|
Post by orchidman on Mar 6, 2019 13:48:51 GMT
So anyway Mark Shenton is leaving The Stage and will be publishing reviews on his blog destination website. shentonstage.com/
Can't wait to read Shent on the stage.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Mar 5, 2019 22:11:28 GMT
I liked this a lot more than Moonlight because it actually has, y'know, a story. But still way too slow. First half hour was very promising. Can't believe that the main guy's female relatives never appeared again. Maybe more of them and less of a young couple staring at each other for minutes at a time?
Also the (major spoiler) decision to take a plea bargain at the end is just about the most important thing that happens in the film but we hear about it in a retrospective voiceover? Umm. Interesting choice.
Bemused that Regina King wins the Oscar for that role. She was fine but it wasn't that kind of part. And it's not like she has missed out on Oscars before for some kind of career achievement win.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Mar 4, 2019 19:12:20 GMT
I think this is probably the best production currently in London, or at least close with Hamilton and that will run and run. It definitely worked better for me with Joanna Riding, much more believable as a former showgirl and as someone who Ben might still fall for thirty years on. My memory isn't 100% but liked the small changes to the staging, it felt like there was more interaction between the younger and older selves which really works.
Anybody who saw it last time and is on the fence, don't hesitate to revisit it.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Mar 4, 2019 15:57:09 GMT
Quite a promising start but it built like a sophisticated horror story...except the horror never really came. Leaving a lot of atmosphere and not a lot else.
Seems strange to adapt a film that was a total commercial flop and without having seen the film but reading a bit about it, sounds like the problems and limitations of the film were not overcome in this adaptation.
Bit of a curio with a nice set and effects but wouldn't go out of your way to see it.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Mar 4, 2019 15:47:55 GMT
orchidman I missed the anachronism in the men’s costuming. What was going on? I'm not as good on women's fashion but their costumes look contemporary to the film (1950), the men's costumes are very modern. Slim cut suits which hark back to the early 1960s but the cut of them, colour combinations and missing ties much more 2010s than 1960s. I guess the whole thing could have been shifted 10 years to 1960 or even be stylised modern dress but the pop culture references from the film aren't updated. Any which way something is off and it's unnecessary and adds nothing whilst raising these fairly banal questions while you are watching.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Mar 1, 2019 0:50:45 GMT
Always thought the film was a poor relation to Sunset Boulevard and undeserving of the Oscar in the same year although haven't seen it for years now.
Thought the play exposed weaknesses in the story, it's pretty silly and inconsequential, and the tone is off, but maybe I'd think that if I rewatched the film. If Eve has such great star quality as we are told she doesn't need all the scheming beyond getting her foot in the door. As soon as she auditions and wins over New York's hottest playwright and leading critic to her talents, everything else is redundant.
It's unclear if she is actually supposed to be obsessed with Margo or only pretends to be so to ingratiate herself. She's portrayed as Machiavellian but badmouthing Margo in the press is actually extremely stupid, as was telling Addison she is going to marry Lloyd before her opening night just when she wants him to write her a rave. For the story to work, I feel like it needs Eve to truly ruin Margo's life. Whereas Margo having to step away from young leading lady parts is inevitable with or without Eve. And Eve fails to seduce Bill which would have added some much needed dramatic punch. Or alternatively, if it's really a story about the brutality of aging for women, it would be better if Eve didn't scheme at all, she really was guileless, and Margo was obsessed with staying at the top but nothing she can do matters because she simply can't compete with a beautiful youth.
Ironically given the title, I'm not sure we actually get to really know Eve and what makes her tick, we know what she wants but her underlying motivations are pretty opaque.
Thought the decision to have a pivotal scene between Eve and Karen filmed off-stage was totally bizarre. That was balanced out with the camera in the mirror stuff which was very effectively done, probably the highlight. Hate the jarring men's costumes, I don't know why van Hove thinks it's clever to have one anachronistic element, it just takes me out of the play, did the same thing with the coffee in The Crucible on Broadway. Within the story there's some total nonsense like high schools across America having fan clubs for a stage actress in the movie era.
Monica Dolan and Rhashan Stone did not make a believable couple, the acting in general was fine but little more. Would have been more interesting to see Cate Blanchett in the part, not necessarily better but to see how her more ethereal presence would have fitted in. Did think mentioning Sunset Boulevard that Gillian Anderson would be a better fit as Norma Desmond.
Mind-boggling to think people will be paying £175 a ticket for such mediocre fare.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Feb 20, 2019 9:22:00 GMT
Would people be happier if she'd been cast as Del Boy in the Only Fools and Horses musical? Yes?
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Feb 2, 2019 1:55:01 GMT
Went in with extremely low expectations and they were exceeded. Didn't even think Blanchett was particularly good or magnetic. I don't know how she gets a free pass for this. Her lack of discernment inflicts this material on an audience who assumes her participation is a mark of quality. The last thing she did on Broadway sounded dreadful too. Feel sorry for the supporting cast having to watch this crap everyday. Maybe next time she could choose her play to please you? A safe little Alan Bennett or Noel Coward perhaps? Something set in a drawing room with lovely music during the scene changes? Nothing too challenging for her or the audience. Of course she can star in whatever she likes, that's kind of the point, she's in a position most actors can only dream of being in. It just seems very strange to me that even people who didn't like this play (most people) seem to think Cate Blanchett is somehow above criticism. When it is her decision to star in it which made it into event theatre. It really shouldn't be possible for a play to star her and Stephen Dillane in the leads and not be a success. But from the very restrained applause and totally dead atmosphere as people filed out of the theatre when I attended, backed by the critical consensus, this play is not a success. And a play can't challenge an audience when it bores them out of their minds, it has to engage them. Trying their patience is something different.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Jan 31, 2019 18:20:43 GMT
Went in with extremely low expectations and they were exceeded.
Didn't even think Blanchett was particularly good or magnetic. I don't know how she gets a free pass for this. Her lack of discernment inflicts this material on an audience who assumes her participation is a mark of quality. The last thing she did on Broadway sounded dreadful too.
Feel sorry for the supporting cast having to watch this crap everyday.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Jan 14, 2019 15:58:12 GMT
I don't think anyone could complain if long-term members who have attended lots of shows got some extra priority on this, not that that would have benefited me.
Do find some irony in all the talk of expanding access to the NT here in that this play sounds like exactly the sort of thing that will put off potential theatre fans if they get a ticket, lured in by a star and then met with something highly obscure.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Jan 11, 2019 1:59:39 GMT
Very well-written and timely play, strong recommend.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Jan 9, 2019 15:25:21 GMT
Spike Lee is 12/1 to win Best Director with the bookies. Good price.
Can't see Bradley Cooper winning for his first film given it's such pedestrian material.
Cuaron won for his previous film Gravity and Mexicans have won 4 of the last 5. He is the 1/5 betting favourite and I think you have to take him on at that price when it's a Spanish language, limited release, black and white film.
Spike Lee has never won.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Jan 9, 2019 2:19:19 GMT
It's mind-boggling to me that the lead was played by Rosamund Pike in London before, just a totally different play with someone that good-looking.
Thought the age difference or certainly the visual age difference (Needham looking about 30, Ferran about 20) was slightly strange here.
But overall a very good production of a not major Williams play.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Jan 9, 2019 1:52:23 GMT
Thought it was decidedly average but can't blame Graham for taking that TV money. Don't think it was a good subject for a drama, certainly not yet. It was very much a dramatist's version of events with the the elevation of the eccentric Cummings to lead character in what was surely a distorted portrayal of the power matrix. I didn't feel like it showed any real insight into the workings of things when it was so obviously 'TV-a-fied' with Banks and Farage as buffoons rather than real players and Cummings' eureka moments, so never felt it was evoking what really happened behind closed doors. And I don't think people who have followed it in any detail learnt anything new.
It was very strange that the drama portrayed it as though in the final couple of weeks before the vote, Leave was on top and becoming expected to win. Remain was a clear betting favourite the whole time until the votes started being counted.
It would have been great for the Remain campaign for Leave to have seen to be ahead in terms of motivating lazy young voters to turn out and dissuading people from voting Leave as a general protest vote. As it was whilst the Remain campaign was complacent it is hard to see what they could have done when their sensible warnings were not cutting through, being sliced down as 'Project Fear'. Lots of young pro-EU people were also complacent and didn't vote but after two referenda where the status quo was upheld with AV and Scotland, the consensus was we'd see the same again. And while Leave could make wild unfulfilled promises, Remain could hardly do the same when we were already In, it was a known known. Was surprised not to hear the political maxim 'When you're explaining, you're losing" when Remain tried to rebut arguments about Turkey etc.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Dec 22, 2018 2:13:46 GMT
David Mamet is washed-up and I suspect if this was any good it would be opening on Broadway.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Dec 21, 2018 16:56:35 GMT
What a piece of nonsense.
Not even worth discussing.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Nov 28, 2018 4:43:20 GMT
First half was an absolute chore, second half decent. Found Edward Hogg and Kevin Harvey incredibly irritating, I think at least with Harvey his character is supposed to be so. I don't know the play but I found it completely bizarre {Spoiler - click to view} that anybody would think shooting a duck would win back her father's love as some sort of sacrifice. Even if it made some sense in Ibsen's time, just ludicrous in modern dress.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Nov 26, 2018 7:28:18 GMT
Very good seats for £15 on The TodayTix Cyber Monday sale.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Nov 23, 2018 23:47:07 GMT
Does anyone know what the chances would be of getting an unsold seat for a decent price literally minutes before it starts on a Monday night, if you rocked up to the Box Office last minute? Worth trying the TodayTix app rush tickets from 10am on the day for £25. Some good seats come up on there.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Nov 23, 2018 1:48:21 GMT
I preferred this to The Father, which I felt didn't really have anywhere to go past the halfway mark, but I find it weird that the same playwright would cover such similar ground in such short order.
This felt like it was a couple of rewrites away from fulfilling its potential, a shame because it was very promising.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Nov 14, 2018 0:22:19 GMT
Pretty average, decent slice of life stuff but with serious flaws. Limited character development, not much of a plot and the main dramatic plotpoint has nothing to do with what's gone before, as though the playwright knew it was lacking in drama and threw it in.
Cast is impressive though, with good chemistry.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Nov 11, 2018 19:40:33 GMT
Very average play.
I don't get why this material was being done as the play within a play. Didn't see anything in the Auden/Britten story that lent itself to that. You could do any biographical play in that fashion. Felt more like Bennett didn't have enough material and was padding it out.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Oct 21, 2018 17:33:57 GMT
Saw it yesterday, seems like there are 12 stories, 8 performed per show, I saw the 4 by the new writers that weren't the 4 the press reviewed. Seems weird to me that they have two different versions, and they don't advertise the difference. Especially because I thought it was a pretty incoherent show as a whole, which kind of makes sense if they have been wasting energy coming up with two different combinations of the short stories which do overlap in places.
Really only thought the James Graham story about the young couple was any good. Was expecting more stories like that, small and personal, instead there were some very fanciful pieces about an East End criminal trying to bring down the internet, and another about a ludicrous secret society, which probably didn't work anyway but definitely didn't work alongside some of the other material.
Surprised James Graham would put his name to this so conspicuously after building up a strong reputation elsewhere, and depressing to think that from hundreds of submissions these were the best.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Oct 18, 2018 18:01:02 GMT
Kind of exactly what you'd expect, nicely done in terms of an immersive experience but very worthy and didactic.
Don't really understand how they made the Playhouse transfer with such a reduced capacity from a financial perspective.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Oct 17, 2018 0:59:54 GMT
Very little actual insight in this play, enjoyed the first act on the assumption the second and third act would bring the whole thing together with some resonance, which did not happen.
Don't think there was a single actual good joke in the thing, just actors doing silly stuff. And was there a character we actually cared about? I really didn't realise that copying Wikipedia into a script format counts as playwriting.
Nobody would have produced this in, say, 2005 before Lehman collapsed...and yet it has nothing to say about the financial crisis? Very puzzling that this is a hit.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Oct 1, 2018 2:03:47 GMT
Does anyone know if this is likely to transfer to London at any point? I'm in New York in November and would be interested in seeing it but weighing up my options. Probably be weird to see a play about snooker with an American audience.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Sept 6, 2018 23:27:02 GMT
Having seen Part 1 and Part 2 the wrong way round, I'm not sure it's that Part 2 is particularly worse, it's more that the story isn't worth nearly 7 hours of our time.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Aug 18, 2018 0:23:58 GMT
Effective show, hadn't read the book or seen the film, worth seeing.
I am surprised that Arsenal are still letting Steve Bould star in this now the football season has started up.
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Aug 6, 2018 23:59:15 GMT
From the Sunday Times review by Thomas W Hodgkinson:
"Not having seen Hamilton, I sat through Spamilton deadpan, aware of the mirthfully shaking shoulders of those on either side of me, while I tried to work out what the hell was going on."
"the songs in Spamilton — written by Gerard Alessandrini, an old pro at spoofing musicals — are nearly all direct parodies of Hamilton songs. It’s possible they were clever, but I have no way of knowing."
|
|
|
Post by orchidman on Jul 28, 2018 2:39:53 GMT
Enjoyed it for £10, but glad I didn't pay full price. It's the same couple of jokes on a loop.
Surprised people have said other productions had more dramatic merit, it was hard to imagine anything in the script or characterisations that could be played seriously. Just didn't feel believable or consequential.
|
|