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Post by moelhywel on Apr 16, 2018 16:51:53 GMT
Tonight's performance is also cancelled according to the Donmar website.
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Post by moelhywel on Mar 25, 2018 0:12:40 GMT
There are so many characters that it took quite a time to get them all sorted out and I was thinking during the first half I can understand why this play hasn't been revived before. However it picked up in the second half when I knew who was who and became funnier. The costumes are period Restoration and the place where the action takes place is put on the scenery. Sophie Stanton as Mrs Rich is very good and sings most of the songs, which are a replacement for her talking to the audience. The "proscenium" is lit by spot bulbs and there are old fashioned footlights all around the edge of the stage giving a very theatrical look. After seeing The Duchess of Malfi and Macbeth at Stratford over the last couple of weeks it was a relief to see something so much lighter. I wouldn't recommend travelling a great distance to see it but certainly worth seeing if you're going for Macbeth or something else and you can fit it in.
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Post by moelhywel on Mar 23, 2018 23:31:17 GMT
3 hours including interval
Footlights
Singing
Saxophone quartet
Dogs
No blood
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Post by moelhywel on Mar 22, 2018 22:14:24 GMT
Just back from seeing this in the cinema having had to miss the performance I had a ticket for because of the snow. I thought it was really good and found the modern setting made it even more relevant to today than a "Roman" setting. I have to agree with souchyboyy about Michele Fairley as Cassius, I found her riveting. Think I may have got more out of seeing this in the cinema than the theatre as the seat I had was in Gallery 3 so I would have missed the expressions.
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Post by moelhywel on Mar 15, 2018 23:14:17 GMT
Just back from this and thought it very good. Modern dress, some particularly beautiful evening dresses for Lady M, the witches played by young girls who also helped with moving the furniture (a bed, table and desk). I don't know if this was intended to indicate that they were controlling events. The strobe effects are on the walls of the auditorium and there is very loud knocking for the door knocks. The porter plays quite a large role in this and is sitting onstage for most of the second half. Some of the action takes place above the stage, which if you are sitting rear side stalls as we were, you will miss slightly. You may find Lady M asking to hold your hand or Macbeth coming to sit next to you if you are second front row of the stalls! I haven't seen the NT Macbeth but from all the comments about it this must be better. Will be interested to hear other people's opinions of it.
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Post by moelhywel on Mar 13, 2018 11:44:43 GMT
I went to this last night, never having seen a production of it before and not having read up on it. I'm not sure if this was a mistake or not with this production as there is evidently a lot of text cut, as I have since found out. Usually I find I can follow a play if I just read the synopsis but here I found myself floundering. I have heard the term bloodbath but never actually seen one before, you certainly get it here in the second act. Yet despite this I found myself more gripped by the second act than the first. I thought Joan Iyiola was excellent as the Duchess and there was a really tender moment between her and Antonio which showed their love for each other. However overall I agree with the WOS review almost exactly and my husband said he wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Given other people's views on this I think it's going to be a 'Marmite' play. I would very much like to see a more traditional production.
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Post by moelhywel on Mar 12, 2018 11:25:10 GMT
Monday - The Duchess of Malfi at the RSC Wednesday - Summer and Smoke in the afternoon followed by Beginning Thursday - Macbeth at the RSC Friday - Ballet British Columbia at the B'ham Hippodrome Saturday - The Sleeping Beauty (BRB) at the WMC, Cardiff
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Post by moelhywel on Mar 7, 2018 14:17:48 GMT
Glad to hear a good report of this as we're going on Monday, having had to rebook my tickets from Friday last when we couldn't go because of the snow.
Would it be possible to have separate threads for each of the plays being performed at Stratford as it makes it much easier to read comments on each of them?
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Post by moelhywel on Mar 2, 2018 20:23:11 GMT
Shows at the B'ham Hippodrome and B'ham Rep have been cancelled tonight and the RSC at Stratford have a notice to contact them if you had tickets for tonight. We were supposed to be going to see The Duchess of Malfi so I rang them and they let me rebook for a show later in the month (at a small extra cost as tonight's show is a preview and the tickets were more expensive). Really impressed with their customer service.
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Post by moelhywel on Mar 1, 2018 17:07:30 GMT
I've had to cancel my trip to see Giselle at the ROH tonight as I may have got to London alright but I didn't want to risk the return train being cancelled as heavier snow is forecast for tonight. Luckily the Opera House will take an email for a return ticket so I have managed to sell it.
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Post by moelhywel on Feb 22, 2018 0:19:59 GMT
It's also just been announced that Macbeth will embark on a tour from September, starting at The Lowry, although it doesn't say if it will be with the same cast. I suspect not given the length of the tour and I can't imagine Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff committing to that. www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/macbeth for the full listing of the tour.
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Post by moelhywel on Feb 5, 2018 23:37:54 GMT
Just back from seeing this at the B'ham Rep, playing to a packed house.Supposedly 90 minutes with no interval but 100 minutes tonight. I hadn't seen this when it was first at the Rep (although I did see the original play Still Life at the Old Rep in 1970 as one of the Tonight at 8.30 triple). I really, really enjoyed it and found the way it was presented so effective, especially the use of film and the curtain. I thought the entire cast were excellent but particularly liked Isabel Pollen as Laura, Beverley Rudd as Beryl and Dolly and Jos Slovick as Stanley, but especially for his playing on several different instruments. You could tell how much affection Emma Rice has for this, even bringing in the iconic Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto. She came into the auditorium just before it started and went up the stairs but I don't know if she was sitting watching it. If she was she must have been very pleased with the reception it received.
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Post by moelhywel on Jan 24, 2018 21:14:30 GMT
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Post by moelhywel on Dec 21, 2017 21:06:54 GMT
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Post by moelhywel on Dec 5, 2017 10:07:13 GMT
I'm looking forward to seeing this on Saturday week. It was one of the first plays I ever saw in the theatre way back in the Sixties and I still remember it. Having just read the review it sounds as though this production has managed to not be too whimsical. Barrie isn't performed much these days but I also remember well a performance of Mary Rose with Mia Farrow at the Shaw Theatre. Did anyone else see this? She was just so right for the title character.
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Post by moelhywel on Dec 4, 2017 23:25:58 GMT
I was at the last preview performance of this tonight in a nearly full theatre with a lot of children. Real family entertainment although it may be a little frightening for very young children (mainly threat of death/skinning of the puppies). Although there are nowhere near 101 Dalmatians on the stage there are probably about 50, all puppets (some just puppy heads), which are really cute and excellently moved around by their operators, who also speak for the adult dogs and some of the named puppies. There are no well known names in this but Gloria Onitiri as Cruella de Vil is excellent, with a couple of effective songs, as are Lewis Griffin and Luke Murphy as the Badduns. There are also a lot of other effective dog puppets, especially the Afghan Hound, which open the show and a few of which appear later in the show. Recommended.
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Post by moelhywel on Dec 4, 2017 14:42:32 GMT
The Hundred and One Dalmations at the B'ham Rep tonight Sylvia at the ROH on Wednesday Young Marx NT Live on Thursday
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Post by moelhywel on Nov 23, 2017 0:03:07 GMT
Toby Stephens at the matinee of Albion at the Almeida today (or perhaps I should say yesterday as it's now gone midnight!)
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Post by moelhywel on Nov 19, 2017 12:09:08 GMT
A busy week for me with Albion on Wednesday afternoon followed by Men in Motion at the London Coliseum in the evening, Imperium Part 2 at Stratford on Thursday and The Lady from the Sea on Saturday afternoon.
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Post by moelhywel on Nov 17, 2017 20:26:58 GMT
So far I have 14 plays booked, 6 in London, 7 in Stratford and 1 in Birmingham, 1 opera in London and 13 ballet performances, 6 in London and 7 in Birmingham. The majority of these are in the first four months of the year but the furthest away I have is Macbeth in Stratford in September. I am fully expecting this list to become longer!
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Post by moelhywel on Nov 17, 2017 20:03:31 GMT
It didn't leave you hanging so could be viewed just as a play by itself. As I said, I haven't read the books but I think that Part 1 covered the first two books and Part 2 will be the final book. The play seems to start a long way into the first book, with Tiro basically giving us a synopsis of what went before. Part 1 ends with Cicero's downfall and Caesar's rise to power so there seems to be a natural break in the story.
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Post by moelhywel on Nov 17, 2017 19:06:50 GMT
I was at the first preview of Imperium Part 1 Conspirator last night and be prepared it is long. It's the first time I can remember there being a play with two intervals at Stratford. This makes it 3 hours and 40 minutes long, approximately. It's a hell of a role for Richard McCabe as Cicero, who is excellent and is hardly ever off stage. The set is a large set of steps with a mosaic of a pair of eyes on the back wall. There are also occasional uses of things rising up from the floor. I've never read the Robert Harris books on which the plays are based, or knew hardly anything about Cicero, so I came to it with a completely open mind. It comes over very clearly and is "told" by Cicero's secretary Tiro, well played by Joseph Kloska. I also thought Joe Dixon as Catiline and Peter de Jersey as Julius Caesar good. Look out for a Donald Trump Pompey played by Christopher Saul, although quite why I'm not sure. It did raise some laughs however. Hopefully it will be tightened up as the run progresses as it really is too long but I'm not sure where this could happen. I'll be interested to see how Part 2 turns out.
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Post by moelhywel on Nov 13, 2017 12:31:33 GMT
Going to Sunset Boulevard tomorrow and Imperium Part 1 on Thursday.
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Post by moelhywel on Nov 10, 2017 15:49:28 GMT
Saw this last night in Birmingham and have to say I was rather disappointed with it. Yes there were a few things that made me jump but I found it rather predictable over all and thought the role of Helga ten Dorp was played as way over the top. I certainly didn't find it a nerve-jangler as it was advertised as. I found Sam Phillips as Clifford was the best of the actors. On this showing I certainly won't be tempted to see it again.
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Post by moelhywel on Nov 3, 2017 11:02:08 GMT
I was also there last night and enjoyed it. It may not be the best version I've seen but within it's own parameters I think it works. I get the feeling that the RSC, having cast Kara Tointon and Adrian Edmondson, neither known for playing Shakespeare but very well known on TV, are hoping that people who wouldn't normally go to see a Shakespeare play will come to see this. It's a very populist approach and as near to a musical version you will get without actually turning it into a musical. There are two "new" songs in it which are alluded to in the play, Malvolio's "Please One and So Please All" and Feste's " Hey Robin, Jolly Robin". The original lyrics to these were discovered, familiar to Elizabethan audiences, and developed into fully-fledged musical numbers by Nigel Hess.
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Post by moelhywel on Oct 27, 2017 10:50:30 GMT
Saw this on Wednesday afternoon at the B'ham Hippodrome and was rather disappointed by it. Good scenery and I thought the actor musicians were very good but the whole thing was too small scale and not enough dancing (not enough people to be able to do this). Tom Chambers was very good, as was Charlotte Wakefield, but selling it with Caroline Flack as one of the leads is rather misleading. We were "treated" to an extra at the end when Tom Chambers spoke to the audience and told us that his granny,who was sitting in the audience, was 95 that day and then proceeded to ask us to sing Happy Birthday to her!
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Post by moelhywel on Oct 17, 2017 11:02:05 GMT
Just got tickets after going out to the dentist and coming home again! Had two browsers open and still at number 127 on the other one (now closed that down). I only wanted cheap tickets and managed to get reasonable ones for both of the dates I wanted.
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Post by moelhywel on Oct 6, 2017 21:32:27 GMT
Not bad behaviour exactly but I was at Heisenberg on Wednesday night with a seat in the back row of the Dress Circle. I started to walk along the row looking at the seat numbers (as you do) to find my seat, nobody else in the way to get past when suddenly I hear a loud cracking noise and feel liquid go all over my shoe, sock and bottom of my trousers. A chap sitting in the row in front had placed his full plastic tumbler of beer on the floor behind him. He did apologise but I had to sit through half of the play with a soaking wet foot. Why can't people sit through a one and a half hour play without having to have a drink? And why do theatres persist in allowing drinks into the auditorium? When the usherette was told she commented "Oh no, not already" so this is obviously a regular occurrence. I assume the bar takings exceed the cleaning bills.
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Post by moelhywel on Oct 2, 2017 18:48:17 GMT
Having said I was seeing Duet for One tonight I had an email from the Rep telling me the show has been cancelled tonight (I suspect also on Thursday) even though it says sold out on the website. Having looked at the seating for other performances I don't think it's sold very well. I am now going tomorrow night instead.
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Post by moelhywel on Oct 2, 2017 16:11:28 GMT
Duet for One at the B'ham Rep tonight. Wish Jemma Redgrave was still in it but even so I've just seen that it's sold out tonight and Thursday night. Labour of Love and Heisenberg on Wednesday Aladdin (BRB) at B'ham Hippodrome on Thursday afternoon The Ferryman on Saturday afternoon
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