that if people did post seperatly about shows all over the country the comparative lack of interest means they'd sink without trace on the main boards. However having this thread has proven fairly useful for those of us seeing tours and local shows as a dip in and out of thread. |
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2018 15:33:39 GMT
While I'm here-
Education, Education, Education- Wardrobe Ensemble (Touring- I saw it at Sherman)
LOVED this. It's set on May 2nd 1997 in a Secondary school (we saw it on May 2nd so points to us). As someone about the same age as the kids it focuses on (the Year 11s of the school) this was a real nostalgia piece for me. But that aside, it is a really interesting look back at the moment of real hope (depending on political leanings obviously) of that moment- Cool Britannia was rife, the music (seen here in the EXCELLENT soundtrack) was brilliant, and there was a sense that Britain was on the up. Coming back to that 20 years later is a sobering affair in itself, but the production manages to pull together an array of human interest elements, and genuinely moving moments too.
My favourite line of a play so far this year is in this too, spoken in a German accent: "No offence, but you're 15 and I like men"
The combination of movement and the truly 'ensemble' work of the company make it very theatrical in the best sense, and really genuinely funny also. Do see if it comes your way.
Added nerd points for going to see it with someone who was also in year 11 around then and grew up to work for the Labour party.
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2018 18:17:55 GMT
The board is London centric partly because people don’t post about shows elsewhere. I have been known to travel out of London to see a show that sounds interesting and which I know won’t transfer to London. And what about people who DO live in those areas? Also, I like reading reviews of plays I may not ever get the chance to see. I'm not quite sure why a post of mine made over a year ago it being dragged up....when this thread has been going strong-ish as a place for people to post about other shows. But as it's been dragged up- the point was/is that if people did post seperatly about shows all over the country the comparative lack of interest means they'd sink without trace on the main boards. However having this thread has proven fairly useful for those of us seeing tours and local shows as a dip in and out of thread. I hadn’t read this post before and was scrolling through. Wasn’t “dragging it up”. I was more hoping to encourage you to post about shows outside London as I would be interested to hear about them and others might too. |
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2018 9:08:15 GMT
I'm not quite sure why a post of mine made over a year ago it being dragged up....when this thread has been going strong-ish as a place for people to post about other shows. But as it's been dragged up- the point was/is that if people did post seperatly about shows all over the country the comparative lack of interest means they'd sink without trace on the main boards. However having this thread has proven fairly useful for those of us seeing tours and local shows as a dip in and out of thread. I hadn’t read this post before and was scrolling through. Wasn’t “dragging it up”. I was more hoping to encourage you to post about shows outside London as I would be interested to hear about them and others might too. Apologies- your original post read as a bit defensive to me, and given it was such an old post I genuinely wondered why it was suddenly being posted. |
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Post by crowblack on May 6, 2018 9:56:49 GMT
Education, Education, Education- Wardrobe Ensemble (Touring It's really good! We saw it in Manchester in an audience that my Mum (ex-teacher) suspected was full of teachers, judging by the laughs of recognition. We managed to catch their show '1972 - the Future of Sex' during its brief stint at the Almeida last summer, which was followed by an unexpected party/performance in the foyer so we got to chat to the group behind it - they're all quite young and defo ones to watch. They've got a children's show coming up at the NT's Dorfman this summer, for those Londoners with sprogs. |
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2018 10:08:03 GMT
Education, Education, Education- Wardrobe Ensemble (Touring It's really good! We saw it in Manchester in an audience that my Mum (ex-teacher) suspected was full of teachers, judging by the laughs of recognition. We managed to catch their show '1972 - the Future of Sex' during its brief stint at the Almeida last summer, which was followed by an unexpected party/performance in the foyer so we got to chat to the group behind it - they're all quite young and defo ones to watch. They've got a children's show coming up at the NT's Dorfman this summer, for those Londoners with sprogs. haha yes another mate of mine was there and we are both ex-teachers and we had a good old chuckle at a lot of that. Also that no matter what time or place you drop into Staffrooms are ALWAYS the same. |
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Post by crowblack on May 6, 2018 10:49:30 GMT
A very enjoyable Chekhov double-bill at the Royal Exchange, Manchester yesterday - The Cherry Orchard fresh and lively, and Rashdash's Three Sisters (preview) exhilarating. It's the first Rashdash production I've seen and I absolutely loved it!
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2018 16:45:16 GMT
A very enjoyable Chekhov double-bill at the Royal Exchange, Manchester yesterday - The Cherry Orchard fresh and lively, and Rashdash's Three Sisters (preview) exhilarating. It's the first Rashdash production I've seen and I absolutely loved it! Ah, thanks for reminding me about the Rashdash, I knew there was something coming up that I was going to travel into Manchester for! |
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Post by crowblack on May 6, 2018 22:01:46 GMT
going to travel into Manchester I don't know where you're based, but I think it's going to London (Yard theatre?) and maybe elsewhere later in the month. |
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Post by NeilVHughes on May 6, 2018 22:08:52 GMT
Tempted by the Three Sisters when it comes to London in a few weeks, can you confirm the running time? it states 1hr on the website which seems absurdly short.
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2018 23:25:48 GMT
going to travel into Manchester I don't know where you're based, but I think it's going to London (Yard theatre?) and maybe elsewhere later in the month. Up in the wilds of the Pennines at the moment, sort of equidistant from Manchester and Leeds so no problem. |
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Post by crowblack on May 6, 2018 23:41:02 GMT
it states 1hr on the website It was around 1 hour 25mins for Saturday's preview. It started just after 7.30 (a bit late because we waited for someone to nip to the loo!) and finished at 9. |
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2018 6:16:19 GMT
I hadn’t read this post before and was scrolling through. Wasn’t “dragging it up”. I was more hoping to encourage you to post about shows outside London as I would be interested to hear about them and others might too. Apologies- your original post read as a bit defensive to me, and given it was such an old post I genuinely wondered why it was suddenly being posted. Yes, this is why I am put off any kind of social media You can write something very quickly and the spirit of what you are trying to say is easily misinterpreted. I have had people on here take issue with me so many times I avoid posting these days, but thank you for your response. It is appreciated. The other thing is that when someone adds a new comment to an old thread it is marked on my mobile as a new thread and I sometimes miss that I am responding to a year old comment. |
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Post by showgirl on May 10, 2018 18:38:41 GMT
The Be-All And End-All - Jonathan Guy Lewis - York/Colchester/Windsor
This is the latest in the author's series of plays about the education system, though there seems some debate about whether this is the second or third. The author also takes one of the roles, as does his partner, Imogen Stubbs, and there are two other characters: their teenage son and his girlfriend, both at the same school and taking their A Levels.
After seeing it in York last week (first public performance of the short tour) I found it very hard to assess and am still struggling, but it was PN last night and though The Stage has given it a disappointing 2 stars only, both the British Theatre Guide and the Public Reviews sites are much more positive - possibly more so than I would be.
I did find it engaging and thought-provoking but felt that the writer had over-egged the pudding by cramming in so many issues, including exam stress, job insecurity, drug-taking - and major health issues for two of the four characters, to name just a few. I also felt there were too many histrionics and that the tension was ramped up to the point where it was not only sustained beyond the point where it remained credible but that its descent into physical violence was also unconvincing.
The subject is fascinating and there's a good play in there somewhere but it would benefit from some tweaking to tone it down a little and to sharpen the focus on fewer issues. The cast were all brilliant, given that they had a lot of overlapping, quick-fire dialogue to deliver and didn't once falter, and it must be quite a physically demanding play to perform, too. Certainly worth a look and it seemed to go down well with the York audience.
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Post by lou105 on May 10, 2018 21:38:04 GMT
The Be-All And End-All - Jonathan Guy Lewis - York/Colchester/Windsor I did find it engaging and thought-provoking but felt that the writer had over-egged the pudding by cramming in so many issues, including exam stress, job insecurity, drug-taking - and major health issues for two of the four characters, to name just a few. I also felt there were too many histrionics and that the tension was ramped up to the point where it was not only sustained beyond the point where it remained credible but that its descent into physical violence was also unconvincing. I saw this at its second performance, and i think this was the nub of my issue with the play, showgirl . Despite some difficult circumstances for the family, I didn't really sympathise much with any of them- it was all just a bit much! There were some laughs at the beginning, with lots of recognition of the trials and tribulations of life with teenagers, and there was certainly plenty to think about as the plot developed. There is also an unusual and poignant ending, which I quite enjoyed once I relaxed in to it! The audience were engaged and chatting about the issues as they left- a good discussion starter, I think, but for me, not quite "there" yet. |
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