Post by Marwood on Jan 27, 2017 10:06:18 GMT
I saw this on Tuesday, and after being unsure after the first five to ten minutes, which starts with the two actors rapping, before evolving into a kind of poetry jam and then settling into a more normal, albeit stream of consciousness, style, enjoyed it once I got used to its flow.
I got the impression that a lot of people had booked for this thinking they were going to get a Commitments/Once kind of show, but if you are averse to drug references, loud music and the aforementioned rapping, this won't be for you (one elderly gent that was sat in the front row reading the Telegraph before this started, got up and left when the lights first went out near the end , but he missed a good 10 or 15 minutes more of the show - don't know if he thought that was the end or had just had enough)
The scenes between our 'hero' and his junkie brother worked the best, the emotional glue that held this production together and worked better than some of the stuff about the 'cyclical nature' of time and the like. It was good to see the NT putting something like this on (it is in association with Soho Theatre, so I'm guessing it was originally going to be put on there, but to be fair, if it was put on in a room any bigger than the Dorfman, a lot of its charms would be lost), hopefully we'll get more contemporary stuff of its type in the future.
Not as profound as maybe it thinks it is, and not going to be to everyones taste, but I liked it all the same. A shame it is only on for one week.
I got the impression that a lot of people had booked for this thinking they were going to get a Commitments/Once kind of show, but if you are averse to drug references, loud music and the aforementioned rapping, this won't be for you (one elderly gent that was sat in the front row reading the Telegraph before this started, got up and left when the lights first went out near the end , but he missed a good 10 or 15 minutes more of the show - don't know if he thought that was the end or had just had enough)
The scenes between our 'hero' and his junkie brother worked the best, the emotional glue that held this production together and worked better than some of the stuff about the 'cyclical nature' of time and the like. It was good to see the NT putting something like this on (it is in association with Soho Theatre, so I'm guessing it was originally going to be put on there, but to be fair, if it was put on in a room any bigger than the Dorfman, a lot of its charms would be lost), hopefully we'll get more contemporary stuff of its type in the future.
Not as profound as maybe it thinks it is, and not going to be to everyones taste, but I liked it all the same. A shame it is only on for one week.
