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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2017 2:25:19 GMT
 Currently running until next Saturday (11th March) at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester. Has anyone been to see this? Of course Cleese is a comedy genius, having created the best farces with Fawlty Towers, but quite curious to know how his comedy translates to the stage. |
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Post by showgirl on Mar 4, 2017 5:04:27 GMT
Thought this sounded interesting (though as usual with plays outside London, little hope of me fitting it in at short notice), but I've seen 2 dire reviews (2-star), from the Telegraph and Whatsonstage. An Ipswich paper raved about it, however.
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Post by Polly1 on Mar 4, 2017 11:39:37 GMT
Ha, I think local papers are contracted to rave about everything on at local theatres and this one has been very heavily pushed on Cleese's name.
However, it IS dire. What's On Stage review sums it up perfectly. Dated, forced, laboured, unfunny, biggest laughs (not from me) from crude modernisms shoehorned in. So-called spectacular set actually unstable and cheap (there was a huge gap in the drawing room doors which annoyed the Hell out of me). Langrishe and the chap playing the doctor struggle gamely but Oliver Cotton needs to learn his lines, slowed everything down fatally in the last act. (Casting by Irene Cotton...).
The Mercury has obviously invested a lot in this but it doesn't seem to be touring and with poor reviews, not a hope of reaching the West End. I hate to be so down on my 'local' but I really don't think the standard of productions there is great.
Highlight of the evening for me when I went on press night was sitting a few seats away from Robert Lindsay, although God knows why he was there.
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Post by Jan on Mar 4, 2017 13:15:09 GMT
As the great Nicholas Craig commented "If comedy is serious, farce is an absolutely tragic form".
Cleese's credentials are clear, he studied several Feydeau plays in detail before writing Fawlty Towers. It is a somewhat neglected theatrical form these days partly because is very hard to do well. We have few actors who are natural farceurs and Oliver Cotton would be well down the list of those who might be up to the job. I suspect though the main problem here is putting a play which requires strong and meticulous direction in the hands of someone with virtually no directorial experience at all.
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Post by wickedgrin on Mar 4, 2017 13:35:29 GMT
Donald Sinden was one of the best farceurs I ever saw. He could milk a situation with contorted facial expressions for seemingly minutes at a time. Farce has gone out of fashion now and the actors who are practised in it.
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Post by Jan on Mar 4, 2017 13:40:44 GMT
Donald Sinden was one of the best farceurs I ever saw. He could milk a situation with contorted facial expressions for seemingly minutes at a time. Farce has gone out of fashion now and the actors who are practised in it. Yes, and it always counted against Sinden that he was so good at it he got to appear in TV sitcoms as a result - people viewed him as a lightweight actor forgetting his past Shakespeare work as Lear, Othello etc. |
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Post by wickedgrin on Mar 4, 2017 13:43:18 GMT
Yes, indeed. He also said farce was more demanding/difficult than playing Shakespeare!
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Post by Jan on Mar 4, 2017 15:09:04 GMT
I read an article by Cleese about this production. He said it was one of Feydeau's lesser plays and was flawed in several ways. Why you would want to try to fix it when even his greatest plays are so rarely produced I don't know. Cleese's perpetual quest to make some easy money I suppose.
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Post by bellboard27 on Mar 13, 2017 10:22:18 GMT
I went for the final night (as I was spending the weekend in Colchester). Well, by this point Oliver Cotton clearly knew the script and any set issues were all resolved (to the point that it looked good and functioned well for changes). Farce is difficult these days to get right - the story lines (unless very cleverly done) feel dated (or simply done before in different variants) [married couple, attempted affairs, mistaken identities, losing trousers, hiding in wardrobe, some form of authority gets involved]. For this one I felt the set up was funnier than the pay off. Also the structure of the evening was uneven - first half 1 hour 15 mins, 20 min interval, and 2nd half 35 mins.
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