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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 6:36:24 GMT
Thanks for all the posts on here. Reviews on this Board do not usually influence my decision about what to see, but on this occasion I will take heed and give this show a miss. Some on here seem intent on convincing us that this is a hit even in the face of mediocre and poor reviews. Hangmen was brilliantly written but it contained a couple of racist jokes which I found dumbfounding and offensive. And from the silence in the audience I was not alone. I have no intention of sitting through a play where that bad racist joke is stretched out to 80 minutes. And in the words of the legendary @emicardiff please do not @ me. I don’t wanna hear it.
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Post by theatrefan77 on Oct 25, 2018 6:47:32 GMT
Well, I enjoyed this last night. Maybe not one of his best plays, but a very interesting one nevertheless, even if it doesn't live up to all the hype. Just my opinion of course. I loved the set too.
Sat near Martin McDonagh and Phoebe Mary Waller-Bridge. I was tempted to approach her and ask about Killing Eve Season 2, but I didn't.
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Post by Someone in a tree on Oct 25, 2018 7:04:29 GMT
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Post by kathryn on Oct 25, 2018 7:48:20 GMT
Some of us are still going to see this - please put spoilers behind spoiler tags!
And can we pull back on making moral judgements about people being intrigued and excited to see a piece of theatre, by a well-known and popular playwright, which has divided opinion?
It is a cardinal sin to condemn something without seeing it - we all may be just as outraged as you, but we do have to see it first before we reach that conclusion. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t get excited by theatre.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 7:52:58 GMT
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Post by zahidf on Oct 25, 2018 7:54:55 GMT
Well, I enjoyed this last night. Maybe not one of his best plays, but a very interesting one nevertheless, even if it doesn't live up to all the hype. Just my opinion of course. I loved the set too. Sat near Martin McDonagh and Phoebe Mary Waller-Bridge. I was tempted to approach her and ask about Killing Eve Season 2, but I didn't. She probably couldn't have helped you, as she isn't writing series 2, concentrating on fleabag and other stuff instead
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Post by stefy69 on Oct 25, 2018 7:56:56 GMT
Some of us are still going to see this - please put spoilers behind spoiler tags! And can we pull back on making moral judgements about people being intrigued and excited to see a piece of theatre, by a well-known and popular playwright, which has divided opinion? It is a cardinal sin to condemn something without seeing it - we all may be just as outraged as you, but we do have to see it first before we reach that conclusion. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t get excited by theatre. Very well said in a reasonable and considerate manner.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 8:35:55 GMT
Can someone please tell me if there is any way of muting a thread?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 8:37:01 GMT
Can someone please tell me if there is any way of muting a thread? You can just not click on it, I think...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 8:44:57 GMT
I admit this had largely passed me by until our dear Monkey mentioned it to me this week and I was @ in this thread (just teasing loved it!) by which I knew it was happening but knew I wouldn't see it so wasn't paying attention.
I admit I'm intrigued now. And I still won't get time to see it but still. As much as I don't want EVERY play to be controversial for the sake of it, having something stir up a bit of healthy debate is a good thing, generally. But, can we do it nicely? I was ranting yesterday that increasingly the theatre types are saying on one hand 'audiences should enjoy a play as they like' in term of behaviour but on the other hand morally condemning anyone who doesn't like the right things or likes the wrong things.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 8:45:31 GMT
Can someone please tell me if there is any way of muting a thread? You can just not click on it, I think... Thanks but I’m still not able to do it. Any other ideas? Otherwise, I guess I will just have to ignore it myself. And for the record I would have thought that a lover of McD’s “dark and edgy” humour would see the irony of accusing someone of committing a cardinal sin. Or perhaps it was meant to be a joke.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 8:45:41 GMT
Can someone please tell me if there is any way of muting a thread? You can just not click on it, I think... Thanks but I’m still not able to do it. Any other ideas? Otherwise, I guess I will just have to ignore it myself. And for the record I would have thought that a lover of McD’s “dark and edgy” humour would see the irony of accusing someone of committing a cardinal sin. Or perhaps it was meant to be a joke.
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Post by Mr Snow on Oct 25, 2018 8:50:17 GMT
I hope you re read this after seeing it. The review is pretentious trying to explain it as a “savage but cryptic allegory” ( ), while bending over backwards trying to avoid admitting its nonsense. Don’t know how to do spoiler alerts on My phone so please do not read on if you want to avoid them If the author is (who’s previous work I really like blah, blah, blah), was trying to say something, my guess it was this. We live at a time when it’s not enough to write off the cannon because it was written by Old Dead White Guys, we are rewriting history in a PC way. So you can rewrite the history of Dickens and Andersen to involve the atrocities in the Belgian Congo (events that happened after their time) and say they stole their ideas from a pair of dwarf sisters, and people will repair to the bar saying you’ve made really interesting points ! I would guess that McDonagh holds those two in high esteem and thinks it odd that we are so ready to place our current corncwrns on them. Somewhere, however he lost the plot.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Oct 25, 2018 9:07:49 GMT
Some of us are still going to see this - please put spoilers behind spoiler tags! And can we pull back on making moral judgements about people being intrigued and excited to see a piece of theatre, by a well-known and popular playwright, which has divided opinion? It is a cardinal sin to condemn something without seeing it - we all may be just as outraged as you, but we do have to see it first before we reach that conclusion. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t get excited by theatre. This is the point - people want to see it so they can join the conversation. They may well not like it but not seeing it excludes them. Given that I'm down to see it in January I'm also now interested in seeing more opinions, in light of reviews and such.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 9:27:26 GMT
Thanks but I’m still not able to do it. Any other ideas? Otherwise, I guess I will just have to ignore it myself. I'm... pretty sure that the suggestion to "just not click on the thread" was indeed someone saying the easiest solution would be for you to just ignore it yourself.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 9:28:24 GMT
Daily mail highly negative Evening standard 2* Metro 2* Arts desk 2* The stage 2* WOS 2* Independent 3* Telegraph 3* Time Out 3* Times 4*
More importantly the word from the average theatre goer is overwhelming negative
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Post by zahidf on Oct 25, 2018 9:59:29 GMT
Daily mail highly negative Evening standard 2* Metro 2* Arts desk 2* The stage 2* WOS 2* Independent 3* Telegraph 3* Time Out 3* Times 4* More importantly the word from the average theatre goer is overwhelming negative Guardian 4 stars
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 10:23:52 GMT
Thanks but I’m still not able to do it. Any other ideas? Otherwise, I guess I will just have to ignore it myself. I'm... pretty sure that the suggestion to "just not click on the thread" was indeed someone saying the easiest solution would be for you to just ignore it yourself. Thank you! I misread the instruction. Lol!
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 25, 2018 10:44:36 GMT
Fascinatingly, four stars from Billington, but there may be a clue in this bit of the review: As Andersen explains to an intrusive journalist, “I change the bits I don’t like and then erase all the rest from history. I’m more like a German theatre director. An anti-director's theatre remark may be just what he needed after The Wild Duck.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 11:30:50 GMT
I agree with Steve, I enjoyed it a lot. It took me 15 minutes maybe to really tune in, but after that, for the most part I was entertained. There's a lot more than you think going on - which may hit after the show. It's very much on trend at the moment, about the silencing of all but the white middle aged male voice, done in a way which for a change doesn't feel preachy but full of satire instead. And both Johnetta Eula’Mae Ackles and Jim Broadbent are excellent - Ackles in particular. I thought lots of her dialogue Was mumbled or inaudible Due to speech impediment
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 11:35:05 GMT
Perhaps P was sat in the cheap seats at the back and forgot his ear trumpet?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 12:25:16 GMT
I'm beginning to think it's Opposite Thursday, once you combine this with Parsley's claim to never have a problem hearing a Katie Mitchell production...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2018 12:26:20 GMT
Perhaps P was sat in the cheap seats at the back and forgot his ear trumpet? Centre row A stalls my dear
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Post by londonmzfitz on Oct 25, 2018 14:27:34 GMT
Financial Times review from Ian Shuttleworth Martin McDonagh’s A Very Very Very Dark Matter is a magnificent wild card of a show (and) Jim Broadbent and Phil Daniels star in this fabulistic new drama at London’s Bridge Theatre
And 4 stars ....
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Post by sf on Oct 25, 2018 14:38:31 GMT
I agree with Steve , I enjoyed it a lot. It took me 15 minutes maybe to really tune in, but after that, for the most part I was entertained. There's a lot more than you think going on - which may hit after the show. It's very much on trend at the moment, about the silencing of all but the white middle aged male voice, done in a way which for a change doesn't feel preachy but full of satire instead. And both Johnetta Eula’Mae Ackles and Jim Broadbent are excellent - Ackles in particular.
I enjoyed it (yesterday afternoon) for the most part, and some of it is undeniably very funny.
Whether I thought it was good is a different question. McDonagh's script is neither as clever nor as edgy as he thinks it is, and the overall impression I left with was of a stack of ideas circling around a point but never quite landing on it. There's also some very questionable writing surrounding the intersections between racism and colonialist attitudes; I can see where he thinks he's going, but he doesn't get there. It felt like I was watching a rushed first draft; too often, he goes for (and, certainly, gets) easy laughs (sweary Charles Dickens! Sweary Mrs. Dickens!), but behind the easy laughs and the grotesquerie there's a much more interesting, much darker, much edgier play struggling to get out. It's rather like being promised Tramadol and then getting an aspirin.
It's an intriguing piece of theatre and I'm glad I saw it - but I'm also glad I only paid £15.
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Post by Mr Snow on Oct 25, 2018 17:48:19 GMT
It's very much on trend at the moment, about the silencing of all but the white middle aged male voice, done in a way which for a change doesn't feel preachy but full of satire instead. Spoiler again Can’t for the life of me see how the white middle aged class voice is shown as the only one that counts here? I’ve be been wrong before and will be again but I would be curious how you came to that conclusion when my own view is that he may be trying to go against the beliefs of the moment?
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Post by dani on Oct 26, 2018 8:16:24 GMT
I saw this last night. A lot has already been said on the subject, but I think this is a pretty terrible play. The idea that it travels deep into the abyss of the imagination is very strange to me. It seemed completely without nuance and I found perhaps three lines funny; the one about the German theatre director was the only time I actually laughed. It didn't offend me, though I can see it has the potential to cause great offence. I just found it tedious.
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Post by callum on Oct 26, 2018 20:02:57 GMT
Says a lot when even Baz hates it!
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Post by Rory on Oct 26, 2018 21:21:24 GMT
Says a lot when even Baz hates it! What has Baz said?
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Post by callum on Oct 27, 2018 11:22:35 GMT
He liked a tweet that said it was the worst play of 2018... plus it's got enough prestige associated with it to be the kind of thing where, if he liked it, he would let everyone know about it
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