X

[raiseitup]

1* - The Times - t.co/VY4Zkd8jhs
1* - London Theatre (Shenton...) - www.londontheatre.co.uk/londontheatre/reviews/xroyalcourt16.htm
3* - What's on Stage - www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/reviews/x-royal-court_40128.html
3* - Guardian - www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/apr/06/x-review-royal-court-london-alistair-mcdowall
3* - Observer - www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/apr/10/x-royal-court-observer-review
4* - Time Out - www.timeout.com/london/theatre/x
4* - Telegraph - www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/the-royal-courts-x-sees-the-birth-of-a-new-genre-sly-fi---review/
4* - Financial Times - www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3f438a58-fbda-11e5-8f41-df5bda8beb40.html
5* - The Stage - www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2016/x-review-at-the-jerwood-theatre-downstairs-london/

[Deleted]

Apr 6, 2016 7:47:59 GMT partytentdown said:

Mixed reviews this morning...

Good, I'd be disappointed if it wasn't divisive.

Treneman is pondlife so she can be discounted (a la Letts) but I feel sorry for Shenton, he really didn't have a clue what he was watching.

Also 4.5 from Reviewshub, 4 from Upcoming, 4 from the Telegraph, 3 from Artsdesk and, in the most Billington of reviews, The Guardian, who whinges on about how it should be about earth politics.

This is one where you are going to see critical appreciation (and understanding, to be honest) being totally different. Whenever you have that sort of divide you are reminded of all the other times when new playwrights caused similar joy/apoplexy.

EDIT: No star rating added from Hitchings in the Standard who either brilliantly saw the same as me, or nicked it from here. Whatever. "Less obviously, it’s about social cleansing, environmental catastrophe and the responsibilities of parenthood, expressing the anger of a generation (McDowall is 28) who feel paralysed by decisions their elders have made."

[foxa]

Wow that is one of the most mixed set of reviews I've seen.

[harry]

So often when people say mixed reviews they mean consistently middling reviews but here they really do mean mixed. Which I guess reflects the range of views on here too.

On a slightly related note it is such a shame that The Times feel Ann Treneman is a suitable lead critic. From what I can tell she has a background only in political journalism which seems odd training for a theatre critic and she is so often dismissive in a rather poisonous way that it does neither herself, her reviews nor the play she is reviewing any favours.

[Deleted]

What's The Times?

[Deleted]

4 stars in Financial Times.

Still thinking deeply about this, apparently people in medical emergency often dream of space, being fed subconsciously by the hospital environment visually and aurally. In the first act why do characters do things like eat cereal, play games etc. in the light of being abandoned? To claim that those things aren't appropriate goes wildly off track. You look and you analyse, the why is inextricably bound with a lack of reality, if you remain earth (sorry reality) bound, then what doesn't make sense doesn't make sense.

Much more still to think about, because there are answers not an answer.

EDIT: and who knew that New Scientist did theatre criticism?  www.newscientist.com/article/2083397-the-play-x-will-have-you-clock-watching-but-in-a-good-way/

and a typically intelligent review from Exeunt (again they don't award stars).   exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/review-x-at-royal-court/

[TheatreDust]

I'm confused by the reference to "video designs transforming the walls" in Exeunt's review.   When I saw this last Thursday, there were no projections at all.   I'm certain I didn't miss anything - have they dropped them?

I too am still musing about this way - in a naggingly enjoyable way.  Am tempted to make a second visit.

[AddisonMizner]

Any chance that this will transfer?

[partytentdown]

Apr 12, 2016 20:40:40 GMT TheatreDust said:

I'm confused by the reference to "video designs transforming the walls" in Exeunt's review.   When I saw this last Thursday, there were no projections at all.   I'm certain I didn't miss anything - have they dropped them?

I too am still musing about this way - in a naggingly enjoyable way.  Am tempted to make a second visit.

That's odd, they were pretty obvious, maybe something broke.

[partytentdown]

Apr 13, 2016 7:54:57 GMT AddisonMizner said:

Any chance that this will transfer?

I would doubt it as it seems to have been a slow seller, but I don't anyone expected 'The Nether' to transfer either.

[TheatreDust]

Apr 13, 2016 10:51:30 GMT partytentdown said:

That's odd, they were pretty obvious, maybe something broke.

Thanks,

Just plain grey walls throughout for me - except the clock which was obviously a physical display.

How weird. Hopefully I didn't miss anything key without them, but perhaps this news will give me the push I need to book a repeat visit!

[Deleted]

I'm seeing this in a couple of weeks and have been half reading the thread, not wanting to get too much information in advance. I am quite looking forward to a thorough reading when I have seen it as I have a feeling that I may end up baffled. Maybe not, we shall see.

I booked a few random plays at the Royal Court this year, just to expand on my theatre experiences. Luckily I didn't book for Cleansed, as I don't think I would have lasted 5 minutes. I am very cafeful about seeing TV or films with any violent content, but hadn't thought about the theatre aspect so didn't consider it when I was booking at the Royal Court. As somebody who had to screw my eyes up and put my fingers in my ears for the Gloucester scene in King Lear, this is something I will be mindful of in the future though.

[Deleted]

Apr 13, 2016 12:08:31 GMT @jellybean said:

 I am very cafeful about seeing TV or films with any violent content, but hadn't thought about the theatre aspect so didn't consider it when I was booking at the Royal Court.  

I hear ya, Jelly Bean. Fair to say, I'm also approaching Cyprus Avenue with a degree of trepidation...

[partytentdown]

Apr 13, 2016 11:27:33 GMT TheatreDust said:

Apr 13, 2016 10:51:30 GMT partytentdown said:

That's odd, they were pretty obvious, maybe something broke.

Thanks,

Just plain grey walls throughout for me - except the clock which was obviously a physical display.

How weird. Hopefully I didn't miss anything key without them, but perhaps this news will give me the push I need to book a repeat visit!

You didn't miss anything vital but it was a cool effect and basically added to the weirdness of it all.

[Deleted]

t

[Deleted]

I thought this was excellent. And I'm not even a millenial

Particularly loved the

SPOILER: Click to show

dead parrot

Regarding the video projections, these were largely during the scene changes in act 1 but used extensively in act 2 and I think you would have missed something without them

Incidentally todaytix is now doing £15 daily rush tickets for the Royal Court.

I got called a "cheeky prat" by Darrel D'Silva on twitter for saying X was like a Michael Haneke version of "Come Back Mrs Noah"

[partytentdown]

x


x

xx



xxx


x

[kryz1000]

We were very much on the 'disappointing and derivative' side of the fence I'm afraid.  The xxxx xxxxx was, indeed, impressive (another gong for the Stage Management Team of the Royal Court please) but we got to the interval not caring about the characters and got to the end bored and irritated.  Blue Heart it is not.  The Royal Court MUST, however, keep producing new 'proper' plays - encouraging writers to experiment and to write full-length main stage shows. They ain't all going to land though.  Like this one.

[Steve]

I enjoyed this, for the atmosphere and the acting, but I didn't feel I saw anything I hadn't seen before.

Both during this and Pomona, I had a sense that Alistair McDowall, like me, might have seen quite a few low budget movies. Low to mid budget movies can't afford much special effects and action, so they settle often into clever scenarios with alot of talk.

During Pomona, I felt the "Hostel" genre, with it's many lower budget imitators, which update the "most Dangerous Game" plot of hunting humans, with that sense of the higher classes preying on the lower classes, being paid some homage. In particular, I thought of Brian Yuzna's "Society," a low budget '80s horror flick starring a Baywatch actor, in which Yuzna's vision of the upper classes preying on the weak is given a monster-filled nightmarish visual realisation.

During "X," I couldn't get Tarkovsky's brilliant "Solaris" out of my head, which involves impossible visions of mysterious children, and the madness of loneliness in Space, and I also thought about "Silent Running" in which Bruce Dern's lonely character on a space station tries desperately to save the Earth's last trees.

When I say I enjoyed this, I admit I also enjoyed "Event Horizon" (which movie critics loathed), another space pic that riffs on "Solaris," and has lonely people in Space having visions, and experiencing a kind of madness. So this genre appeals to me. I love stories that use sci-fi tropes to talk about loneliness and human needs.

I don't worry about understanding the exact meaning of "X" any more than I worry about understanding the aforementioned pictures, but I do think that McDowell conveys something about how we need other people, and how difficult it is to fill that need, and the lengths we might go to fill it. If I had to pin a meaning on the play, I'd just accept the very last scene as the explanation. But there's no real need for that.

In terms of performance, I thought Darrell D'Silva gave us marvellous Bruce Dern in Silent Running, his horror as he feels nature's retreat. And I loved the double act of Jessica Raine and Ria Zmitrowicz, who give us two very different women, one nervy and mousey, the other abrupt and ballsy, yet who ultimately have very similar needs.

4 stars

[Deleted]

Theatre Nerd Question:

Has any previous artistic director of the Royal Court ever directed two new productions which played full runs at the same time, Upstairs and Downstairs?

[caa]

Apr 18, 2016 9:03:28 GMT @honouredguest said:

Theatre Nerd Question:

Has any previous artistic director of the Royal Court ever directed two new productions which played full runs at the same time, Upstairs and Downstairs?

Having now seen both plays, X might have been better had it been staged in the upstairs theatre.

[perfectspy]

I quite liked this play, I decided to book a ticket solely on the strength of the writer as I saw Ponoma at Orange Tree a while back. Though I think it was over long and would have been better if it was trimmed from two acts into 90 minutes. Sometimes plays on the bigger stage lose a bit of the tension it would create on a smaller stage.

[Latecomer]

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler - click to view}So for me this was all a bit "Bobby Ewing in the shower"....I thought the end scene made it obvious that it was all the mother's imagination....she was not in a spaceship (there was a tree outside the window for the last scene) and she said she had always wanted to travel to space? The strange child, sassy colleague and woman coming to the rescue were all her daughter as she sort of invaded all her thoughts.....so she was the strongest memory when her mother got Alzheimers?/Lost her mind......
Having said that I quite liked it and enjoyed how people swapped phrases and stories throughout...and it did make sense by the end for me.

[Deleted]

Interesting 'post mortem review' from exeunt, as much about the nature of teviewing and the schism between print and internet responses as it is a personal exploration/explanation.

exeuntmagazine.com/features/x-a-postscript/