Goodnight Mister Tom is, was and always will be an emotionally traumatic, beautiful and heartwarming story, no matter what medium it's told in. Stories of young children being evacuated during the second world war are plentiful and touching, and seeing a story I had grown up with transferred to stage, was nothing short of lovely.
Showing posts with label Drama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drama. Show all posts
Sunday, 2 December 2012
Wednesday, 14 November 2012
Friday, 2 November 2012
55 Days (1/11/12)
One thing I'm always bemused about is staging a play so that the audience are seated either side of the action. Personally I find it distracting (in a lull I spotted a sleeping man and a Vic Reeves Lookalike) and a little bit annoying, as the audience are either treated to the back of the actors' heads or the actors in question shouting their lines so as to be heard by everyone.
Wednesday, 31 October 2012
Our Boys (30/10/2012)
Our Boys is a bit of an enigma. The play itself passes off as a sort of hospital-cum-army drama, a cross between the boring bits of casualty and the marvellous bits of... Well.
Suddenly you hit a bit of a brick wall with trying to describe something like this. It's understated, laddish, and a little bit brutal... But its also genuine, sad, heartwarming and upsetting. Our Boys has a balance which few other plays (at least this year) seem to have found.
Suddenly you hit a bit of a brick wall with trying to describe something like this. It's understated, laddish, and a little bit brutal... But its also genuine, sad, heartwarming and upsetting. Our Boys has a balance which few other plays (at least this year) seem to have found.
Saturday, 20 October 2012
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (20/10/2012)
Possibly the longest play I've ever seen, or shall ever wish to see, COAHTR is not easy on the audience. Everything is agony, from the heat of the Deep South to the running time of Three and a Quarter hours. Still, its exactly the kind of agony that's worth it.
Monday, 27 August 2012
The Last of the Haussmans (22/08/2012)
In a change to the regularly scheduled pictures, here's a 290 word review of Last of The Haussmans @ The National Theatre. Enjoy!
Matinees of plays you’ve been waiting for for a long time
are very often disappointing in twofold. One, you’ve been waiting a long time
to see it, and so have built your hopes up for an exciting and entertaining
play, and two, matinees can be more flat in energy than a performance on a day
where there’s only one show.
However, even discounting that, I was less than impressed
with Last of the Haussmans. A play with an interesting premise, I found that it
lacked in more places than it tickled, and it was a bitter sort of taste that
was left floating around, possibly with all the alcohol that littered the
stage.
With a saving grace in Rory Kinnear, who, as far as I was
concerned, held the entire thing together by regularly – and deservedly –
stealing the show with brilliantly timed one liners and a beautiful
relationship with physical comedy and a can of beer, I must confess the other
big names let themselves down. Helen McRory had her moments of light, but there
weren’t enough of them, and Julie Walters’ character was either underwritten or
underplayed, I’m not sure which.
The set, however, was utterly beautiful, and the use of the
revolve in the Lyttleton was almost as gorgeous as the hanging dreamcatchers
and patchwork colours of the 1960s which made up some kind of background to the
story. Though only enough, I think, for some riotous shouting and a bit of
misplaced music.
Not the best production I’ve seen at the National, I have to
say. But I wasn’t tempted to walk out, simply because I hoped it would get
better.
Runs through October 11th 2012
Not the best, nowhere
near.
Saturday, 11 August 2012
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (09/08/2012)
Runs through 27th October 2012
A Visual Spectacular
Saturday, 21 July 2012
A Midsummer Night's Dream (19/07/2012)
Runs through September 5th 2012
I pray thee, gentle mortal, let me see it again!
Thursday, 12 July 2012
Hamlet (Globe2Globe Festival)
Hamlet (Lithuanian) @ Globe Theatre
Globe2Globe Festival
A Shame it was only on a few nights
A Shame it was only on a few nights
Much Ado About Nothing (Globe2Globe Festival)
Much Ado About Nothing (French) @ Globe Theatre
Globe2Globe Festival
Wonderfully French
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Playwright's Playwrights: Look Back In Anger (06/07/2012)
Look Back In Anger @ Duke of York's Theatre
A Different Play every Friday at 2pm Through 20th July
Utterly Amazing.
Thursday, 5 July 2012
GATZ (4/07/2012)
23 Performances Only - Must Close 15th July
8 hours long - but I didn't want it to end!
The Hollow Crown: Henry IV Part 2 (Preview 2/7/2012)
The Hollow Crown: Henry IV Part 2
Essential Viewing for anyone with interest in Drama, theatre, Shakespeare or acting.
The Hollow Crown: Henry IV pt 1. (Preview 2/07/2012)
The Hollow Crown: Henry IV Part 1
Don't Miss Out!
Wednesday, 29 February 2012
PREVIEW: My Name Is Antonino Calderone / The MAC, Birmingham / 28.02.2012
My Name Is Antonino Calderone is a play based on a book based on a true story. This alone should be enough to get you interested.
To say it's about the Mafia (Or the Cosa Nostra, as it is referred to in the piece) should make it even more appealing. It's a fascinating reconstruction - or at least a rendering of the sort-of-confession Calderone offered to the authorities in a one-man monologue. Intriguing to say the least.
As fascinating as it sounds, I'd like to point out several things.
One, the play is only two shows old, tonight was its third and it shows. They're making continuous edits to the script, having gone so far as to cut (at least) twenty-five minutes from the show, which currently runs at two hours, plus interval. It's a really nice thing to have the Director tell you that beforehand, because really, I would have been put off by The Actor having a script before him.
Two, cor-blimey there are a lot of words in there. There's a lot of clever detail and there's a lot of Italian - to be perfectly honest, two things you'd expect in a piece about the Mafia, but that's neither here nor there - which, with a piece as heavy as this, gets a little bit lost. That's not to say that The Actor doesn't attempt to convey every single word, but... with so much to say, and without the pace slowing down too much, we found ourselves zoning out occasionally.
Three, the second half was far more satisfying than the first. It was more anecdotal, more satisfying and I, for one, was certainly more gripped. The Actor settled into his role, and he seemed, for what it's worth, to find some kind of empathy with a character he is culturally separated from. It takes a while, obviously, to find a niche when retelling the story of a man who was very, very real, without becoming a parody, and though The Actor took a while to settle into it, he succeeded with the task remarkably.
As it is, I think with polish, My Name Is Antonino Calderone will be a pretty good show. There's no doubt that the pacing needs sorting out, and that the script needs to be more fine-tuned, but I have no doubt that it will be. After all, that's what Previews are for, right? (And hey, it wasn't bad for £4.50)
My Name Is Antonino Calderone; Still in Previews
Star Rating: ★★★
(Oh, my. Google has just told me that The Actor is Tim Woodward.
And Now I am a moron.
He was in Mad Dogs, which was why I recognised him. Oh, bumf. I wish I'd realised that before.)
To say it's about the Mafia (Or the Cosa Nostra, as it is referred to in the piece) should make it even more appealing. It's a fascinating reconstruction - or at least a rendering of the sort-of-confession Calderone offered to the authorities in a one-man monologue. Intriguing to say the least.
As fascinating as it sounds, I'd like to point out several things.
One, the play is only two shows old, tonight was its third and it shows. They're making continuous edits to the script, having gone so far as to cut (at least) twenty-five minutes from the show, which currently runs at two hours, plus interval. It's a really nice thing to have the Director tell you that beforehand, because really, I would have been put off by The Actor having a script before him.
Two, cor-blimey there are a lot of words in there. There's a lot of clever detail and there's a lot of Italian - to be perfectly honest, two things you'd expect in a piece about the Mafia, but that's neither here nor there - which, with a piece as heavy as this, gets a little bit lost. That's not to say that The Actor doesn't attempt to convey every single word, but... with so much to say, and without the pace slowing down too much, we found ourselves zoning out occasionally.
Three, the second half was far more satisfying than the first. It was more anecdotal, more satisfying and I, for one, was certainly more gripped. The Actor settled into his role, and he seemed, for what it's worth, to find some kind of empathy with a character he is culturally separated from. It takes a while, obviously, to find a niche when retelling the story of a man who was very, very real, without becoming a parody, and though The Actor took a while to settle into it, he succeeded with the task remarkably.
As it is, I think with polish, My Name Is Antonino Calderone will be a pretty good show. There's no doubt that the pacing needs sorting out, and that the script needs to be more fine-tuned, but I have no doubt that it will be. After all, that's what Previews are for, right? (And hey, it wasn't bad for £4.50)
My Name Is Antonino Calderone; Still in Previews
Star Rating: ★★★
(Oh, my. Google has just told me that The Actor is Tim Woodward.
And Now I am a moron.
He was in Mad Dogs, which was why I recognised him. Oh, bumf. I wish I'd realised that before.)
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
In A Forest... / Vaudeville Theatre / 26.05.11
It was a dark and stormy night…
We’ve all heard the stories, the ones that start in a deep, dark forest, with nobody around to know what transpires, to know exactly what happens to the characters – be it good, bad or ugly.
With In a Forest, Dark and Deep, debuting worldwide at the Vaudeville Theatre on the Strand, we are lost in a claustrophobic cabin with only Bobby (Matthew Fox) and Betty (Olivia Williams) for somewhat reluctant company – admittedly, typically white-trash names, but in a small town like the one they hail from, quite acceptable.
I’ll not lie, I definitely hassled my friend into going, because, well, it’s Matthew Fox, isn’t it? Everyone Loves Jack-off-LOST, and I’ll agree that that was my main reasoning for going – but then again, it looked like more than half of the audience were there for that reason, and that reason alone (cue the wolf-whistles when he came onstage, and the bated breath at the merest hint of chest)… I didn’t wolf-whistle, I promise. She said she enjoyed it in the end, so I’d say it was a victory, of sorts.
Anyway. Set on two levels, and kept fresh by the sudden bouts of sibling rivalry, and ‘surprising’ revelations throughout, In a Forest is compelling because it scrambles to a climax that, from the off, is a little bit predictable, but a lot surprising. We kept watching because looking away was impossible.
Fox is interesting as Bobby. Aesthetically, he’s got the looks to be a leading man, but they let him down a little here – though with his (slightly frightening) beard covering most of his pretty face, you do get the sense that someone’s had a genius idea, and he at least looks the right part. With a checked overshirt and Nirvana tee underneath, everyone has him down as the bad-boy from the word ‘go’ – though, as with most pieces of fiction, things aren’t necessarily as they seem. Cue the lovely looking Olivia Williams (Of the Live-action-Peter-Pan fame), as his sister, having invited him to this cabin to help her pack and transport the hordes of books all over the place. Her tenant has moved on, and she really doesn’t know what to do.
It all spirals down from there.
The quality of the acting is pretty brilliant, I have to say – with Fox on debut, you’d maybe expect some kind of fear, but there was nothing in his eyes but fire and readiness – and he tackles the role almost perfectly, though I’d like to know where all of his beard came from, there were a lot of creepy whiskers in there. Williams, as a seasoned lady of the stage, is very at home at the Vaudeville, and uses the space she’s given impressively.
Personally, I was impressed with the whole thing, though my friend did point out some holes which I thought could be easily explained away. I won’t cover them in depth for fear of revealing too much of the plot, suffice it to say that Williams’ reactions are not those you’d expect in a simple sibling argument… even though I’d argue that with the time constraints they have (no interval, and approximately 90 minutes runtime), not everything can be expressed to its full potential. We had to agree to disagree on that one.
On the whole, In a Forest Dark and Deep is a pretty good play, and I’d definitely advise you to see it on its next run. Unfortunately, it’s closed since we went to see it, having had only a month’s run, but next time. I just advise you that next time… you go.
Seriously, it’ll be worth it.
In A Forest: Ran 3rd March – 4th June
Star Rating: ★★★★
Monday, 30 May 2011
Lord Of The Flies / Regent's Park Open Air Theatre / 27.05.2011
 |
| Evidence of a Crash - Pre-Performance, the wreckage (Credit: Isabella V.B) |
In a normal theatre, it is easy to tell when the play begins. The lights drop, perhaps there’s music to set the mood, and the curtain rises across the stage. Not so in the bright, early summer light at Regent’s Park’s Open Air Theatre. People visibly jolted at the start of Friday night’s production of Lord of the Flies, and I’m unashamed to admit I was one of them. Everything was big at the beginning – big noise, big smoke, and a huge, wrecked British Airways plane that drew the eye from the moment you walked into the arena. In seconds, though, it became almost claustrophobic, smoke from the wreckage blinding everyone lucky enough to be close to the stage. Engrossed in a chilling play such as this, it was easy to forget that the late afternoon sunshine would fade into darkness, and with it seemingly all the light in the world.
From the fore, the boys – for the actors are simply that, more than half of them making their professional debuts – are forced into an athletically charged piece, Ralph (Alistair Toovey) entertaining with handstands, and Jack (James Clay) and Roger (Matt Ingram) swinging through the mangled set like the savages they eventually become. Nobody is left untested; however, every member of the cast is put through their paces in exhausting movement sequences that are deliberate, yet probably the weakest part of the play – bringing a slightly secondary-school drama to the otherwise almost perfect performance.
From the public-school, highly strung Jack, leader of the school choir and prefect who dissolves into a strangely demonic, almost regressed infant, king of the savages, to his adversary, Ralph, too kind to be a leader, but too angry to let it all go, the children are left on their own to fall into the worst parts of human nature, the stubborn, angry, humiliated parts which are so carefully hidden from the light of day, until they are given free reign.
It is perhaps most noticeable in Roger, beautifully acted by Ingram, the outsider from the school of ‘nowhere’, plugged into his headphones and certainly looking like the oldest there, who has become a chilling, manic and demented boy with wild eyes and a sick disposition,. Even as the drama unfolds, you get a sense that Roger isn’t quite there – both psychologically and socially. Less of an outcast than Piggy (George Bukhari), but still on the fringe because he steps into the gang after everyone else is introduced, he is just as lost as the rest of the boys, no matter how old he seems.
That is the beauty of this adaptation. Flies is usually student fodder, the book that children hate at GCSE; but this is something I doubt anybody could walk away from with dislike in their hearts. The story has been told so many times that it sparks knowledge from a passing reference, but this is different. Yes, we are presented with a group of children – for the actors are simply that, forced into an adulthood destined to fail from the start, but Williams’ adaptation is explosive – literally, with the opening of the second act unimaginably blinding and typically, theatrically savage. It appeals to the audience, whatever their age, because this is a show based on the shades of grey that everyone must face, at least once in their lives.
Lord Of The Flies: Runs through June 18th 2011.
Star Rating: ★★★★★
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