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Post by Mr Crummles on Dec 31, 2023 9:59:11 GMT
I’m on the same boat. I also live outside of the UK (Ireland) and my trips to London are now more carefully planned than they used to be. These days I tend to cross over less often but stay longer. Because theatre prices have gone up quite steeply, very rarely I will see the same show twice. Planning for me is essential because I cannot enjoy the same benefits of someone living in London. I need to think a lot before choosing what to see. So no, I don't give shows I'm not interested in much of a chance. I usually pick something based on its creative team and hope for the best. I mostly trust people's feedback in this board, so I buy the ticket and pray that their response will be generally positive when the show opens. Sometimes I miss a boat or two only to be mortified, with the result that I need to make last-minute trips at much higher costs.
I think that this way mostly works for me. I used to be a lot more open minded when I lived in London and could afford potential misfires. But that’s no longer the case. I am sure I have missed one or two shows that I should have probably seen, but by and large I am happy this way.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Dec 20, 2023 10:01:43 GMT
1. Sunset Boulevard 2. Dear England 3. The Motive and the Cue 4. A Little Life 5. Accidental Death of an Anarchist Honourable mentions to A Streetcar Named Desire, Next to Normal, Patriots and The Unfriend. This was such a great year for me. I can't believe I had to leave out The Motive and the Cue, Crazy for You, The Unfriend and Dear England from my top 5. In the case of The Unfriend, there was a little bit of prejudice involved. I laughed and had so much fun with it that I suppose it made me feel guilty of including it at the expense of less light-hearted work. And, leaving far from London, I missed the Accident Death, the Macbeths, etc.... I can only imagine the agony of making up my top 5 had I seen everything.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Dec 18, 2023 11:22:29 GMT
The reviews here helped me to prepare for this show. So I knew that I would not be getting an attempt to faithful recreate a Spanish Civil War scene. And this in a way helped me to free my mind of preconceived notions and enjoy the show for what it was.
Bernarda, the hardened, unbending, heartless Spanish matriarch, who commands her household with an iron fist, is indeed a bit unspanish, and so are many of the elements of the play. But that doesn't matter in this very lucid cautionary tale of what happens in a world where people believe in stagnant absolutes and think that traditions and old laws are rules never to be broken. We believe that we have left all this behind, but we haven't. Actually, puritanism seems to be back and excessive conservatism on the rise. A balance between old and news seems to be broken in our world.
The play shows the effects of this by exploring the repression in a household of bitter and resentful daughters, unhappily starved of affection, who hurt each other as desire haunts the place and oppressively pervades the air in the figure of Pepe, the coveted non-character that lurks about and robs the place of any peace. There is almost the same claustrophobic feel of Sartre’s Huis Clos (No Exit). Nobody can leave. Everyone lives in their own cell and come to clash in the common area of the living room. This is a house pulsating with vinegary discontent.
I thought the staging was magnificent with the non-stop action happening simultaneously in all rooms, giving the idea that the final tragedy results from the clash of all individual dramas taking place in different worlds.
The cast is very strong, and Harriet Walter seemed quite shaken at the final bows, just as I was.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Dec 17, 2023 17:36:13 GMT
A Little Life A Streetcar Named Desire Pygmalion Guys and Dolls Sunset Boulevard
And, even if they don't get the full point (I just couldn't bring myself to leave them out):
Operation Mincemeat The House of Bernarda Alba
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Post by Mr Crummles on Nov 16, 2023 20:02:06 GMT
Oh my goodness, I am the opposite. Every show I have followed to Broadway has been totally ruined in my opinion. I will never waste money going there again. Ive been disappointed too many times. Unfortunately this has been my experience as well and I have given it up.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Nov 10, 2023 13:43:26 GMT
Apologies to Javert! Valjean, it's you I'm looking at.
I understand your point, Jon. I was myself a bit taken aback when they threw soup at a painting. What I was trying to say, however, is that the illegality of an act is not the ultimate factor to determine whether this act is good or bad...
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Post by Mr Crummles on Nov 10, 2023 13:36:33 GMT
I do wonder whether these demonstrations really help. But, on the other hand, I do question the concept of criminality, and I don’t think that unlawful acts are necessarily wrong. In Nazi Germany, helping Jews was considered criminal. Seeking abortion in many places in America is criminal, as was homosexuality in the UK until very recently. Was Javert wrong for stealing a loaf of bread? At the end of the day, we should be guided by moral principles, rather than by laws. Laws are created by fallible humans, many of whom with shady interests. Think of all the lawmakers who pander to far-right people for money and power. Also consider the many things that are not illegal but cause much harm to people. The fact is that much good has come to humanity by breaking laws. Important revolutions and changes started that way. I’m not saying that we should all break them or that the ends justify the means. What I’m saying is that laws are not absolutes, and that things should be considered within context. I think it is valid to oppose the JSO for their tactics, believing that they generate more harm than good, especially to the important cause they try to defend, but I don’t think it is right and fair to crush them for what is essentially some very minor infringements of current legislation. I think some of your comparisons are a bit of a stretch. You can't really compare protecting Jews or Abortion to the acts of JSO. Yes the morals should be considered when it comes to legislation and law, and I have no issues with a slow march, it's inconvenient and helps highlight a point. However, when they start throwing paint all over university buildings in Manchester - that's criminal damage, when they smash glass frame of a painting in a gallery - that's criminal damage, throwing paint over a dinosaur in a museum - again criminal damage, the list goes on to include throwing paint over digital screens at a game expo and landmarks. A persons morals should not be an excuse to get away with causing criminal damage. They are unhappy with government policy, but why should Manchester University and its students suffer? Why should a museum and its guests suffer? why should people at a gaming expo suffer? This is why I don't have any sympathy for any of JSO and more than happy that the book is thrown at them, a minor inconvenience can be forgiven, but criminal damage should not, as that hits the general public in the pocket and they shouldn't be hurt because of someones values and beliefs. Also, I think Javert will not be happy that you are accusing him of stealing bread!
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Post by Mr Crummles on Nov 10, 2023 11:28:36 GMT
I do wonder whether these demonstrations really help. But, on the other hand, I do question the concept of criminality, and I don’t think that unlawful acts are necessarily wrong. In Nazi Germany, helping Jews was considered criminal. Seeking abortion in many places in America is criminal, as was homosexuality in the UK until very recently. Was Javert wrong for stealing a loaf of bread? At the end of the day, we should be guided by moral principles, rather than by laws. Laws are created by fallible humans, many of whom with shady interests. Think of all the lawmakers who pander to far-right people for money and power. Also consider the many things that are not illegal but cause much harm to people. The fact is that much good has come to humanity by breaking laws. Important revolutions and changes started that way. I’m not saying that we should all break them or that the ends justify the means. What I’m saying is that laws are not absolutes, and that things should be considered within context. I think it is valid to oppose the JSO for their tactics, believing that they generate more harm than good, especially to the important cause they try to defend, but I don’t think it is right and fair to crush them for what is essentially some very minor infringements of current legislation.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Sept 19, 2023 19:10:33 GMT
Oh no, don't say that, please. I am interested. One of my favourite songs in the recording is actually "If it wasn't for you". And I love the one about the bread... I like some of them too, but there's so many of them. Look For The Woman, Luckiest Man in the World, Feminine Companionship could all be cut and make barely a difference to the story. If it wasn't for you is great because it sets up the characters and their relationships. For me, all the hughlights are mostly in Act 1 It is true, the best bits are in Act 1. And, to be honest, I've never seen it staged. I just tend to like villagers (like in Fiddler on the Roof) :-)
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Post by Mr Crummles on Sept 19, 2023 13:23:57 GMT
Great score but somewhat thin book. no one is really that interested in the villagers and their quibbles with each other. Maybe it will be a new version alltogethr. Oh no, don't say that, please. I am interested. One of my favourite songs in the recording is actually "If it wasn't for you". And I love the one about the bread...
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Post by Mr Crummles on Jul 26, 2023 8:23:44 GMT
Of all the Joe's I've seen, the only one I think that really got it spot on was the original, Kevin Anderson I agree. There was such a tiredness in him, a sense of someone beaten, disgusted and disillusioned, with a cynical sense of humour and sharp wit: all that was left from a once sparkling and creative mind. It's exactly what made the rest of the story work so well for me.
I always felt that Joe is the crux of the play. You can have great Normas, but without a really strong Joe, the show loses its organic strength.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Jun 28, 2023 7:10:50 GMT
Equally there are writers who are more highly valued abroad than they are at home. That may apply to contemporary writers like David Harrower and Simon Stephens who seem very highly in demand in Germany. I always used to think that novelist Lawrence Durrell was more highly regarded in France than the UK. Of course, some people are just lucky with their translators. Lawrence Durrell is a good example. Another one I can think of is Charles Morgan. I was surprised of how little appreciated his novel Sparkenbroke is in the UK (I didn't appreciated it myself, actually. I found it a bit morbid and slow-going). I think France retains a powerful influence on what the rest of the world reads.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Jun 24, 2023 22:35:39 GMT
Interesting points. In thirty-five years of theatre-going I don't think I've seen a convincing Lorca play here (I missed the Simon Stone-Billie Piper Yerma). I'm hoping Rebecca Frecknall can do something interesting with it. I've seen brilliant Chekhov, Gorki, Ibsen, Brecht, Schiller, Moliere, Racine, Lope de Vega but Lorca doesn't seem to travel well - or have I just missed something? I must say Pirandello is another author whose work has never really travelled - I'm sure the plays are great, but I've never seen a production worthy of his reputation. I think there are some plays that are so specific to a particular location and culture that they are almost impossible to transfer to another. For example has there ever been a single entirely successful production in UK of a Spanish Golden Age play ? Ionesco another I’d say. I believe that the Donmar's production of Calderón de la Barca' Life is a Dream (2009), with Dominic West, got great reviews. I certainly enjoyed it very much.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Jun 24, 2023 22:27:17 GMT
It's not really that long since they did Bernarda Alba (2005) when the combined talents of Howard Davies, Penelope Wilton and Deborah Findlay didn't manage to raise it above the average. I assume it has been selected for revival because it helps Norris meet his overall gender quota but there are other Lorca plays that don't get revived that often which would have been more interesting for me. Interesting points. In thirty-five years of theatre-going I don't think I've seen a convincing Lorca play here (I missed the Simon Stone-Billie Piper Yerma). I'm hoping Rebecca Frecknall can do something interesting with it. I've seen brilliant Chekhov, Gorki, Ibsen, Brecht, Schiller, Moliere, Racine, Lope de Vega but Lorca doesn't seem to travel well - or have I just missed something? I must say Pirandello is another author whose work has never really travelled - I'm sure the plays are great, but I've never seen a production worthy of his reputation. I saw an mesmerising production of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, back in 2008. It was directed by Rupert Goold and had, I believe, Denise Gough and Ian McDiarmid in it. I was thinking about it for many days after I saw it.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Jun 9, 2023 8:46:29 GMT
I've been very lucky with my Guys and Dolls. So lucky in fact, that I came to believe that it is just impossible to ruin this show – it seems unruinable. I don't think I will ever forget Imelda Staunton as Adelaide, or Clive Rowe as Nicely-Nicely Johnson, or Ewan McGregor and Jamie Parker as Sky, but this production feels unbeatable, and I find it hard to believe I will ever see a better or more exciting one. For one thing, there was such energy flowing from the stars to the audience and the other way around. Everyone was obviously having such tremendous fun, and this is why I thought it was a genius idea to turn this production into an immersive one. The show was basically turboed by the vibrancy of an audience delighted in being part of the magic burning on “stage”. I could see people dancing, smiling, clapping, and just having a great time. The cast was exceptional, even Sister Sarah, a usually thankless role of a normal person eclipsed by the colourfulness of all other characters, was made interesting. With so many great shows in London this year, it will be difficult to pick a winner for the Oliviers in 2024.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Jun 8, 2023 10:23:12 GMT
This left me completely brokenhearted. It's been four days since I saw it and I'm still processing it. I feel as if under the effect of a heavy hangover, after an excess of… well… tears, and very sad emotions. Magnificent cast. Every single actor in it shines. James Norton, of course, bears the heaviest cross and shines the most. It’s amazing that a person who played so convincingly an intense, chilling, intimidating psychopath can also convey such a level of vulnerability. He managed to keep such sadness in his eyes during the whole play. His Jude seems forever stuck in his dismal childhood, unprotected, defenceless, with no feeling of self-worth, no feeling of one deserving love, always to be exploited by any vicious, deranged grown-up that might come his way. The play doesn’t spend much time helping us to conciliate this boy with the brilliant lawyer he becomes, but I’m watching Succession and can’t help feeling that there are some similarities between Jude and the rather ruthless Ken Roy, who seems to be a good person at heart, seriously damaged by an overwhelmingly brutal father that he tries to impress, please and emulate. If only I were brave enough, I’d love to see the play again.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Jun 6, 2023 10:39:39 GMT
I really enjoyed this: amazing cast, spectacular direction, great everything. I was awed from moment to moment, as the show flowed on, thanks to a clever use of dynamic projections and screens. I especially loved the stunning background paintings (by John Macfarlane) that reminded me of the beauty and vivid theatricality of Tolouse-Lautrec. The audience seemed to have appreciated the show as well because of the standing ovation at the end (in great part, I imagine, in appreciation of Michael Ball). No unusual laughs that I could discern anywhere. I was a little worried about the sanitisation of the story for the more squeamish in our days, but I thought it all worked very well in the end. I thought the ending was extremely interesting, as Alex faced some challenging choices. This production, and a few notes in the programme, made me appreciate better the meaning of the title. I have a feeling that perhaps the older you are, and the more you have lived, the more you are likely to appreciate its idea of love.
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Post by Mr Crummles on May 6, 2023 9:16:02 GMT
Right folks who know, will getting membership of the Donmar be worth it to get a ticket or will those with a higher memberships take up all the tickets? I’ve never been a member of the Donmar but I want to up my odds of getting a ticket. Thoughts? I used to be a Donmar member. I think it's highly likely, if not 100% likely, that you will get your ticket if you get the membership. You may not get the chance to grab the best seat in the house, but the Donmar is so small that, no matter how far away from the stage you sit, you still get to see all the actors from quite close.
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Post by Mr Crummles on May 3, 2023 13:45:49 GMT
The Guardian was the only non 4 or 5 star review but I get the impression they don't like much theatre. I'm not saying anything about this particular review, but I do have a feeling that some critics don't really care about theatre, or even know much of it either.
It would be great to have a place where we could read reviews on reviewers (and their reviews), with stars and everything.
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Post by Mr Crummles on May 3, 2023 9:45:50 GMT
Maybe they were not unknown at the time, but I didn't know who they were.
Benedict Cumberbatch in Hedda Gabler Eddie Redmayne in Red Tom Hiddleston in Othello Hannah Waddingham in Beautiful Game Paul Mescal in Red Shoes Taron Egerton in The Last of the Haussmans James Norton in The Lion in Winter Monica Dolan in King Lear and The Seagull
I often check the old theatre programmes I keep, and get surprised at the names that didn't mean much for me then and are now fairly everywhere.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Mar 15, 2023 15:11:47 GMT
I am absolutely at a loss to understand why this received some four-star reviews and I can only assume the reviewers on glue. The two-star reviews which Abbington (unwisely and stupidly) railed against on Twitter (can't stand the heat love, get outta the kitchen) were pretty accurate. It's an intriguing premise for a dark comedy that has a lot of potential that Moffatt fails to explore veering it towards the toilet farce of Act II. The teenagers change personalities almost overnight and despite being on a cruise for four weeks the three lead players are as pale as pasteurised milk at the end of it. And who, in the right mind would even give their email to Elsa when you can't stand her? You wouldn't, you'd "accidentally" add a full stop where there shouldn't be one. I wanted to like this, I really did. I stuck it out because I did laugh a few times and smiled a bit; there were a few real zinger lines and one or two funny scenes. At last night's performance I'd sat half the audience laughed a lot and have the audience were like me. Shearsmith is OK but in act two starts morphing into a League of Gentlemen character (replete with silly voice). Abbington has a lesser role and is unable to do anything with it (sorry, but I do not understand her appeal, I find her a very poor actress). Barber's role needs to be larger than life but she sometimes crosses the line into cariacture. The best performance is Michael Simkins as The Neighbour - pitch-perfect, believable and effortlessly funny (whereas half the time Shearsmith has to make a lot of effort to get the laughs). It has the advantage of being just two hours long with interval but I'm afraid it felt longer. I was on the half that laughed tremendously, rapturously, and unstoppably. Perhaps because I fully identified myself with the non-confrontational couple and could see myself exactly in that very same situation. I often find myself easily imposed upon by a lack of assertiveness. Yes, the children's change was unusual, but I felt it was just a device to have Elsa even more intrinsically involved in their lives. I still laugh when I think of it…
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Post by Mr Crummles on Mar 15, 2023 14:37:47 GMT
I can imagine tourists will pay that price tbh. Oscar nominee and a classic American play, so maybe they're relying on that, but on Twitter I saw Millennial and Gen Z fans of the actor Paul Mescal queuing and then bailing out disappointed when they saw the ticket prices, also adding that if they'd known the prices beforehand they wouldn't have spent time online queuing. It's a shame because if you want to nurture and draw in a new audience to theatre, having a TV star like this is the perfect way to do it, but the prices create the impression for newcomers that theatre is for the rich. Yes, this must be true, because there were almost 5,000 people ahead of me in the queue and my waiting time was supposed to be 45 minutes.... Very quickly however I moved up and waited no more than 30 minutes. I gave up as well, by the way.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Mar 13, 2023 15:06:36 GMT
Oh man, look at all those £200-£300 seats. Is this a new West End record??
I remember how long I hesitated before buying tickets for Anything Goes and Cabaret. I just bought very good seats to see Aida at the ROH for 150.
I really wanted to see this production after all the good reviews, but living far from London, the cost of crossing over, paying for the plane tickets, hotel, trains and the ticket for the play itself, could make me about 1000 euro poorer. That will teach me to be more prescient when buying tickets to see Almeida shows.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Oct 23, 2022 9:31:41 GMT
It is literally just an opinion. Opinions that are not the same are yours are just as valid as yours. It’s not physically possible to say whether a fictional character is a psychopath or not since they’re not, you know, real. It’s all just a matter of how an individual audience member chooses to interpret a fictional character, which is itself dependent on the choices the particular director and actor make (one production’s Abigail might be a psychopath, a different production might create an Abigail that is completely different.) I really don’t think we need to compare opinions on a fictional character, with supporting Hitler. I have seen 6 production of this play and the film and Abigail is portrayed as a psychopath in all of them, including this production. Of course people can take away what they like from any piece of art, but when something has a very distinct message and people are missing that message am I not allowed to steer them in the right direction? I stand by the Hitler comparison (as well as the other examples) as he used the exact same methods of manipulation to get into power and commit his atrocities as Abigail deploys in the play to get what she wants. Lets hear from the author and his inspiration behind writing the play... 'Fear doesn’t travel well; just as it can warp judgment, its absence can diminish memory’s truth. What terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next. I remember how in 1964, only twenty years after the war, Harold Clurman, the director of “Incident at Vichy,” showed the cast a film of a Hitler speech, hoping to give them a sense of the Nazi period in which my play took place. They watched as Hitler, facing a vast stadium full of adoring people, went up on his toes in ecstasy, hands clasped under his chin, a sublimely self-gratified grin on his face, his body swivelling rather cutely, and they giggled at his overacting. Likewise, films of Senator Joseph McCarthy are rather unsettling—if you remember the fear he once spread. Buzzing his truculent sidewalk brawler’s snarl through the hairs in his nose, squinting through his cat’s eyes and sneering like a villain, he comes across now as nearly comical, a self-aware performer keeping a straight face as he does his juicy threat-shtick. “The Crucible” was an act of desperation. Much of my desperation branched out, I suppose, from a typical Depression-era trauma—the blow struck on the mind by the rise of European Fascism and the brutal anti-Semitism it had brought to power. But by 1950, when I began to think of writing about the hunt for Reds in America, I was motivated in some great part by the paralysis that had set in among many liberals who, despite their discomfort with the inquisitors’ violations of civil rights, were fearful, and with good reason, of being identified as covert Communists if they should protest too strongly. In any play, however trivial, there has to be a still point of moral reference against which to gauge the action. The more I read into the Salem panic, the more it touched off corresponding images of common experiences in the fifties: the old friend of a blacklisted person crossing the street to avoid being seen talking to him; the overnight conversions of former leftists into born-again patriots; and so on. Apparently, certain processes are universal. When Gentiles in Hitler’s Germany, for example, saw their Jewish neighbors being trucked off, or farmers in Soviet Ukraine saw the Kulaks vanishing before their eyes, the common reaction, even among those unsympathetic to Nazism or Communism, was quite naturally to turn away in fear of being identified with the condemned. As I learned from non-Jewish refugees, however, there was often a despairing pity mixed with “Well, they must have done something.” Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable And so the evidence has to be internally denied.' This is a very interesting discussion. I think most people balk at Intoanewlife's description of Abigail as a psychopath because they probably have in mind the more stereotypical characteristics of a male psychopath. I was a bit confused myself, to be honest, and then decided to google it. This is what I found in www.choosingtherapy.com/female-psychopaths/:
1. They Develop Relationships With Their Victims 2. They Use Indirect Forms of Aggression 3. They Play the Victim Card 4. They Can’t Hold in Their Anger for Long 5. They Use Deceptive Tactics to Get What They Want 6. They Want Acceptance, but Sabotage Relationships 7. They Leverage Secrets & Personal Information 8. They Get Other People to Do Their Dirty Work 9. They Are Emotionally Unstable 10. They Are Good at Pretending
From what I remember of the play, Abigail does tick most, if not all, of these points.
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Post by Mr Crummles on May 31, 2022 15:22:45 GMT
The last time I saw The Glass Menagerie was on Broadway with Jessica Lange. Audience member back then said they could not hear her at the back of the venue and it happened again last Wednesday when a lady behind me commented that Amy is a film actress and she could not hear her from her seat. I saw this from stalls seat M15. Every actor I've seen seems to channel Laurette Taylor, who originated the role. She played it quietly, but the result and comments from the reviews say you believed she believed she was Amanda and she existed in that room. As I observed many times during the evening, Amy was waiting for her next line. If she could get herself into the play it may become a performance to talk about. I remember seeing, many centuries ago, A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway with Jessica Lange, Alec Baldwin and Amy Madigan. I believe I was in row M; can't be too sure, but I was not terribly far away from the stage. I really struggled to hear and understand any of the actors, apart from an actress who played a minor role. I was very disappointed. I suppose I expected cinema actors to be just as comfortable on stage. Eventually I saw a filmed version of the this and I thought Jessica Lange was excellent.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Apr 30, 2022 9:06:48 GMT
Ten Percent on Amazon Prime. I believe its the British version of Call My Agent. Lots of cameo performances and it's rather good. I'm about half way through the series and only started watching it this afternoon. I am really enjoying this too. The acting is great and it's interesting how they managed to create perfect British counterparts to the original French ones. I like the London environment and in particularly the attention given to London theatre. I enjoy seeing everywhere in the Agency posters of many theatre productions I saw (especially the Donmar ones).
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Post by Mr Crummles on Apr 20, 2022 11:25:30 GMT
It felt to me that Cock is a play about power, rather than anything else. The Cock in the title could perhaps refer to the dominating rooster, the cock of the walk, rather than anything else. I don’t think the play is outdated at all, but quite the contrary. We seem to live in a time when the struggle for power is more intense than ever. John, who was obviously controlled by M, and his father, is empowered by W and briefly experiences a liberating feeling of being the Cock, only to be sent back to his former role, when he is disputed as some sort of trophy, by the other characters. I definitely think your take has hit the nail on the head as to what it's all about. We will just have to agree to disagree on Dominic Holmes as John! I understand your disappointment, though. My heart sank when I saw that ominous slip protruding from the play's programme. But it only took me five minutes to readjust. Apart from the play itself and Marianne Elliott, Jonathan Bailey and Taron Egerton did help in my decision to buy the ticket. I think only Phil Daniels was there from the original cast. Considering that the play opened barely a month ago, this was certainly bad luck.
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Post by Mr Crummles on Apr 20, 2022 9:25:59 GMT
I saw Cock last Saturday and enjoyed it quite a lot. Johnathan Baily wasn't in and for the second time this year I was treated to an extraordinary replacement performance. The actor how played John, Dominic Holmes, was excellent. In fact, it felt almost as if the role had been written specially for him. He reminded me a lot of Stephen Mangan in Norman Conquests or James McArdle in Platonov, those two impossibly immature but irresistibly endearing naughty fellows that will never grow up. They basically exist to be self-centred and inadvertently cause trouble or create mischief. Except that unlike Norman, John is not manipulative, but quite the contrary. He is easily manipulated. It felt to me that Cock is a play about power, rather than anything else. The Cock in the title could perhaps refer to the dominating rooster, the cock of the walk, rather than anything else. I don’t think the play is outdated at all, but quite the contrary. We seem to live in a time when the struggle for power is more intense than ever. John, who was obviously controlled by M, and his father, is empowered by W and briefly experiences a liberating feeling of being the Cock, only to be sent back to his former role, when he is disputed as some sort of trophy, by the other characters. I thought the cast was uniformly excellent and I had the feeling that the audience was quite effusive at the curtain call. Four out of five stars for me.
As a note, I was at the TKTS booth on Monday and Cock tickets were available for 136 pounds. I expect them to be premium tickets... but still :-|
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Post by Mr Crummles on Apr 12, 2022 10:08:09 GMT
To anyone who saw/knows the Rufus Norris version (principally, the original iteration at the Lyric Theatre in the 00's), which I was a huge fan of - how does this production compare and contrast? It's the strangest thing, but the only thing I can remember from the Rufus Norris version is that I liked it very much. Everything else is gone from my mind. Well, I still remember the choreography, which I thought was very good. And I also remember that Anna Maxwell Martin was out the night I saw it. This new one, which I decided to wait for the general verdict before paying the higher-than-usual ticket price, was a very different experience that I don't think I will ever really forget. Apart from a very good production, there was the most intensive feeling of immersion. It was a very unusual and rich experience as you breathed the play's atmosphere before, during and after the show. Even the interval was somehow participatory. I thought Eddie Redmayne was extremely good. It's funny how a non-character (we never learn much about who the MC really is - his feelings, motivations etc.) can leave such a mark. Actually, I thought the whole cast was brilliant and I was very impressed also with Omari Douglas, which made me completely rethink the role of Cliff. There was an extra layer of vulnerability to a character that usually is not much more than an outsider, observing an unusual world. I had seen the Broadway version, with Alan Cumming, at the Studio 54, which was also a bit immersive, but somehow, it didn't affect me that much. I think, however, that probably the best Cabaret I ever saw was on Youtube, the original Sam Mendes Donmar Warehouse production, with Jane Horrocks, Sara Kestelman and Adam Godley. If only I could go back in time to see that.
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133 posts
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Post by Mr Crummles on Feb 26, 2022 18:06:11 GMT
Spotted on Twitter that the 2nd cover Sally Bowles is on for today's matinee. Where is Jessie Buckley? I was told by the staff at the theatre that Jessie Buckley is taking a break following doctor’s recommendation. The actress who replaced her this afternoon, Sally Frith, did an absolutely astounding job. It was hard to believe it was her first time ever on. She was visibly in tears in the final bow partly no doubt by the enthusiastic public response. I ‘m still gobsmacked at how good I thought she was.
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