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Post by learfan on Jun 27, 2019 10:56:51 GMT
I thought Luke Thallon was great in Albion and he was also the young Walter in The Inheritance. Looking forward to seeing this on Wednesday. Saw him in all of these, he's clearly going to be a star. However im not a Coward fan so will be giving this a miss. |
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Post by westendgurl on Jun 27, 2019 13:46:52 GMT
This was another show I went into with no expectations, and wow I was so impressed. I've been watching some impressive (but very good) plays lately and so it was so refreshing to see a genuinely funny production. Loved the staging, the direction and the cast - I particularly loved Sophie Thompson and loved her character's interactions with Garry. And as for Andrew Scott, I thought he was brilliant. This role seemed to be made for him, he has perfect coming timing, and his physical reactions were just priceless. I was originally only going to see this once but I think I'll have to revise this!
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Post by greenswan on Jun 28, 2019 12:45:47 GMT
Agree with all the positive reviews- great entertainment and awesome acting. Strongly recommended.
Q3 obviously has a pillar directly in front of the stage but doable with leaning. You’ll just sit in a quite unpleasant draft during the interval when they air the theatre.
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Post by rumbledoll on Jun 28, 2019 14:24:30 GMT
Anybody knows just how restricted P35 is? Thanks!
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Post by Jon on Jun 30, 2019 0:01:32 GMT
Really enjoyed this tonight. Andrew Scott is just brilliant as Garry and does steal the show in more ways than one. Sophie Thompson and Indira Varma are also very good as Monica and Liz.
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Post by rockinrobin on Jun 30, 2019 9:35:17 GMT
It's delightful. It makes your cheeks hurt. I really, really needed this kind of show in my life.
I saw it yesterday and couldn't help but think Andrew Scott as Garry was sort of pranking himself, making a joke on his own emploi. You can see he's having great fun playing Garry.
The audience was a nightmare though. Phones going off (during THAT scene between Andrew and Enzo Cilenti!), drinks put on stage, sweets and crisps, and - urrrgghhh - bare feet.
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Post by crowblack on Jun 30, 2019 10:09:21 GMT
I saw this yesterday afternoon and regarding the earlier comment about avoiding matinees because of energy levels, there didn't seem to be any problem on that front. I saw a piece online this week saying there weren't many mainstream, light entertainment-type plays on in London - well, there's this, in a huge flagship theatre. It's not really my kind of play (I'd rather see Andrew Scott in whatever it is Luke Thallon's character had in his bag) but I enjoyed the performances and the liveliness and all the Art Deco. Scott really seems to be enjoying himself (I was in row F, which in this is the third row, and got the impression he and Varma were about to make each other laugh a couple of times), and it's a shame Luke Thallon kept getting shoved into a side room because he was marvellous. I generally really like Enzo Cilenti's work (perfect in Jonathan Strange), but as others have already said, he's miscast here - a very odd choice - and I don't think the chemistry in those scenes worked.
Apart from the woman in the centre front row who was still texting at the start of the second half, the audience seemed pretty well behaved. Maybe evenings are drunker, especially in that heat. The Old Vic is being refurbished so we had to queue for the stalls along the side street - baking hot - because the front entrance isn't in use. They've got portaloos on the left side of the theatre but they're not like Glastonbury (though I daresay Millennials' Glastonbury has amazing bogs too these days).
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Post by crowblack on Jun 30, 2019 11:38:25 GMT
Rufus Norris, not only has he never directed a single comedy in his life (has he ?) Mosquitoes at the Dorfman a couple of years ago, and he programmed Home, I'm Darling last year, Common, Network (dark comedies), and An Octoroon, brought in from Orange Tree Theatre - maybe more (St George?), but they're the ones I've seen. |
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Post by andrew on Jun 30, 2019 18:58:07 GMT
Rufus Norris, not only has he never directed a single comedy in his life (has he ?) Mosquitoes at the Dorfman a couple of years ago, and he programmed Home, I'm Darling last year, Common, Network (dark comedies), and An Octoroon, brought in from Orange Tree Theatre - maybe more (St George?), but they're the ones I've seen. St George and The Dragon was not a comedy, it was neither funny nor interesting, it was a black hole of entertainment from which no pleasure emerged. We'd do better to forget it ever existed. |
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Post by david on Jun 30, 2019 19:09:50 GMT
St George and Common are my low points in NT productions which I’m have tried hard to forget about.
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Post by crowblack on Jun 30, 2019 21:24:44 GMT
I didn't see it, but I got the impression comedy was the intention somewhere down the line. Common wasn't bad - I think it had been rejigged a bit by the time I saw it, but it was an interesting play albeit in the wrong venue. |
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Post by lynette on Jul 1, 2019 14:47:19 GMT
Mosquitos wasn’t a comedy was it? I didn’t think much of it actually, despite the general acclaim.
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Post by kathryn on Jul 1, 2019 15:47:00 GMT
Are we running into the problem of productions that were intended to be comedies just not, actually, being funny?
Because let's face it, there's nothing more *excruciating* than an unfunny comedy.
My most soul-destroying experience at the National remains that Peter Hall Twelfth Night that somehow forgot to be funny for most of the night.
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Post by Fleance on Jul 1, 2019 16:51:25 GMT
My most soul-destroying experience at the National remains that Peter Hall Twelfth Night that somehow forgot to be funny for most of the night. One of the best productions of Twelfth Night that I've seen was John Caird's 1983/4 RSC production with Emrys James as Malvolio (also with Zoe Wanamaker, Daniel Massey, Gemma Jones, Richard O'Callaghan, Stephen Moore). The end was haunting: the cast singing a dirge-like arrangement of "The Wind and the Rain." When Malvolio utters his final line, "I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you," you know he means it. Yes, a Twelfth Night with comedy and magic, but one left with a sense of impending doom. |
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Post by crowblack on Jul 1, 2019 18:05:41 GMT
Mosquitos wasn’t a comedy was it? didn't match up to the buzz for me either. I really loved it! It defo played like a dark comedy/ragicomedy to me, even more so when I saw it again much later in the run when they'd changed some lines and retuned some moments. I don't mean broad like Present Laughter (which I have to say is the sort of thing my Mum would probably have enjoyed more than me), but more along the lines of a Sadcom (Flowers, Don't Forget the Driver, that sort of thing). |
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Post by lynette on Jul 1, 2019 19:51:56 GMT
I can't remember who it was, but there was a clever observation that the very best "comedy" SHOULD become dated and unfunny. It is supposed always to be fresh. As in, you can tell a joke in the 18th Century and nobody would laugh at it now (well, they wouldn't hear it - Ken Dodd). More seriously, a lot of comedy relies on a "frame of reference" - a trigger relating to a culture that the audience is familiar with. Of course, Coward's world is very different to the one we are in now, and that makes a difference. If an audience has the knowledge, then it remains funny, which is fine, but getting rarer as youngsters in particular seem utterly immune to anything happening less than 5 minutes ago on their twitter feeds. That said, there's no reason why Shakespeare shouldn't be funny - take the recent business with the audience member's phone in the Bridge "Dream," as one example. Good points and on the whole I agree, comedy should be fresh but I think you might be including satire; jokes that only contemporaries enjoy come into that category for me. Some of the funniest stuff comes from Shakespeare. Surely the laundry basket scenes in Merry Wives are timelessly funny and yes, slapstick but based on character and perfectly placed. And we can make a list of the other funny stuff, some language based, some about leeks and Welshmen still make us chuckle, strangely. Etc etc. |
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Post by lynette on Jul 1, 2019 19:54:38 GMT
Mosquitos wasn’t a comedy was it? didn't match up to the buzz for me either. I really loved it! It defo played like a dark comedy/ragicomedy to me, even more so when I saw it again much later in the run when they'd changed some lines and retuned some moments. I don't mean broad like Present Laughter (which I have to say is the sort of thing my Mum would probably have enjoyed more than me), but more along the lines of a Sadcom (Flowers, Don't Forget the Driver, that sort of thing). First time I’ve come across the term, 'sadcom' which is very useful. Does Mum come into this category? It has a happy ending on the whole but has some quite dark stuff in it. Best sitcom for years. |
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Post by crowblack on Jul 1, 2019 22:17:29 GMT
Does Mum come into this category? Yes, I think so - I've seen some of the first series but the rest are on my iplayer to-do list so thanks for the reminder - it goes off iplayer in a couple of weeks! |
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Post by marob on Jul 1, 2019 23:21:43 GMT
Rufus Norris, not only has he never directed a single comedy in his life (has he ?) Mosquitoes at the Dorfman a couple of years ago, and he programmed Home, I'm Darling last year, Common, Network (dark comedies), and An Octoroon, brought in from Orange Tree Theatre - maybe more (St George?), but they're the ones I've seen. But did he programme Home, I'm Darling, or just inherit it? I'm sure I read somewhere that Laura Wade and Tamara Harvey were working on it before Tamara Harvey got the Artistic Director job at Theatr Clwyd, which google tells me was in 2015, a few months after Rufus Norris started at the NT. |
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Post by Jan on Jul 2, 2019 7:55:05 GMT
Mosquitoes at the Dorfman a couple of years ago, and he programmed Home, I'm Darling last year, Common, Network (dark comedies), and An Octoroon, brought in from Orange Tree Theatre - maybe more (St George?), but they're the ones I've seen. But did he programme Home, I'm Darling, or just inherit it? I'm sure I read somewhere that Laura Wade and Tamara Harvey were working on it before Tamara Harvey got the Artistic Director job at Theatr Clwyd, which google tells me was in 2015, a few months after Rufus Norris started at the NT. It’s odd, he’s 54 but we can only think of one comedy he’s directed. Katie Mitchell is another miserablist. |
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Post by justfran on Jul 2, 2019 21:13:25 GMT
Prices for the NT Live of this are quite a bit cheaper than All My Sons was at my local Cineworld (just over £13, compared to £20) so hopefully will encourage more people to go.
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Post by crowblack on Jul 2, 2019 22:41:25 GMT
Prices for the NT Live of this are quite a bit cheaper than All My Sons was at my local Cineworld (just over £13, compared to £20) so hopefully will encourage more people to go. Its £22 plus booking fee for this at my local Cineworld, and that's Liverpool, not exactly a rich part of the world. I really do think we get scr*wed over here with cinema prices. |
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Post by bramble on Jul 6, 2019 10:25:36 GMT
an enjoyable evening.Very charismatic performance from Andrew Scott.Not sure that changing Joanna to Jo adds much. For me SophieThomson tries too hard in a not very constant Scottish accent. Thought Joshua Hill excelled as Fred as did Luke Thallon as Roland.I personally just didn't join in the gales of laughter from the rest of the audience.and a bit pricy!!
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Post by yokollama on Jul 11, 2019 15:31:28 GMT
Anyone sat in the first two rows in the stalls and did you find the stage high (I'm about 165cm)? I sat in the dress circle a few weeks ago for this production, but can't quite recall. Also, is Row D the front row (as per the Old Vic website) as another site is only selling from E onwards?
Shame the NT Live is screening on the night I've booked the Les Mis concert for JOJ.
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Post by crowblack on Jul 11, 2019 16:00:03 GMT
Also, is Row D the front row (as per the Old Vic website) as another site is only selling from E onwards? I think D is the front - I was row F and it was the third row. I think the stage slopes slightly towards the front and didn't think it was particularly high (not like being front row at the Harold Pinter) so you should be OK. |
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