Sweet Bird of Youth - Chichester

[martin1965]

Jun 16, 2017 8:03:52 GMT mrslovettsmeatpie said:

Caught this last night. Circle closed and they have put these strips of material separating the circle and stalls, looked quite classy and felt way more intimate. Otherwise about 90% full going down to about 83% after the interval. We managed to upgrade our upgrade in the interval too

Odd play but that ain't a bad thing. Would love to see a GREAT production of this, shame this wasn't it. Acting went from pretty good to not great (the son being the low point for me). It will be a production il only remember when I get to see a fantastic version, and I'm sure there IS a fantastic production to be found in this piece.

I'm in my late mid thirties and me and my bud were the youngest p
there by a good 30 yrs.

Thats Chichester for you!😉

[impossibleprincess73]

Saw this last night and thought it was good, but definitely not great. Some of the cast members were stronger than others and i felt myself glazing over when the weaker actors were on. I did like the staging though, even though the cloud/crumpled sheet distracted me and the hotel room looked like the inside of Abercrombie & Fitch with all those dark shutters.

There was a talk back with the cast afterwards, which was really interesting and added some insight into the characters and the actors choices.

[Phantom of London]

I was at this afternoons show, which is the second to last one, which will conclude this evening.The whole of the upstairs was off limits and many empty seats in the downstairs area, so could deduce that this wouldn't of sold out the Minerva, where this would've been a better production, which otherwise was very pedestrian and plodding. I wanted to like the 2 leads more than I actually did and didn't detect any star quality, I mean this had the Oscar and Tony winning Marcia Gay Hayden in it, so from that can deduce that Marcia wasn't the problem, her co-lead Brian J.Smith never struck me as being a lead actor, so here maybe the problem?

Glad I made the trip to Chichester, because this tepid and pallid production will not be seen elsewhere.

2 Stars

[talkstageytome]

Brian J Smith was a standout for me in The Glass Menagerie in London, so much so that I almost considered going to Chichester to see this, but never got round to it. Surprised to hear such lukewarm responses on here.

[wickedgrin]

Yes, Brian J Smith was wonderful as the Gentleman caller in The Glass Menagerie in truly the best scene of the play, but with hindsight, perhaps, this was due to the wonderful performance of Kate O'Flynn as Laura. He was totally unconvincing in this. When one of the two leads in basically a two hander production isn't up to the mark inevitably a weak production results. Not helped by an intimate play totally lost on the vast expanse of the Chichester main stage.

With both this and 40 Years On being below par, the Chichester season has got off to a shaky start this year.

[CG on the loose]

I was there this evening (hadn't realised/remembered it was the final show of the run) - circle also closed, stalls c.70% full.

It was the first time I'd seen the play but I had seen something of the comment on here so my expectations were suitably moderated. Even so, I found little to get excited about. I too had much enjoyed Brian J Smith in The Glass Menagerie, but I think my problem with this was that I just didn't like any of the characters so while I was able to appreciate some of the acting, I was left completely unmoved by the whole unraveling. It's a measure of how little engaged I was that the most exciting (and I use the word loosely) thing about the second act was spotting Rob Ostlere (the late Dr Arthur Digby from Holby City) in one of the minor roles!

[Phantom of London]

For the record I thought Brian J Smith was very good in Menagerie, where he wasn't leading, for this role he stepped up but not to the plate.