|
|
Post by Deleted on May 14, 2016 20:39:14 GMT
Terrible acting
The most idiotic Tw*t set design I have ever seen
I mean WHAT is the point
But most of all
An outdated and irrelevant play
Embarrassing
Came home for BGT
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 14, 2016 20:48:46 GMT
Come to think
As well as the original NT staging
I saw quite good version at the old Arcola
With all three roles taken by women
Worked much better
The fact is David Haig is a mediocre acting coasting along
He mispronounced
Olanzapine
Annoying to watch
And boring
The play also mutates and twists the NHS for viewing pleasure
We really don't spent days debating individual patients offering them cigarettes and acting unprofessionally
|
|
371 posts
|
Post by popcultureboy on May 14, 2016 22:57:52 GMT
It's fiction....
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 14, 2016 23:19:17 GMT
The play also mutates and twists the NHS for viewing pleasure We really don't spent days debating individual patients offering them cigarettes and acting unprofessionally We're far too busy, booking theatre tickets and bitching here. |
|
|
|
Post by Ruby Sue on May 17, 2016 7:54:15 GMT
I saw this last night & just wanted to give a heads up for those going that they have a similar 'pre-show' here in the same way they did with Hamlet, so you go on a bit of a longer route to get to the auditorium. The show started nearly 15 minutes last night & I think that was probably due to the number of people turning up close to the wire then having to take this extra route rather than being able to go straight to their seats.
Despite the late start the show still finished bang on 10pm so am guessing once they finesse herding people through the pre-show it might start finishing around 9:45.
|
|
1,276 posts
|
Post by theatrefan77 on May 17, 2016 8:29:40 GMT
Saw it on Friday. It was OK although the play looks a bit dated now. It was chaos at the Young Vic which seems to be a permanent feature. After collecting the tickets from the unpleasant box office staff we went to queue to get in. They only opened at 7:25 and it was supposed to start at 7:30. Of course it didn't. Front of house were nice and enthusiastic but they didn't seem to know what they were doing with all fuss about sending people to the right wing to make you feel like you are in a hospital. The play started at 7:50 due mainly to bad organization.
The play was enjoyable up to a point but some parts were a tad boring. The actors did a decent if not remarkable job. David Haig take on the doctor is a bit cartoonish and not sinister enough although this could well be a directorial choice.
|
|
2,389 posts
|
Post by peggs on May 17, 2016 11:52:11 GMT
Thanks for the heads up, hopefully getting in will speed up but if I go expecting a delay perhaps I will be less annoyed.
|
|
92 posts
|
Post by chameleon on May 17, 2016 11:54:20 GMT
The problem isn't so much that the play mutates and twists the NHS, more that it mutates and twists the characters to attempt to give life to a few ideas. So after the first scene, very little makes sense.... Come to think As well as the original NT staging I saw quite good version at the old Arcola With all three roles taken by women Worked much better The fact is David Haig is a mediocre acting coasting along He mispronounced Olanzapine Annoying to watch And boring The play also mutates and twists the NHS for viewing pleasure We really don't spent days debating individual patients offering them cigarettes and acting unprofessionally |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 17, 2016 11:58:47 GMT
Blue / Orange must be the perfect play for a chameleon, and it's one of my favourite plays, having experienced five productions of it.
|
|
1,245 posts
|
Post by joem on May 17, 2016 20:07:58 GMT
Going to see this on the strengths of not having seen it before and David Haig being in it. He can be hammy at times but he was immense in the The Madness of George III.
|
|
923 posts
|
Post by Snciole on May 19, 2016 11:15:42 GMT
It really improves in the second half, as if there was different director. The first half has to set the scene, I understand, but it explodes in the second half. As a BME from a family with mental health issues it really resonated with me.
That staging is unnecessary though, not really played in the round, the Young Vic had printed two tickets for the same seat because of the confusing new layout, that section beforehand is unnecessary and the show will keep starting late if they don't speed it up. The Young Vic, a theatre I like, really annoyed me on this occasion.
|
|
44 posts
|
Post by Hana PlaysAndParasols on May 21, 2016 9:32:26 GMT
I saw it yesterday and loved it. The little walk is unnecessary but didn't bother me too much.
Stage design beautiful and very effective, making the stage a sort of boxing ring (not literally).
All the actors very good, David Haig is brilliant.
The play is very clever and very funny, I loved that different people were laughing out loud at different jokes.
I don't know what is someone saying about NHS, I took it as general issue, not about a specific institution - and it didn't feel dated in any way, clearly it's one of the best contemporary plays around.
|
|
4,968 posts
|
Post by Phantom of London on May 21, 2016 16:13:54 GMT
I saw this yesterday and my top tip would be to get the cheapest seat possible as this is staged effectively in the round, so you are never far from the stage. However to reach your seat, you are taken on a detour, which is fun, sets the scene and does really look like NHS institution clad with £70 chairs that the local health authority probably paid £700 for.
Is this a literally a good play or a rhetorically a good play? That's for you to decide.
The shows plays on the juxposition between perfectionism and idealism that cruelly shifts in the second half, which is riveting. The stand out performance was Daniel Kaluuya, who gave a good performance and was believable as someone suffering from the cruel illness of schizophrenia and someone who's brain is addled, He played to a t someone who has a need for a dose of caffeine and nicotine, which people with schizophrenia crave. However this performance wasn't as subtle and nuanced as Denise Cough who won the Olivier as someone addled with a different mental ailment. David Haig provided the role of a consultant who also thought he was a demi-god, who you dare not doubt his judgment and Luke Norris the lapsidaisical junior doctor who is desperate to do the right thing to complete his journey to registrar, but gets sidetracked.
A very enjoyable show 4 stars.
|
|
|
|
Post by perfectspy on May 22, 2016 22:53:21 GMT
I'm seeing this on Wednesday matinee show.
|
|
1,245 posts
|
Post by joem on May 30, 2016 23:13:43 GMT
This wasn't bad. The idea of walking through the replica set is interesting.
The discussion of "care in the community" is as relevant today as it was when the play was first written.
Solid acting. Daniel Kaluuya is really quite charming to start off with and then changes as he gradually reveals the psychosis he is suffering from. David Haig as usual gives good value, I hope he actually relaxes when he goes home. Luke Norris has the most thankless task, his character is the one the playwright wants you to cheer for but ultimately, despite an ogreish side to Haig's consultant, I found myself wondering who was really right.
The play sags in Act II, the scene with the consultant and the patient goes on too long. In the earlier confrontations too there are far too many moments when the characters are asking each other to sit down, a bit repetitive.
Why haven't playwrights twigged on to how professional theatre works and started writing two-act plays???
|
|
516 posts
|
Post by theatreliker on Jun 5, 2016 13:37:46 GMT
Saw this yesterday and oh boy was it good! Too young for the original production and so glad to have seen it here. It was my third visit to the YV and it's looked completely different each time. The creative's team concept for the show seems no way gimmicky and keeps the play fresh and detracts from how the play is perhaps formally a little old fashioned. Walking through the realistic corridor, the clinical smell in the auditorium, the late 90s pop songs take you to that world. But the boxing ring/ pit style design adds a lot to the play.
All three actors were on top form, with Norris and Kaluuya very believable. The part of Robert seems to have been written for Haig he plays it so well. It's perhaps a bit sitcom mode and I wonder if Nighy found even more humour to it but Haig does a very fine job here. Although his character isn't likeable he doesn't play him as a villain.
Great play, still horribly relevant, well-realised in this production. Go see it!
|
|
2,389 posts
|
Post by peggs on Jun 7, 2016 18:40:50 GMT
Saw it on Saturday, too. Worth lingering in the "pre-show" area, it's perfectly done. Even more fascinating, the way you can see it from the main auditorium as the stage is right above it. Linger as in walk slowly? I think i've read you're walked/directed through? Am intrigued now. |
|
2,389 posts
|
Post by peggs on Jul 4, 2016 18:45:40 GMT
I can't quite work out what I thought of this. I got to the theatre with 2 minutes to spare due to signal failures on trains having run, okay sort of run/staggered my way from waterloo so didn't have the opportunity to pause en route to the stage but did think 'must look round and take in, Theatremonkey said to do this', see the impact you have?! In truth though it was wasn't until someone else in the audience in the interval pointed out to their friend that it was a replica of the set did I realise, I think in my slightly oxygen starved thoughts I was treating it like one of those memory tests when you try to remember as much of you've seen as possible.
I liked this, particularly the second half and it made me think and at some points made my brain hurt a little chasing to catch up but I wasn't entirely won over I don't think. I liked the acting especially Daniel Kaluuya and the fast paced changes so that my sympathies rather kept changing and being challenged. It had dated a bit I suppose but not in a bad way, as noted above it was interesting to reflect how much has changed regarding our notions of political correctness and what is and is not acceptable. I suspect there wasn't meant to be any one interpretation but how much was I 'meant' to think David Haig's character was just out to get the results/info he needed for his research? Was he result focused all the time or just more pragmatic?
Views likely to be influenced by some sections of audience being plain irritating. On both sides of me where people munching away on sweets in what seemed to be a particularly food dependent audience, was it all those oranges that made them peckish? When did people start bringing whole ice creams on sticks in rather than those handy tubs which surely are harder to drop all over people, and cans of drink to fix and pop. Person on my left actually made almost no noise so was okay, woman on left had m and m, so rustle, rustle, crunch, crunch, wasn't sure if i was more annoyed with her for her plain rudeness or myself for not daring to do more than glare. Leaving afterwards the place looked like the cinema as in covered in food and rubbish, really poor on the audience's part.
|
|
433 posts
|
Post by DuchessConstance on Jul 4, 2016 19:55:44 GMT
Were you at the final matinee? I noticed all the munching & ice cream on sticks too!
I thought the issue with the play is it's so incredibly linked to a fixed time and place: West London in the late 1990s. A lot of the play's politics are just so very late 90s, it unfortunately loses universality. Whereas something like People, Places and Things (which actually has a weaker script, imo) is much more universal. The nature of mental health and even mental health treatment never really changes and Blue/Orange should have a lasting resonance, but it's just so much a period piece* that it doesn't.
The direction felt a bit half-hearted in that respect. Like the director didn't really know whether to play up the setting or play it down. The interval music was aggressively late 90s. I think with a play like that, you either do it as "a snapshot of Britain in the late 90s" and try to find some universal relevance through the characters (like the film 'Pride' does for the 1980s) or actually update the script and set it in the present day.
*Yes, it makes me feel ancient to consider something first performed in 2000 a period piece too.
|
|
2,389 posts
|
Post by peggs on Jul 4, 2016 21:11:00 GMT
Were you at the final matinee? I noticed all the munching & ice cream on sticks too! Yep, oh good not just me inwardly tutting, or perhaps everyone else just doesn't end up covered in icecream like I do. |
|
433 posts
|
Post by DuchessConstance on Jul 4, 2016 21:57:02 GMT
Peanut M&M woman was directly behind me!
|
|
2,389 posts
|
Post by peggs on Jul 5, 2016 12:30:43 GMT
Oh were you the person who turned round and stared at her too? I was in high hope at that point that there was someone with more umph than me who would say something or that two stares would suffice where one didn't but sadly no.
|
|
433 posts
|
Post by DuchessConstance on Jul 5, 2016 15:03:13 GMT
Yes! The rustling bag was right at my ear level.
|
|
2,389 posts
|
Post by peggs on Jul 5, 2016 19:51:04 GMT
mmmm if only i'd gambled and said 'excuse me you looked similarly peeved are you from the board?' but sadly no.
|
|
