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Post by Jan on Jun 1, 2023 9:46:34 GMT
The Fair Maid of the West could be promising too (I enjoyed the P&P (sort of) when it first appeared, less so as it trundled endlessly on - be interesting to see if McArthur goes for the same approach here). It's two plays isn't it - in the Trevor Nunn production he put them both together and indulged his penchant for excessive running times. I still thought it was great fun though. |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jun 1, 2023 9:58:33 GMT
Indeed two plays originally.
I hadn't realised it was the opening play in the Swan back is 1986.
Surely it would have, therefore, been more fitting to revive it as part of the 40th Anniversary season in the theatre?
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Post by Jan on Jun 1, 2023 10:07:30 GMT
Indeed two plays originally. I hadn't realised it was the opening play in the Swan back is 1986. In that production to emphasise that it was a piece of low-brow popular entertainment (then and now) he had it open with an actor in armour portentously delivering the opening speech from Troilus and Cressida only for actors in the audience to pelt him off stage with bread roles and chant "We want the Fair Maid !". |
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Post by stevej678 on Jun 1, 2023 10:12:06 GMT
Isobel McArthur is certainly busy with Kidnapped, The Grand Old Opera House Hotel and now The Fair Maid of the West. A two-show day in Stratford-upon-Avon seeing the latter and The Box of Delights is rather tempting!
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Post by richardh on Jun 1, 2023 13:02:00 GMT
I do get the practical side of allowing Whyman's programming to extend into 2024, after she is no longer acting AD and with the new duo already installed at the helm. It must be a bit galling for them though to be in a job but having no visible profile until next year. Like a Premier League football team appointing a new manager but telling him he can't actually do anything about the way the team is playing until next season. They just have to hope that none of her shows are complete disasters in the meantime. Box of Delights and Fair Maid of the West do look quite promising though. I just hope that the new ADs can revert back to the repertory system to make an overnight stay in Stratford a more attractive proposition, as no doubt do the shops, hotels and restaurants in the town.
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Post by Jan on Jun 1, 2023 14:42:25 GMT
Mark Ravenhill has been associated with them for ages, 10 years at least, but doesn’t seem to have come up with anything worthwhile. His low point was directing the catastrophically bad Troilus and Cressida for them in association with the Wooster Group after Rupert Goold had wisely pulled out.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jun 1, 2023 14:53:43 GMT
I don't associate Ravenhill to this sort of play.
It feels very safe. Almost cozy.
Not the sort of thing I would associate with Ravenhill at all.
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Post by Jan on Jun 1, 2023 15:30:21 GMT
I don't associate Ravenhill to this sort of play. It feels very safe. Almost cozy. Not the sort of thing I would associate with Ravenhill at all. Also curious that the Micheal Grandage Company is associated with it in some way. |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jun 1, 2023 15:36:20 GMT
Sounds like star casting leading to a transfer
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Post by cavocado on Jun 1, 2023 16:03:21 GMT
Not exciting but a reasonable programme.
I'm pleased to see The Fair Maid of the West on the list, though wish I could combine it with a Shakespeare and an overnight stay, and I'm a bit concerned with 'by Isobel MacArthur after Thomas Haywood', which sounds like it could be a complete rewrite?
I went to the 1986 production with my parents. What a cast that had - Pete Postlethwaite, Simon Russell Beale, Imelda Staunton, Sean Bean. If the new ADs can get even a hint of the quality and breadth of those days they will be doing a good job, and I'll happily spend my savings on regular visits.
I quite like Mark Ravenhill, but not enough to spend hours on the Chiltern Line in winter, and I'll wait for casting of Midsummer Night's Dream.
Keeping my fingers crossed for the season after, hopefully some radical change under the new ADs: more Shakespeare, more Jacobethans, a re-opened Other Place, better quality all round, and a proper Royal Shakespeare Company. Please.
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Post by Jan on Jun 1, 2023 16:08:20 GMT
Sounds like star casting leading to a transfer Grandage should have directed it himself if so. Bit of a pension for EW I suppose, see also Hamnet. The little the new ADs have said indicate they may take a more “international” outlook - if this means occasionally importing notable European and USA directors then I’d approve. |
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Post by c4ndyc4ne on Jun 1, 2023 16:49:36 GMT
Mark Ravenhill has been associated with them for ages, 10 years at least, but doesn’t seem to have come up with anything worthwhile. His low point was directing the catastrophically bad Troilus and Cressida for them in association with the Wooster Group after Rupert Goold had wisely pulled out. guess that five-star sell-out boy in the dress skipped you by |
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Post by Jan on Jun 1, 2023 17:13:09 GMT
Mark Ravenhill has been associated with them for ages, 10 years at least, but doesn’t seem to have come up with anything worthwhile. His low point was directing the catastrophically bad Troilus and Cressida for them in association with the Wooster Group after Rupert Goold had wisely pulled out. guess that five-star sell-out boy in the dress skipped you by Yep. If it had transferred or been revived after its initial limited Stratford run I might have remembered it. |
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Post by theatrenerd on Jun 2, 2023 17:45:13 GMT
guess that five-star sell-out boy in the dress skipped you by Yep. If it had transferred or been revived after its initial limited Stratford run I might have remembered it. A London transfer was planned for the Savoy, however COVID stopped it. Hopefully it can be revived one day as it was a great show - in London, Stratford or elsewhere. |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jun 2, 2023 17:54:06 GMT
Not so sure that David Walliams is still quite so marketable given his recent 'difficulties'
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Post by c4ndyc4ne on Jun 2, 2023 22:58:42 GMT
Yep. If it had transferred or been revived after its initial limited Stratford run I might have remembered it. A London transfer was planned for the Savoy, however COVID stopped it. Hopefully it can be revived one day as it was a great show - in London, Stratford or elsewhere. Given it was the most successful musical at the RSC since Matilda, and it was conceived by Ravenhill, I'd say it proves he at least did something significant at the venue! |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Jun 2, 2023 23:57:50 GMT
Given that it was an adaptation of the successful Walliams book, it is hard to credit Ravenhill with conceiving it. He wrote the script in the same way Dennis Kelly did for Matilda. And, on the whole, few people remember who wrote the books of musicals.
Ravenhill did a version of Candide for the RSC which got fair to middling reviews
I like some of Ravenhill's work (in particular Mother Clapp's Molly House is a piece I would like to direct at some point), but his career has not lived up to the early promise.
Perhaps this new play will change that, it is just rather had to reconcile the author of Shopping and f***ing with someone writing a two hander about Britten and Holst.
(And it is ridiculous that this software censors the title of a famous play!)
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Post by lynette on Jun 3, 2023 11:08:54 GMT
I didn’t like the Walliams musical. It trivialised the subject matter, stereotyped the boy and the shopkeeper especially and the other characters. The music was forgettable. For all his ‘problems’ Dahl wrote something splendid in Matilda sand this was reflected in the music and production the RSC managed to create. It was old fashioned in every sense. Not so Boy in a Dress. It won’t be revived without serious reconstruction and rewriting. And hopefully never.
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Post by Jan on Jun 3, 2023 12:10:57 GMT
A London transfer was planned for the Savoy, however COVID stopped it. Hopefully it can be revived one day as it was a great show - in London, Stratford or elsewhere. Given it was the most successful musical at the RSC since Matilda, and it was conceived by Ravenhill, I'd say it proves he at least did something significant at the venue! Yes you are right. And it was also the best musical Doran has directed I assume, it must have been better than the musical Merry Wives of Windsor he did. |
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Post by Being Alive on Jun 3, 2023 13:33:15 GMT
Boy In The Dress was one of the worst things I've had the misfortune of having to sit through - thank god London wasnt subjected to it.
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Post by zahidf on Jun 3, 2023 16:13:13 GMT
May be other reasons not to be too closely associated to Walliams anyway
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Post by lynette on Jun 3, 2023 18:02:10 GMT
Boy In The Dress was one of the worst things I've had the misfortune of having to sit through - thank god London wasnt subjected to it. I am not alone - hurrah |
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Post by Being Alive on Jun 3, 2023 18:18:40 GMT
May be other reasons not to be too closely associated to Walliams anyway Correct |
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Post by Being Alive on Jun 3, 2023 18:19:18 GMT
Boy In The Dress was one of the worst things I've had the misfortune of having to sit through - thank god London wasnt subjected to it. I am not alone - hurrah Oh honestly offensively bad. Pound shop Matilda with none of the wit or charm. Awful. |
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Post by Jan on Jun 6, 2023 17:29:59 GMT
I just checked and the last RSC production of Henry VIII was directed by Doran in 1996. They hosted 10 performances of another companies production of it in 2006 as part of their Complete Works festival. It seems extraordinary that a subsidised company dedicated to Shakespeare haven't done a production of one of the First Folio plays for 27 years and counting. It has a big cast so it's unlikely anyone else will produce it - the NT have never done it - with the exception of the Globe who did a heavily adapted version of it recently. It is also worth noting that Doran's production of it was critically very well received and as far as I know popular with audiences and in addition to Stratford it played in London, Plymouth, Newcastle and New York. The whole point of their subsidy should be to do plays like that.
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