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Post by alexandra on Sept 6, 2016 11:44:43 GMT
By "gets it" I presume you mean "agrees with me".
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2016 12:05:21 GMT
I assume Theatremonkey means both Bowles and Lindsay were able to ham it up in the way he feels makes Archie work as a character - ie they both 'get' what makes Archie tick more than Branagh does, maybe.
And while those first two actors may well be lovely chaps in real life, I do tend to associate them with slightly smarmy roles, so I can see what Monkey is getting at.
The comedy didn't go down too badly last night - some lines were truly terrible and would never raise a laugh; I assume purposefully so. But even a few of the old jokes got a laugh from the audience last night - I wasn't sure if we were meant to, though, as Archie's follow-up lines often stressed the supposed failure of the joke!
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Post by mtchairs on Sept 6, 2016 14:53:15 GMT
Saw it Saturday afternoon (and have the KB Garrick Snowglobe to prove it - it made me giggle and wasn't badly priced IMHO. Anyway)... Hope you weren't joking about this, because I would really love to take home a KB Garrick Snowglobe as a souvenir when I see the play in November. Photo or more details please? :-) |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2016 15:02:10 GMT
Is the misspelling of "Branagh" yours or the snowglobe's?  In all seriousness, that sounds HILARIOUS! I sort of want one just to frighten people with! |
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Post by mtchairs on Sept 6, 2016 15:09:46 GMT
^ No, not joking at all. £5 gets you a substantial 10cm high snowglobe containing a little plastic Garrick Theatre with "The Kenneth Branaugh Season" on the signboard, and a little plastic taxi and tree in front. On the back of the theatre is also the "Branaugh Season" printed again. It made me laugh a lot. Make sure you take a large bag, as the box it comes in is quite substantial and the globe is really well packed in moulded polystyrene. Thanks. Hope they still have some left in November and that I can fit it in my luggage! It will have to travel round the globe with me to the US and then home to Australia :-) |
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Post by Flim Flam on Sept 6, 2016 18:11:13 GMT
Ooh, and forgot to mention, the "snow" is sparkly, too! Of course it is, that's real West End snow. Hate to admit it, but I really want one of these now... |
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Post by alexandra on Sept 7, 2016 12:09:03 GMT
FFS. The EGO.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2016 12:30:15 GMT
Do you think it was cheaper to order the snowglobes than to get business cards with "KENNETH BRANAGH, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR" printed up? Or maybe they offered him a discount on the snowglobes when he ordered his business cards? |
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Post by Snciole on Sept 7, 2016 12:39:36 GMT
(Can we get theatreboard snow globes, please?)
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Post by rumbledoll on Sept 7, 2016 14:53:17 GMT
^ No, not joking at all. £5 gets you a substantial 10cm high snowglobe containing a little plastic Garrick Theatre with "The Kenneth Branagh Season" on the signboard, and a little plastic taxi and tree in front. On the back of the theatre is also the "Branagh Season" printed again. It made me laugh a lot. Make sure you take a large bag, as the box it comes in is quite substantial and the globe is really well packed in moulded polystyrene. It was priced at £20 back in January if I remember it correctly.. But I though it was only The Winter's Tale "feature" gift  |
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Post by macksennett on Sept 8, 2016 21:20:05 GMT
I have two of the cheap £15 stalls tickets I can't use for this Saturday afternoon if anyone is interested - am in town Friday night for delivery. Msg me!
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Post by martin1965 on Sept 10, 2016 18:05:58 GMT
Saw this today, hmmm bit of a curiosity, to be honest although Branagh and an unrecognisable Scacchi acted their socks off, i think the play has dated. Yer woman from Downton was awful. Set and lighting were good i thought. Not full by any means and he got a lot of laughs but...
I hope he comes back with another season, west end needs him😃
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2016 18:09:58 GMT
Saw this today, hmmm bit of a curiosity, to be honest although Branagh and an unrecognisable Scacchi acted their socks off, i think the play has dated. Yer woman from Downton was awful. Set and lighting were good i thought. Not full by any means and he got a lot of laughs but... I hope he comes back with another season, west end needs him😃 I have to admit that it took me ages to work out that it was Greta Scacchi. She was probably the best one in it. I think she'd watched 'Vera Drake' one too many times though but still.... |
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Post by joem on Sept 13, 2016 13:45:33 GMT
Not bad but not half as good as Robert Lindsay at the Old Vic. The part of Archie Rice doesn't come nturally to Branagh. In trying so hard to be the new Olivier he sometimes forgets that he isn't Olivier and that the times they have a-changed.
Agree with the positive comments on Greta Scacchi. And about how the play is dating.
I wonder what John Hurt would have made of the Billy Rice role. Probably would have made him more abrasive and confrontational.
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Post by theatreliker on Sept 14, 2016 12:08:06 GMT
I'd quite like a Mark Shenton snow globe. Like the My Theatre Mates mugs.
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Post by Sotongal on Sept 16, 2016 20:00:15 GMT
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Post by peggs on Sept 18, 2016 11:38:54 GMT
Still on sale yesterday, we tested one out and can confirm the sparkliness of the snow and accordingly to Latecomer substantial weight of the whole globe, i did not try in case i dropped it. Not quite sure what i thought about this production as my head's been taken over by my evening experience. Realised the only comic thing I've ever seen Branagh do is probably the film Much Ado, it's usually more serious Shakespeare, Wallander type stuff so it was a really odd (not necessarily bad) experience seeing him do the on stage stuff, he reminded me of a ventriloquist's dummy, really rather creepy. Lovely set and yes some nice silhouette work and could imagine how Robert Lindsay would have suited this part but not sure what i think of the play overall. I was happiest when it was all gloom at home, made my family encounters look quite chirpy! Whilst Archie's character is not really likeable I'd have had to slap the daughter who once she'd got on a soap box was rather irritating, (is that the actress or the part?). At Latecomer noted there were shades of Chekhov in the whole 'dead behind the eyes' bit. Think i'm always glad to see Branagh on stage but not convinced perhaps by the role but yes what good legs!
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Post by kathryn on Sept 19, 2016 12:20:29 GMT
I've just returned 2 £15 tickets for this saturday evening (stupidly double-booked myself) if anyone wants to go in and nab them.
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Post by Nicholas on Oct 1, 2016 22:04:38 GMT
This production is slick in the theatre and amateurish offstage: it’s the perfect The Entertainer, in an ugly photo-negative.
If Osborne’s play has any depth – and I’m not wholly convinced it is that deep – it’s in depicting how difficult it is to accept the end of an era. It’s a paradoxically timeless theme. For Archie Rice, that should be performing capable if hackneyed routines in dilapidated old halls; for Billie Rice, that should be having attitudes he abhors brought in his own home by his own flesh and blood. With a director who can physically articulate the tackiness of the former whilst domesticating the diatribes of the latter, it would be a surprisingly deep consideration of life under Eden, which would be all too pertinent today – after all, not only is the subject of generational differences about politics and protest and particularly immigration one of incredible topicality, but so is talentless performers clinging onto their desperate dreams of glory and need to perform (Sarah Harding). It doesn’t need updating to make modern: it needs clarity.
Rob Ashford is a choreographer. He treats this play like his choreographer namesake Marshall treated Chicago and (shudder) Nine; when inner angst grows too great, we cut to the stage so the emotion can be literalised through dance. It’s the Fosse line of thinking taken to its extreme. It would be a good idea had Kander & Ebb written The Entertainer, but John Osborne did, and the play isn’t written like those musicals are. The dance sequences only work at articulating the drama if the relationship between theatre and reality is airtight, and the drama has depth, and depth comes from reality. Actually, Peggs, I kind of think that this should be more Ivanov than Much Ado, given that although Branagh’s playing a comedian he’s not playing a good one, so that lack of comedy should seem tragic. But Ashford seems to miss that, and stages it like a competent musical with an incompetent book, like Much Ado with xenophobic asides. The home scenes make for dull drama: keeping them ‘onstage’ gives them an artifice which only makes sense because of Archie, and then to have characters literally come upstage to deliver points to us seems artificial, clunky, almost amateurish, not gelling with the script. On the other hand, to back up Branagh with the sexiest, sleekest dancers in fabulous costumes suggests he’s good, they’re good and this is a good dance, and that’s just not what this play is about. Rather than naff up the dancing but respect the domestic, Ashford respects the dancing and naffs up the domestic.
Actually, making the dance sequences hokey would actually do wonders at representing Billy Rice’s line of thought, and make this Fosse-style make sense, but it doesn’t. For this to work you want a director who can cut between song and spoken, ‘reality’ and ‘the theatrical’, all the while appreciating the relationship between the two, the phoniness of the former and the intrinsic truth of the latter, all the while able to stage it with vim and pace. You want a Susan Stroman, who understands how to toe the line between pageantry and unpleasantness simultaneously, using the former to literalise the latter and render its ugliness palpable. You want an actual Bob Fosse, who subverts, not enhances, reality through song, directs character first and choreography second, and in All That Jazz had an Archie-ish figure similarly trying to escape reality, not enhance it, through his art – think of the final scene of that movie, the superficial sleekness but evident emptiness of Bye Bye Life. You want a Carrie Cracknell, who can articulate fraught family relationships like no other, whilst incorporating a certain musicality a la Blurred Lines or Macbeth.
Or, dare I say, you want Sir Chuckles Branagh. A marriage of the phony sleekness of Michael Caine’s house in Sleuth and the musical numbers of his Love’s Labour’s Lost would make this work. Branagh actually aped Fosse’s flashiness in one sequences in Love’s Labour’s Lost, but I think Branagh understands Fosse’s subtleness: the character of Lenny or the self deprecating laceration of All That Jazz (indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if a bit of Roy Scheider informed Branagh’s performance). Most tellingly, his performances hits all the bum notes this bad performer should, with a sadness behind his eyes showing Branagh understands the script; Joel Grey always says that his Emcee is an amalgamation of the worst, most desperate performers he ever saw; Branagh’s Archie Rice so richly steals from this line of thought too. For his Garrick swansong, it’s a bold decision to make Archie so very untalented let alone ugly, but Branagh clearly understands the power that comes from bad performing. The constant awkwardness, line-flubbing and bad-name-dropping from his desperate untalented hulk is unpleasant to watch in all the right ways. He’s a man only ever able to engage with others when on stage, thus bringing faux-staginess to his real life, semi-aware that his stage skills are less than stellar; Branagh’s Archie is clearly keeping self-realisation at arm’s length, and that’s very sad to watch. Less full-bodied than in The Winter’s Tale and less damn fun than Harlequinade*, maybe, but still a stellar piece of acting (I missed The Painkiller and wonder now if, in retrospect, that might have been the highlight of this season). And for any fans of Branagh’s musical Love’s Labour’s Lost (I think there are six of us), it’s a real treat to see the man dance in person.
Other performances variable – Gawn Grainger was good but no John Hurt and I think I’d be saying John Hurt was good but no Ron Cook; Greta Saachi does the best of a bad job; daughter fairly mediocre but that’s mostly being swamped by this building and direction.
So, in a nutshell, a great actor wastes some of his best work in probably the worst directorial effort of his Garrick tenure. The real issue is that, without a proper drama around him, the star turn here is wholly diminished, with Archie a dancer first and foremost rather than a bad father first and foremost. Branagh still shines through, but it’s a battle. A dated play and a too-superficial interpretation, but to watch Branagh bring the sad self-hatred of his Ivanov back, then bury it under the bad Gene Kelly he danced in Love’s Labour’s Lost, makes for powerful, dislikeable, substantial viewing.
Just stay home, turn on the TV, watch a double bill of Wallander and Love’s Labour’s Lost instead.
*Weirdly, now the dust has settled, Harlequinade comes across as a richer study of life on the stage than The Entertainer does – and Harlequinade is so flimsy that they didn’t bother reviving it alongside The Browning Version at Chichester. There’s a perverse posthumous irony or victory in the fact that even lesser Rattigan is proving so deep and so successful, whereas Osborne very, very much looks like a period piece.
P.S. As much as anything, this theatre was just too big for this play – the Garrick’s quite glamorous, this shouldn’t be. I want a chamber version of this in Wilton’s Music Hall now it’s back in business, or possibly somewhere genuinely grotty like the Arcola – Greg Hicks was there not long ago and I bet he’d eat this part up with aplomb, particularly if he could get so up-close to his audience that it would be scary.
P.P.S. It’s also a shame that this comes so shortly after such a strong revival of Long Day’s Journey Into Night, another show about a lesser theatrical talent peddling his wares whilst his family circles around him with their own problems. Really, the main difference is that Osborne writes quite unpleasant characters with unwieldy and didactic monologues, where O’Neill is a poet so the genius of that play is, quite simply, how well it is written. It’s a tenuous comparison, but there were a fair few moments watching Branagh criticise his own career where all I could hear was Irons barking the same self-criticisms but with so much more substance in his speeches, or watching Branagh’s patriarch be taken down a few pegs by his children where all I could think was that these monologues were blunt and obvious compared to the desperation of the Tyrone children. It’s a superficial comparison, but one which damages this production quite a bit, if you saw Irons and Manville work their magic. Simply put, The Entertainer is a fairly good (not great) leading man’s role, but honestly it’s not that good a play, is it?
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Post by martin1965 on Oct 2, 2016 7:25:04 GMT
Great dissertation!!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2016 15:23:12 GMT
I downloaded a free audio book of this recently, starring Bill Nighy, David Bradley and Bertie Carvel.
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Post by peggs on Oct 2, 2016 15:38:01 GMT
Actually, Peggs, I kind of think that this should be more Ivanov than Much Ado, given that although Branagh’s playing a comedian he’s not playing a good one, so that lack of comedy should seem tragic. But Ashford seems to miss that, and stages it like a competent musical with an incompetent book, like Much Ado with xenophobic asides. The home scenes make for dull drama: keeping them ‘onstage’ gives them an artifice which only makes sense because of Archie, and then to have characters literally come upstage to deliver points to us seems artificial, clunky, almost amateurish, not gelling with the script. On the other hand, to back up Branagh with the sexiest, sleekest dancers in fabulous costumes suggests he’s good, they’re good and this is a good dance, and that’s just not what this play is about. Rather than naff up the dancing but respect the domestic, Ashford respects the dancing and naffs up the domestic.
Nicholas your impressive analysis seems to be too much for my simple brain to get round but from what I understand I rather like your suggestion of what it could have been under a different director. I will try and find a copy of Branagh's Love's Labours' Lost though, a double bill of that and Wallander , what a thought. |
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Post by mallardo on Oct 2, 2016 16:13:28 GMT
I'm not sure why Archie Rice has to be a bad comedian. He has to be corny and old fashioned, a dinosaur, but he has had a long career so he must have been doing something right. I keep coming back to the Old Vic production with Robert Lindsay because he was everything one could want in an Archie Rice - he made the point that the character was way past his sell by date but he was, at the same time, legitimately entertaining in his music hall numbers. That's the way it has to go. I think the idea that Archie has to be bad stems from the movie. Laurence Olivier played him as a bad comedian because he himself was a bad comedian - he could do no better. And, for me, that's the wrong way to go.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 3, 2016 12:23:57 GMT
I agree mallardo. Rice is burned out, knows it, but still doing what he has to do either for cash or just habit. The "dead behind the eyes" line tells us everything about the fact he knows he can still do the show and do it well, but isn't "feeling" it now. But Archie has the last laugh when his daughter Emma goes on to entertain the world at Shakespeare's Globe. |
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Post by Jan on Oct 3, 2016 14:09:22 GMT
The suggestion from Nicholas that Greg Hicks could play Archie Rice is one of the most mind-boggling I have ever heard.
I saw Peter Bowles in this play and he was wrong in a different way.
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In all seriousness, that sounds HILARIOUS! I sort of want one just to frighten people with!
