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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 8:49:54 GMT
I like James Holmes - he was great in BitB and my highlight in this. He has mischief behind his eyes!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 9:57:36 GMT
I just want someone ONCE to acknowledge that I knew John Oliver as a kid. Out of interest, has he always talked like that, or does he just overcompensate his Britishness for his US audience? |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 10:01:25 GMT
I just want someone ONCE to acknowledge that I knew John Oliver as a kid. Out of interest, has he always talked like that, or does he just overcompensate his Britishness for his US audience? Oh no he has always spoken like that! Didn't swear as much back then. He had longer hair when I knew him. And he was 16. Had glasses thou. He was an incredibly lovely guy |
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Post by Jan on Mar 24, 2017 10:02:17 GMT
Believe it or not, but Mr Cooney had another go at this play with a sequel "Two into One". I had the dubious pleasure of playing the hotel manager in it just last year. As much as I cringed at trotting out the lines, the audience loved it. They couldn't get enough Willey. That there is an inexhaustible appetite for schoolboy smut and cock jokes amongst the general public is evinced by the presence of the tiresome Alan Davies (51) on QI for the last 14 years providing nothing but. The even more tiresome Stephen Fry seemed to find his efforts genuinely amusing, unlike Sandi Toksvig who has to forcibly arrange her mouth into a smile when Davies shows her a picture of a cock he has drawn or mimes oral sex. Ben Elton is another serial offender in his lamentable recent TV sitcom efforts. |
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Post by infofreako on Mar 24, 2017 12:22:40 GMT
I dont think I can drag myself into Brighton to catch this now but I know some people who have been and found it absolutely hilarious
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Post by Marwood on Mar 24, 2017 13:50:23 GMT
It's on in Bromley in June if you can cope with waiting that long.
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Post by duncan on Mar 24, 2017 20:16:55 GMT
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Post by Marwood on Mar 26, 2017 14:49:53 GMT
Three stars in the Mail On Sunday today - it doesn't sound THAT bad, I don't think anyone books to see a Ray Cooney play expecting to witness the reinvention of the wheel. Still not sure if I want to actually pay money to see it though.
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Post by Steve on Mar 27, 2017 12:26:44 GMT
Believe it or not, but Mr Cooney had another go at this play with a sequel "Two into One". I had the dubious pleasure of playing the hotel manager in it just last year. As much as I cringed at trotting out the lines, the audience loved it. They couldn't get enough Willey. I think "Two into One" was the original, in which Dick Willy MP began his philandering escapades at the Westminster Hotel, with his private secretary, Pigden, desperately trying to cover up for him, and this is the sequel in which Dick Willey MP is in EVEN MORE TROUBLE THAN BEFORE at the Westminster Hotel, with Pigden even more desperate than before. Cooney played Pigden himself in the first productions of both, with Michael Williams playing Pigden in both in the West End, with Sinden as Dick Willey MP in both. I imagine anyone who saw "Two into One" at the Menier last year, with Michael Praed as Dillck Willey MP, and actually liked it (admittedly the latter group might be smaller than the former), may wish to see this to find out what happened next lol. |
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Post by Jan on Mar 27, 2017 14:11:39 GMT
Cooney's "Theatre of Comedy" initiative was quite good in principle, I mean there are theatres dedicated to musicals, and to new plays, and to Shakespeare, so why not to comedies (both new and old).
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2017 14:35:28 GMT
Cooney's "Theatre of Comedy" initiative was quite good in principle, I mean there are theatres dedicated to musicals, and to new plays, and to Shakespeare, so why not to comedies (both new and old). It was a company, not a physical theatre, and it still exists: www.shaftesburytheatre.com/about-us/theatre-of-comedy/I wonder if it was an inspiration for Theatre de Complicite? I mean there's a theatre company dedicated to comedy, why not to complicity? |
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Post by Jan on Mar 27, 2017 14:52:11 GMT
Cooney's "Theatre of Comedy" initiative was quite good in principle, I mean there are theatres dedicated to musicals, and to new plays, and to Shakespeare, so why not to comedies (both new and old). It was a company, not a physical theatre, and it still exists: www.shaftesburytheatre.com/about-us/theatre-of-comedy/I wonder if it was an inspiration for Theatre de Complicite? I mean there's a theatre company dedicated to comedy, why not to complicity? They did some good things. I think I saw Peter O'Toole and John Thaw in Pygmalion. What's not to like there. I saw O'Toole a few times, always gave the impression of unpredictability on stage, quite a rare characteristic. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2017 14:59:10 GMT
I'm a big fan of companies with a stated focus. As you say, Theatre of Comedy produced a very wide range of work. I see The Other Palace as a fine equivalent in musical theatre. Such companies should be able to attract more attention and get keener audiences than go to isolated productions here and there.
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Post by talkstageytome on Mar 27, 2017 23:03:26 GMT
Good god. I saw this tonight. Good god.
10 minutes in and I wanted to leave. Dull, slow, plenty of sexism and homophobia thrown in for good measure. Oh dear.
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Post by duncan on Apr 18, 2017 15:30:16 GMT
Heading in this evening - looks to have sold a few more tickets but still going to be around 33% full at most.
Also the website cant decide who is actually in it - Andrew Hall is showing as having been replaced by Jeffrey Harmer but the bio is still Andrew Hall!!
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Post by duncan on Apr 18, 2017 22:09:01 GMT
And indeed Andrew Hall is Out of Order and has been replaced by Jeffrey Harmer.
There are several problems with this comedy,
1. Susie Amy is awful. Not bad, not terrible but awful. She starts of screeching her lungs out and doesn't let up at all.
2. She spends the first 40 minutes or so in her underwear, showing us her ample assets for no other reason than titillation - we get one male bum shot in the second act. Yes the plot demands that she cant leave the hotel room but surely someone somewhere could have come up with a better reason than having her spend a considerable amount of time in her scanties.
3. The four or is it five times that they do the hotel manager walking in on a male character supposedly giving a blow job to another male character is iffy. Okay I'll go with it being amusing the first time but to repeat the same scene time and time and time and time again just seems like the writer has nothing to say so is reverting to stereotypes to raise a titter.
4. Its 2hrs with a 20 minute interval but the action on stage is lethargic.
5. Its lethargic because the direction by Ray Cooney is poor - the end of the first act should have the audience rolling in the aisles but its so leaden and signposted that it falls flat.
6. It takes far too long for someone's trousers to fall down.
Still the window was good and for the time they spend doing what I found to be a rather amusing spin on Weekend at Bernies with the body I'm going to say this is an average 5/10. It needs someone else to have a pass at the script and gee up the direction - for all the talk of May and Corbyn they missed the chance today to be on top of current politics.
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Post by Marwood on Jun 13, 2017 8:48:35 GMT
I've got free tickets to see this in Bromley next week (well I say free, I had to pay a £2 admin charge for each one so I had to pay the princely sum of £4 for the 'privilege'): I'm not expecting much by the comments above, but I've never been to see anything at the Churchill and I'll be going in with an open mind.
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Post by anita on Jun 13, 2017 9:24:58 GMT
It was at Dartford last week. I was hoping for an email as I live close to there & Bromley but not got one.
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Post by Marwood on Jun 22, 2017 9:12:16 GMT
Saw this last night, not the worst thing I've seen at the theatre in recent months (I preferred it to the likes of The Philanthropist and The Life Of Galileo), but by the time it finished, I just was just left wondering why on earth this had been revived. None of the cast are what you would call superstars but you wonder how they ended up getting chosen to be in this - they were all OK in their roles, its just a shame the material they were given was just...meh.
Some of the people sat around me (not many, the theatre wasn't even half full) were in hysterics throughout but I think I only laughed a couple of times near the end (I think Stockholm Syndrome had kicked in by that point and I was feeling sympathy for the cast) but they were also wolf whistling when Susie Amy made her first appearance: the kind of people that Sid Boggle and Bernie Lugg were based on in Carry On Camping.
I see in the back of the programme that a revival of Run For Your Wife is one he cards for 2018, start placing your bets on what kind of similarly stellar cast will be lined up for that.
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