The Height of the Storm - Wyndham's
Nov 23, 2018 19:17:55 GMT
Nicholas, harrietcraig, and 1 more like this
Post by duncan on Nov 23, 2018 19:17:55 GMT
SPOILER AHEAD!!
39 - The Height of the Storm - Wyndhams
Andre is dead. His family try to cope with life without him.
Madeleine is dead. Her family try to cope with life without her.
It turns out that Madeleine is dead but that her husband Andre is slipping into dementia and has forgotten she has gone - fragments of the past and present collide as Andre and his two daughters try to move forward.
The first half hour or so is confusing as we get conversations between different characters that point towards different people being dead. Annoyingly this is dragged out by characters refusing to answer questions that are put to them, at one point an exasperated Pryce asks of his daughter what is going on and of course she doesn't give him a straight answer for no other reason than the author is trying to drag out his "twist" for another few minutes.
When the conversation goes along the lines of,
Andre - "What is going on?"
Annoying Daughter #2 "You know whats going on"
and repeat a couple of times, its annoying as hell - real people don't speak like that. If someone asks a question you answer it, only in the world of drama where you are trying to eke out your story does this happen.
Once we THANKFULLY get past this device and you work out what is actually going on then its an intimate and affecting look at how dementia impacts on one, now lonely, old man and the burden he has now become to his daughters.
Words, time and people are merged into one by his addled brain as Madeleine flits around the kitchen peeling onions and mushrooms and he doesn’t know that she is dead. We also see conversations that have taken place in the past so effectively she is still alive and indeed its a circular piece for Atkins as she starts and finishes by bringing in the messages and starts to peel some mushrooms.
We get characters with no set name to highlight the confusion of Andre (as played by Pryce) and as noted above this of course is also to make us confused alongside Andre.
Lucy Cohu comes on for a 10 minute cameo and in the confused state of mind that Andre has she flits effortlessly from scarlet woman of the past to neighbour of the present - and the show is full of timebending moments like that, we are not sure when we are or who we are. Indeed her final character "name" harks back to story that Pryce has told us earlier about mushrooms and a railway station so we don't know if the story was true and he's related it in relation to the person coming to see him or if the entire thing is a fiction that his decaying mind has made up.
Pryce flits through in an understated but outstanding way, he's on autopilot here but he has one of the best autopilots in the business. Atkins gets a magnificent "f*** OFF" moment as the devoted but now departed wife but like Pryce this isn't a career defining role - these are main roles that older actors will look to play but which wont really stretch their abilities.
Where this could do better is in the two daughters. Both characters are walking cliches that you'll have seen plenty of times in similar shows, you know the sort - one interested in her career and one interested in her love life, neither of them seemingly wanting to face the reality of the new situation. We also have the character of "The Man" who sits in the entrance hall to the kitchen for all of an act before he comes on stage and actually speaks and yet he has no reason to be there other than an odd, for me, production decision.
Nicely acted, beautifully lit but overall just a wee bit empty.
7/10 - the very definition of the word competent. Still a nice afternoon out with Pryce and Atkins for under £15.
85 minutes with no interval.
39 - The Height of the Storm - Wyndhams
Andre is dead. His family try to cope with life without him.
Madeleine is dead. Her family try to cope with life without her.
It turns out that Madeleine is dead but that her husband Andre is slipping into dementia and has forgotten she has gone - fragments of the past and present collide as Andre and his two daughters try to move forward.
The first half hour or so is confusing as we get conversations between different characters that point towards different people being dead. Annoyingly this is dragged out by characters refusing to answer questions that are put to them, at one point an exasperated Pryce asks of his daughter what is going on and of course she doesn't give him a straight answer for no other reason than the author is trying to drag out his "twist" for another few minutes.
When the conversation goes along the lines of,
Andre - "What is going on?"
Annoying Daughter #2 "You know whats going on"
and repeat a couple of times, its annoying as hell - real people don't speak like that. If someone asks a question you answer it, only in the world of drama where you are trying to eke out your story does this happen.
Once we THANKFULLY get past this device and you work out what is actually going on then its an intimate and affecting look at how dementia impacts on one, now lonely, old man and the burden he has now become to his daughters.
Words, time and people are merged into one by his addled brain as Madeleine flits around the kitchen peeling onions and mushrooms and he doesn’t know that she is dead. We also see conversations that have taken place in the past so effectively she is still alive and indeed its a circular piece for Atkins as she starts and finishes by bringing in the messages and starts to peel some mushrooms.
We get characters with no set name to highlight the confusion of Andre (as played by Pryce) and as noted above this of course is also to make us confused alongside Andre.
Lucy Cohu comes on for a 10 minute cameo and in the confused state of mind that Andre has she flits effortlessly from scarlet woman of the past to neighbour of the present - and the show is full of timebending moments like that, we are not sure when we are or who we are. Indeed her final character "name" harks back to story that Pryce has told us earlier about mushrooms and a railway station so we don't know if the story was true and he's related it in relation to the person coming to see him or if the entire thing is a fiction that his decaying mind has made up.
Pryce flits through in an understated but outstanding way, he's on autopilot here but he has one of the best autopilots in the business. Atkins gets a magnificent "f*** OFF" moment as the devoted but now departed wife but like Pryce this isn't a career defining role - these are main roles that older actors will look to play but which wont really stretch their abilities.
Where this could do better is in the two daughters. Both characters are walking cliches that you'll have seen plenty of times in similar shows, you know the sort - one interested in her career and one interested in her love life, neither of them seemingly wanting to face the reality of the new situation. We also have the character of "The Man" who sits in the entrance hall to the kitchen for all of an act before he comes on stage and actually speaks and yet he has no reason to be there other than an odd, for me, production decision.
Nicely acted, beautifully lit but overall just a wee bit empty.
7/10 - the very definition of the word competent. Still a nice afternoon out with Pryce and Atkins for under £15.
85 minutes with no interval.
