404 posts
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Post by dlevi on Jun 18, 2022 4:57:01 GMT
I Saw this tonight and thought it - and by "it" I mean ALL of it, the announcement, the marketing, the production and the play itself - was pretty terrific. {Spoiler - click to view} There seems to be resentment in the Twittersphere and here that the RC lied about programming a first time writer instead instead of coming clean that it was one of their most often produced ones in recent years. I think they are going for a more adventurous audience. If they sold it as a new Lucy Kirkwood play then there would be a core audience of fans of hers who would book it on her name alone. This way the initial bookers are people who are actually tantilized by the idea of an unknown writer writing a provocative new play. It's a risk in business terms but in creating buzz about a play it's very smart. Anyone remember "Great Britain" by Richard Bean at the National? A play that was rehearsed and produced in secret and only a day or two before the first preview was it "announced" . That ploy created buzz around a play which had everyone talking.
But what about the play?
{Spoiler - click to view}
As for the play itself, I found it to be a solid A play - not great but damned good. Thanks to terrific performances from all involved and the sort of TEDTalk presentation. Once the gimmick is public, time will tell if the play itself endures, I think it might because as much as many of us think conspiracy theorists can be wackos, sometimes there is simply too much coincidence and we need to stop and consider what's really going on.
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2,538 posts
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Post by n1david on Jun 18, 2022 13:03:53 GMT
I was there last night too - sorry to miss you dlevi and (big spoilers in here): I was not as impressed by the play. I thought the acting was terrific - I have rarely seen such a realistic couple portrayed on-stage - but I wasn't so keen on the play, nor the rigmarole around it. With the opening statements I thought I was going to get something special here, having avoided all the spoilers (apart from the playwright's name) I thought OK, this could be really interesting. However well acted it was, though, as time went on I kept thinking "get to the point", and then when it did get to the "fake" ending I thought, what was the point? Then there's the business with the RC disclaimer and Kirkwood appearing on-stage, and it just became a mess. The conclusion I came to was that it would give some succour to conspiracy theorists by suggesting that such a tale could be true, and I didn't really see the point of that. Supporting a different way to run the world isn't necessarily an extreme belief, but this seemed to put it in the same category as anti-vaxxers and 9/11 conspiracists. So it seemed to be both at the same time dismissing anti-capitalists while encouraging conspiracies. I enjoyed it on the night but ultimately didn't feel that it made a coherent point in a coherent way. Lots to talk about afterwards though. To summarise in a spoiler-free way: great performances, average play, weird gimmicks, confused message. |
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1,221 posts
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Post by Steve on Jun 18, 2022 17:16:40 GMT
I'll just avoid talking about the spoiler bits, as they've been thoroughly discussed above. I agree with Foxa's views, in particular. For me, this is a wonderfully written romantic comedy, with truly individual and loveable characters, contained in the body of a flaccid unexciting thriller. The style mitigates against getting excited or frightened, and that lets down, what is otherwise a brilliantly written character piece, from a thrilling four stars to a merely middling 3 stars from me. Worth watching, though, especially for the comic timing and charm of Jake Davies and the remarkable in-the-moment lightness and wit of Siena Kelly.  |
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724 posts
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Post by Latecomer on Jun 18, 2022 20:10:14 GMT
Have to agree with people above, great performances, I enjoyed the dialogue which was very natural and well written, but…..to be frank I was a bit bored by the end and sort of “get on with it” so play lacked a bit of something and was rather muddled. Felt a bit like it was written by rich people about how they think people must feel. Gosh that sounds awful but it’s how I felt. It felt a bit patronising? I’ll have to think about that a bit more!!!!
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1,363 posts
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Post by Dave B on Jun 21, 2022 10:42:15 GMT
I don't think I have much more to add but I would just highlight that both Siena Kelly and Jake Davies are absolutely great and I really enjoyed watching their relationship. £12 Monday was pretty busy... but several early walk outs!
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Post by Forrest on Jun 21, 2022 11:58:43 GMT
I cannot add much to what has already been said (decent play, great performances, somewhat confusing message), so I'll make you laugh (or try to) at the expense of my own stupidity.
I took my guests from abroad to see this, and spent most of the play wondering if these were actually real people - as the beginning had implied - and if perhaps I was just simply so oblivious that I managed to completely miss the story in the media, and how would I explain this to my guests if that was indeed the case. I let out a loud sigh of relief when I googled their names after it had ended. Yup, I'm an idiot!
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2,538 posts
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Post by n1david on Jun 21, 2022 16:56:08 GMT
I wouldn't worry about it @forrest I was 99% sure that the characters were fictional but I still Googled their names in the bar queue afterwards!
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Post by alessia on Jun 26, 2022 5:36:49 GMT
Finally went to see last night. Having carefully avoided all reviews and spoilers, I had no idea what to expect and I enjoyed it very much. Not at all what I had anticipated it would be about. Kept me interested all the way through, the two actors are brilliant together, and I thought the concept was clever- I was bemused at the final bit, but I do agree with others that it was a bit of a gimmick. I wonder (after reading the playtext) if this is a play that can be produced again in future, and how it would be made to work without the 'unknown writer' trick.
David Morrissey was in the audience
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1,848 posts
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Post by NeilVHughes on Jul 4, 2022 21:55:37 GMT
A play let down by its construct and an ending that stretches it too far, almost as if the playwright didn’t trust the audience to grasp the concept.
The central message on where the world is at the moment is strong enough not to need the distractions and one thing that resonated was how during lockdown there was a sense of a different way of life which is now a distant memory.
Worth seeing for the relationship between the leads, a naturalness that I found more empathetic than the relationship plays Beginning and Middle at the National
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Post by cavocado on Jul 5, 2022 9:50:07 GMT
I saw this last week and am still unsure what to think. During the play I felt it lacked substance because the messages were so mixed - important issues but told through a couple of wishy washy characters who believe pretty much every conspiracy theory going and are often quite dull, along with a somewhat annoying meta character. There were also some elements so ridiculous that I felt they dragged down the more real issues.
But then thinking about it afterwards, I can see that this is one of the points of the play - in an age where everyone is on social media, it's hard to know what is real and important or whose word to rely on. So even though it's a frustrating method of storytelling, there's a clever ambiguity in having two gullible characters putting across serious issues which they themselves are unable to separate from whacky conspiracy theories.
The relationship aspect reminded me of David Eldridge too, and the acting was impressive, but I felt it fell between two genres, conspiracy thriller and relationship play, and didn't quite work as either.
As to the Dave Davidson issue, I think it was pretty unnecessary. It didn't add anything to the play, and it still feels a bit off for the Royal Court to give false information about a playwright, given that new writing is their selling point. I'd rather have booked based on the real writer, whose work I like. This one is worth seeing but it has some big flaws, and you've got to wonder if it might have developed better in rehearsals if they'd been free to dump the 'Dave Davidson' concept.
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177 posts
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Post by tal on Jul 9, 2022 22:24:24 GMT
I didn’t know about the gimmick and I actually gasped when it happened.
I had a great time with the play but do agree it goes on for longer than what it needed to.
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