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Post by bordeaux on Nov 16, 2023 20:26:37 GMT
Tim Sheader takes over in March so he's presumably hard at work planning his first shows. Presumably it can't be long before his first announcement? Rather exciting. Clearly I've misunderstood something as I've just received a mailing from the Donmar inviting me to join to get ahead before Michael Longhurst announces his final season at the Donmar. I assumed Macbeth was his swansong. There will be three more shows from him and his team before Sheader gets to work.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 15, 2023 18:06:15 GMT
Four hours of Shakespeare with Ian McKellen directed by Robert Icke?! Sounds like heaven to me. I can't understand the complaints. Especially as it's a play or plays that most of us will have seen a lot less often than Hamlet or Lear or Much Ado, for example.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 15, 2023 7:57:50 GMT
Chimes at Midnight is superb - with a great battle scene even though there were probably a relatively small number of extras.
With any luck, with Icke and McKellen on board, other actors of quality will be attracted.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 14, 2023 18:21:27 GMT
I see him more as Henry IV than Falstaff...
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 11, 2023 9:30:21 GMT
Tim Sheader takes over in March so he's presumably hard at work planning his first shows. Presumably it can't be long before his first announcement? Rather exciting.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 9, 2023 14:16:34 GMT
I was about to say the same thing. Mid-90s, directed by Richard Eyre if I recall. Tim Piggott-Smith in the cast too. I remember him getting a big laugh when interrupting some other characters to say 'Is this a bad time?'. I also seem to remember Huppert being interviewed and saying how excited she was to be coming to work in the greatest theatre city in the world and then later her being interviewed and slagging off the conventionality of the UK theatre. I don't think she enjoyed the experience of working on that production at the NT - it was very much a three-stars all round affair. Since then she seems to have mainly worked with auteurs such as Ivo van Hove and Robert Wilson I think it was during the Richard Eyre era but it was directed by Howard Davies. Anna Massey also in it. 3* as you say but the play itself isn't up to much. Ah, yes. A rare misfire from him. I also remember how difficult it was to understand Huppert - her English just wasn't up to it. I disagree about the play - I've seen excellent versions of it, the first one being directed by Tim Albery at the Greenwich Theatre (whatever happened to that?) with Paola Dionisotti and Fiona Shaw - the first time I saw her, I think.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 9, 2023 6:49:52 GMT
Interesting. I saw her play Mary Queen of Scots in the Schiller play years ago. I was about to say the same thing. Mid-90s, directed by Richard Eyre if I recall. Tim Piggott-Smith in the cast too. I remember him getting a big laugh when interrupting some other characters to say 'Is this a bad time?'. I also seem to remember Huppert being interviewed and saying how excited she was to be coming to work in the greatest theatre city in the world and then later her being interviewed and slagging off the conventionality of the UK theatre. I don't think she enjoyed the experience of working on that production at the NT - it was very much a three-stars all round affair. Since then she seems to have mainly worked with auteurs such as Ivo van Hove and Robert Wilson
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 7, 2023 19:12:29 GMT
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 7, 2023 11:05:14 GMT
The original Rock 'n' Roll was at the Royal Court in 2006 as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the English Stage Company. Some Royal Court writers, well Caryl Churchill, did not think that Stoppard was right for the Royal Court given his politics which are both too conservative and perhaps too liberal for her. The artistic director at the same, though, Ian Rickson I think described it as a perfect fit for the theatre. Trevor Nunn directed, again another non-Royal Court figure. Brian Cox played the Eric Hobsbawn-type academic, Sinead Cusack had two roles, Rufus Sewell played a Czech dissident. It takes place between the 60s and 1990 and music plays an important role - there's something about Syd Barrett in there and then the Rolling Stones are there at the end (I'm not sure that by 1990 they mean quite what Stoppard wants them to mean, though perhaps they did exemplify a certain Western freedom to those Czechs who'd been denied it). The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia is central and the subsequent occupation, and a rock group The Plastic People of the Universe are part of the mix. It's a fascinating play, often funny of course, but full of many of Stoppard's usual concerns about freedom and the individual, dictatorship and how we should react to it.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 5, 2023 19:39:11 GMT
Yes, it's perfectly fine. There are no allocated standing spaces so if you want to stand in the middle get there in good time. Perfectly comfortable - I stood for When Winston Went to War. Excellent value. It would be great for Clyde's, for example.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 1, 2023 13:24:36 GMT
Branagh is clearly a talented actor but has been seduced away from what could have been a great theatre career by cinema. He was a brilliant Benedick in the Renaissance Much Ado (directed by Judi Dench) and a hilarious Touchstone in As You Like it (directed by Geraldine McEwan) in the late 80s. I thought his Hamlet for Adrian Noble was superb (I haven't seen the film). But I haven't seen any of his Shakespeares since then and haven't wanted to. He shouldn't be directing them for one thing. I can imagine him being a good Leontes, but he's too young for Lear (though I've seen younger Lears who were convincing). He was an excellent Ivanov in 2008 for Michael Grandage. But if he were cast as Vanya or Trigorin, would I be interested? It would depend on the director, to be frank.
Instead he's spent his time directing uninteresting-sounding films. The exception being Belfast, which I thought was extremely good, very funny and a poignant view of the Troubles.
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 26, 2023 14:46:54 GMT
Please tell me no one is standing to applaud this at the end. I assume the actors know this isn't hitting the spot from the nature of the applause at the end? Interesting interview with the author on the Guardian website. She initially sent it to Nick Hytner at the Bridge who seem to have passed (and are presumably now thanking their lucky stars - or good judgment), then after a rewrite sent it directly to Ian Rickson who took it to Sonia Friedman. www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/oct/13/playwright-penelope-skinner-lyonesse-interview
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 25, 2023 15:26:12 GMT
The Hackney Empire website says it's Puccini's Manon Lescaut (24th Feb) and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress (2nd March). Rather exciting in that I've seen both only once, in the early 90s, so would very much like to see them again.
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 24, 2023 10:13:03 GMT
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 18, 2023 21:34:14 GMT
I enjoyed Ainadamar last night in Bristol. I'd listened to it several times in the past few weeks, but much of the music is immediately appealing, so if you don't have time for that, don't worry: it's very flamenco-influenced and some of it is thrilling - though there are flatter moments too. The piece suffers a bit from being three scenes in three different times (I think) so it's not always clear what is going on and there is no clear storyline. But I liked it and I'd happily hear more from Osvaldo Golijov. And this is exactly what I want to see WNO and other companies doing - something we haven't seen umpteen times before.
On in Birmingham next week. Milton Keynes and Southampton in November. One hour 20 mins.
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 18, 2023 11:27:19 GMT
Two minutes' wait and then very straightforward.
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 17, 2023 14:22:51 GMT
I see that The Hills of California is a reference to a Johnny Mercer song.
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 16, 2023 21:42:18 GMT
Has anyone else booked? Previews begin tonight. This Thursday was offsale up until today; but now lots of tickets! Yes, going in a couple of weeks. American reviews suggest it's more of a comedy than her usual stuff.
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 7, 2023 14:20:33 GMT
At least it frees Nick Hytner up to do other stuff elsewhere? I imagine he rehearses the new cast in to some extent but much of that might be done by an assistant director. Wouldn't it be great to see him direct something as part of his new RSC role?
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 7, 2023 9:17:26 GMT
The Sam Mendes Alchemist at the RSC in 91-92 with David Bradley, Guy Pearce, Jonathan Hyde, Philip Voss was superb. The Nick Hytner one at the NT with Alex Jennings, SRB and Lesley Manville was a rare misfire from him in my view - certainly mid-stalls I found it harder to hear the dialogue than I've ever done at any other production: too many accents may have had something to do with it. Hytner's Volpone, on the other hand, which was in opening season of the Kent-McDiarmid era at the Almeida (1990) was brilliant with McDiarmid as the Volpone and Denis Lawson as Mosca. I enjoyed the Gambon-SRB one at the NT directed by Matthew Warchus too, 1995.
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 6, 2023 17:13:13 GMT
Lovely to be reminded of those Michael Bryant roles. And I had a pang at the mention of Bartholomew Fair - and just thought: am I ever going to see a good production of that (and plays like it) again, a production that is not buggered about with in some way, horribly cut or added to, that contains a top-notch cast, is directed well and clearly?
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 4, 2023 23:18:21 GMT
Let's hope it is as good as her other efforts and that it will be the first of many. Tricky to get right, Lorca, though, in English as we have said on this forum before.
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 2, 2023 19:49:13 GMT
I love all those Restoration comedies and the 18th century ones and agree it is a shame they are done less often than they used to be. I think my first RSC season (as spectator I seem to remember, 1988-89) had SRB in Man of Mode and Oliver Cotton (now writing plays for Brian Cox) in William Wycherley's The Plain Dealer, a very funny loose version of Moliere's The Misanthrope. And Edward Bond's brilliant and very witty Restoration.
Now, is it true to say that after Sheridan's The Critic (1779) it was over a century before there was another great UK play (something by Shaw)? The Romantics all had a go and failed. John Caird did a brilliantly entertaining version of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Money (1840) in the Olivier in the Nunn ensemble season (stupendous cast) but it's a wonderful rarity rather than a great play. Are there riches waiting to be discovered or was it a dead period for new writing? And if so, does anyone have any idea why?
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 2, 2023 15:41:18 GMT
The pedant in me would like to point out that Sheridan and Goldsmith are not Restoration Comedy, though they may have similar features. Strictly speaking Restoration comedy is written between 1688 and about 1710. Why 1688 ? Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660. Your definition would exclude, for example, Man of Mode (1676) which absolutely is a restoration comedy (Simon Russell-Beale very good as Sir Fopling Flutter in the RSC version as you might imagine). The last one I saw, though you could argue about the classification, was The Double Dealer (1693) by Congreve at the Orange Tree in 2019 directed by Selina Cadell who also directed The Rivals at the Arcola as has been mentioned. The best I've seen was The Rivals at NT in 1983 with Michael Horden, Geraldine McEwan, Fiona Shaw, Tim Curry and over the years the NT have done several other very good productions - She Stoops to Conquer, School for Scandal, The Beaux Stratagem, Wild Oats, The Relapse etc. The main problem with them is you need very good comic actors in almost all the parts to overcome the stylised language and the lost satirical references in the text. In my youth there was a bizarre period where William Gaskill was held up as being the best director of restoration comedy with his stripped back Brechtian deconstructions of them but unfortunately this approach also stripped back the comedy to near zero. In more recent years in 2011 Deborah Warner had a try at this misguided approach with her dismal School for Scandal at the Barbican which didn't have a laugh in it despite a cast of Alan Howard, Aidan McArdle and Harry Melling. I am fairly sure the upcoming She Stoops to Conquer at the Orange Tree will be good - it is being relocated to the 1930s of P.G.Wodehouse which seems a perfect fit. My mistake! 1660 of course..
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Post by bordeaux on Oct 2, 2023 5:42:48 GMT
The pedant in me would like to point out that Sheridan and Goldsmith are not Restoration Comedy, though they may have similar features. Strictly speaking Restoration comedy is written between 1688 and about 1710.
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Post by bordeaux on Sept 28, 2023 20:22:50 GMT
My favourite performances of his were in the Michael Blakemore Uncle Vanya, West End, 1988 I would guess. A truly amazing cast and I can still hear his voice break as he cries 'I could have been a Schopenhauer or a Dostoevsky!'. Then there was another Ayckbourn, Man of the Moment, with Peter Bowles where Gambon plays a former have-a-go hero who meets the villain he tried to stop robbing a bank or something for some hideously plausible TV show. He walks into the guy's amazing garden somewhere in Spain and admires everything and so on, then the TV director asks him if he could do that again as they didn't get it on film and it looked so nice and natural. And of course he can't do it on demand - the sight of him trying and failing utterly to be his natural self for the camera is one of the most brilliant comic things I've ever seen. I was weeping.
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Post by bordeaux on Sept 28, 2023 20:14:46 GMT
I must admit that I am longing to see what Hytner does next. I suppose Guys and Dolls still has five months to run. I'd love him to do another Shakespeare in the same style.
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Post by bordeaux on Sept 28, 2023 15:56:41 GMT
NH knows how to do a Shakespeare from what I’ve seen at the NT and Bridge. His prod of Othello best I’ve ever seen. Oh, yes. And going back to the late 80s at the RSC. His Measure for Measure with Roger Allam, Josette Simon, John Shrapnel and Alex Jennings was pure pleasure. Then Lear and the Tempest with John Wood. Henry V at the National. The Much Ado with SRB and Zoe Wannamaker. Timon of Athens. I'd like to see him to do a Shakespeare a year - the last one was a Midsummer Night's Dream in 2019. There must be quite a bit he hasn't done as he can do so much else: musicals, opera, new plays not just by Alan Bennett. Has he done As You Like It (actually he has, Wikipedia tells me, Royal Exchange 1986)? Antony and Cleopatra? Macbeth? Love's Labours Lost?
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Post by bordeaux on Sept 22, 2023 5:52:33 GMT
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Post by bordeaux on Sept 21, 2023 7:15:46 GMT
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