2,052 posts
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Post by Marwood on Mar 14, 2016 11:48:18 GMT
Richard Wilson directing - make sure you shout out 'I DON'T BELIEVE IT!' if you see him there - much hilarity will ensue.
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516 posts
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Post by theatreliker on Mar 19, 2016 23:37:14 GMT
Saw the matinee today and it's one of the best and funniest plays I've seen. What made it such a great theatre experience was the audience. Often you hear actors talking about how a play is different with each performance or how the audience affect the playing and it sort of sounds pretentious. But with this, during the snooker scenes for example, if they miss a shot, it affects how they then respond to it. Likewise, during the match set in the Crucible, there were audience members cheering and heckling like in an actual snooker match and the characters responded likewise.
The cast are all on top form, the set is impressive, the jokes made me laugh like a drain, and the play has a gripping plot. Richard Wilson directed many of Bean's earlier plays (may of which were work plays) and The Nap goes back to that. There is something fascinating about watching the snooker and Dylan's preparation of the table.
If you can get up to Sheffield (a transfer wouldn't have the power that this production has in this theatre) then I definitely recommend The Nap.
The addition of a professional snooker player helps the play a lot. You completely get into the frame of snooker being played. John Astley creates an incredibly tense piece of theatre, which is great considering he's not an actor and doesn't say a word.
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4,975 posts
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Post by Phantom of London on Mar 20, 2016 0:21:51 GMT
I want to see this and believe you need to see this in the Crucible for the experience. Michael Billington sold it to me, in his review.
However a bit bewildered why there is no show on Friday?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2016 12:01:28 GMT
However a bit bewildered why there is no show on Friday? Traditionally in the UK, many theatres and other places of entertainment are closed on Good Friday which is the most solemn day of the Christian calendar. The National Theatre of Great Britain is also closed all day on Good Friday, as usual. |
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4,975 posts
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Post by Phantom of London on Mar 20, 2016 21:42:00 GMT
Whoops, forgot about Good Friday, so must mean today is Palm Sunday, the one day of the year a priest can whack one out. Didn't realise theatre closed because of some unproven story.
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4,975 posts
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Post by Phantom of London on Mar 20, 2016 21:44:11 GMT
If I don't make it up to Sheffield, I wonder if this come down to London?
Would look great in the Donmar, except they don't take guest productions, or failing that the Dorfman?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2016 9:12:36 GMT
I saw this last week. Outright the funniest play I have seen, just belly-laugh after belly-laugh. Whilst Bean is normally very very funny and favours gag rate certainly over other things, this was just hilarious and not necessarily detrimental to plot or structure. Whilst I thought all of the cast were good, Mark Addy stole it for me completely, so natural with brilliant timing.
A couple of people there discussing if it would transfer, in all honesty, I don't see how it could? A play about snooker that isn't set in the home of snooker... immediately loses its novelty. Don't see how it would work or appeal elsewhere.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2016 9:22:39 GMT
Whoops, forgot about Good Friday, so must mean today is Palm Sunday, the one day of the year a priest can whack one out. Didn't realise theatre closed because of some unproven story. Sooo... does that mean you happily accept the authenticity of Christmas, it's just Easter where you draw the line? Or did you just never notice that theatres don't open on Christmas day either? |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2016 18:39:16 GMT
Yes, I agree it's very funny. At last night's post-show q&a, director Richard Wilson was insistent that it could not play in a proscenium arch theatre because of the snooker.
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330 posts
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Post by charliec on Mar 24, 2016 14:58:27 GMT
Anyone that has been to the show... I'm going on tuesday and about to book a ticket, there are only a few seats left that face the front of the stage and they are back row. Am I better off in the back row facing the stage head on or would I be better off closer up with a side on view?
Thanks!
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2016 15:09:45 GMT
You don't need to face it head on, so I'd go for the side a bit closer, although ideally not too near the back of the stage.
Having stated my preference, the most enthusiastic question at Monday's post-show q&a came from three students who saw it from the very front row far down one of the sides, and who wanted to stage it themselves (ambitiously!) at their university drama group.
So, wherever you pick to sit, enjoy!
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330 posts
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Post by charliec on Mar 24, 2016 16:00:57 GMT
You don't need to face it head on, so I'd go for the side a bit closer, although ideally not too near the back of the stage. Having stated my preference, the most enthusiastic question at Monday's post-show q&a came from three students who saw it from the very front row far down one of the sides, and who wanted to stage it themselves (ambitiously!) at their university drama group. So, wherever you pick to sit, enjoy! Thank you! |
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Post by peelee on Mar 24, 2016 16:36:21 GMT
Is this play due to go on tour outside of Sheffield?
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1,478 posts
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Post by Steve on Mar 25, 2016 17:07:07 GMT
Yes, I agree it's very funny. At last night's post-show q&a, director Richard Wilson was insistent that it could not play in a proscenium arch theatre because of the snooker. I loved this. It successfully combines the exaggerated comedy of "One Man 2 Guvnors," with a grounded emotional throughline that will serve as a tonic for those averse to pure schtick. Jack O'Connell's Dylan Spokes is like a calm planet, around which the exaggerated characters revolve, grounded by his gravity to reality. That they constantly try to spin him off his axis is the source of the drama in the play, in that Spokes is a decent honourable sportsman, determined to play fair and not to cheat, while his mother, father and associates are affable reprobates. O'Connell's naturalism and solidity are reassuring and compelling, as the maelstrom of the plot swirls round his character. Of the comedy characters, I particularly liked the delicious malapropisms of Louise Gold's transgender match fixer, Waxy Chuff (eg: quoting Polonius, " either a borrower or a lender be!"), and the insistent forgetfulness ("What was the name of that film with those grifters!?") of Mark Addy's loveable Bobby Spokes, Dylan's father, a man who uses 1000 words when 10 would suffice. The play has a serious undertone, similar to Patrick Marber's "The Red Lion" in it's critique of corruption in sports, but lacks the hard edge and bitterness of that play, settling into the kind of raucous entertainment that would make for a massively successful populist British film, which is where I can see this going, ultimately. Can this go on tour? Of course it can. With a camera televising the snooker action (which is quite limited in duration) from above onto a screen behind, this could play at any proscenium arch theatre. While it is true that one of the great attractions of staging it at The Crucible is the frisson of seeing real snooker played by John Astley (playing Dylan's rival, Duncan Ferryman), a real snooker player, in The Crucible, the home of snooker, the majority of snooker fans have only ever seen professional snooker on screens. The play even makes this point itself, when it talks of the 18 million fans who watched Steve "interesting" Davis get taken down by Dennis Taylor in the 1985 World Snooker Championship. How many of those 18 million ever saw a live game? In fact, it would be far more reflective of the general public's relationship with snooker to televise the action on a screen, rather than ape the exclusive experience of the 980 people who actually watched the 1985 final live. And for the London run, there are theatres such as Trafalgar Studios 1, where Row A would be able to see the top of a snooker table. Or maybe it could be staged at Kings Cross Station, like In the Heights, where you have that circus-like feeling of a ring-side event. In any event, this play is too funny, with too many great comedic parts, for it not to do the rounds. 4 stars.  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2016 21:02:44 GMT
Steve, you make good speculative points about the option of live-screening the matchplay. As a snooker fan, both on television and in the flesh at world ranking tournaments, my only nitpicking criticism of the play was the unreality of the referee (speaking far too loudly and over-explanatorily to be realistic, so that the theatre audience understood the significance of the matchplay). If play were livescreened, then maybe the referee could behave naturalistically and the commentary could be expanded to give full plot explanation of the play to the general audience.
By the way, the duration of the snooker varies from performance to performance, as does the outcome of the matches, dependant on the run of the balls.
Yes, The Nap lacks the mind-numbing, grinding earnestness of The Red Lion. It also lacked the promised male nudity on the night I attended. However, it's more than 95% successful. How many minutes is that out of its 135?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2016 23:52:50 GMT
The Hexagon in Reading used to have a lot of snooker and has just started doing so again.
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4,975 posts
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Post by Phantom of London on Mar 26, 2016 22:26:05 GMT
Took a trip to Sheffield today, to see this in the home of snooker and glad I did.
However there were funny moments, but the humour felt more forced and got in the way of telling the actual story telling, so the play came across as contrived.
You can't force the funny, which they did here.
Richard Bean's humour is starting to wear a bit thin and he is overated, his One Man, Two Guvnors was hilarious, but more so for the physical comedy and Mr James Corden masterly delieverance, than the script. Great Britain was passable.
Not a dissapoint meant, funny in places, so worthy of 3 stars and hope this comes to the capital.
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Post by boybooshka on Mar 27, 2016 9:17:55 GMT
I watched the matinee yesterday, and thought it was well worth the trip to Sheffield. I thought it was very funny, if mostly in an obvious way, which going from he couple of other things I have seen by Richard Bean appears to be his style. The story and characters engaged and I even got gripped by the snooker, which I really didn't expect to happen.
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Post by yam on Mar 31, 2016 17:26:26 GMT
Just on my way home from a flying visit to catch this, well worth the effort. Very funny and dramatic with some nice twists. A great group of actors that work well together and impeccable comic timing. Jack O'Connell is well cast and has an amazing stage presence, just a powerful as his screen presence it would seem. All In all a great way to spend a few hours.
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Post by paulr on Mar 31, 2016 20:46:17 GMT
Enjoyed the performance this afternoon and it was interesting to to see how they handle things when it doesn't quite go to plan.
I really can't see how this can successfully transfer, without a lot of re-writing as it is quite site specific.
I am at the moment staying in Hathersage which I doubt most people outside Yorkshire/Derbyshire will have heard of.
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Post by grannyjx6 on Mar 31, 2016 21:46:00 GMT
I also saw it this afternoon and as I have never watched snooker in my life, did find the playing (and explaining) snooker difficult to follow, although the end bit was quite exciting. It was very funny at times, but not the belly laughs I had been lead to expect. Lots of swearing in it which I naively didn't expect (well not the 'C' word anyway), but I suppose that is real life.
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Post by Phantom of London on Apr 2, 2016 22:08:56 GMT
People including me have said including myself, that this would be good in the Dorfman, Donmar Warehouse and St James, which I agree with.
Failing that it would also look good in the large at the Southwark Playhouse and Park Theatre.
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Post by paulr on Apr 3, 2016 13:32:42 GMT
Much that i love the Park Theatre I can't see it working there as most of the seating is too low. For the play to work the audience need to see the top of the snooker table. I suppose cameras and monitors could work but It wouldn't be as good.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2016 13:40:54 GMT
The St James has a hell of an audience rake doesn't it?
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Post by theatremadness on Apr 3, 2016 14:50:21 GMT
The St James has a hell of an audience rake doesn't it? It does indeed....so much so than an elderly lady fell down the stairs on the way to her seat last Wednesday afternoon at Miss Atomic Bomb! Thankfully she was absolutely fine, if not a bit shaken. I would  for The Nap to find a London home for a bit, absolutely desperate to see it but Sheffield was just not an option for me! |
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for The Nap to find a London home for a bit, absolutely desperate to see it but Sheffield was just not an option for me!