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Post by Honoured Guest on May 11, 2017 12:46:17 GMT
^ Yes, he was deflecting the conversation with irrelevant comments about "total box office smash hit". That's hardly the aim of the NT with every production. But they should have a reason for doing every show, and that reason should include a notion of for whom in particular the show is intended. And the NT should engage with that potential audience to encourage it to attend. Particularly with Travelex shows, like this and Salome, which are sponsored for the purpose of increasing general accessibility to the NT and engaging with a wider public. It's just not good enough for the NT to programme random American plays because they give an opportunity to explore design technology developments, and just hope that enough of the members' club turns out.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 11, 2017 11:33:54 GMT
Ugly Lies the Bone is the one show that I've seen (or plan to see) at the NT this year (although I admit I've seen My Country on tour locally and have booked to see Jane Eyre locally). I was drawn to attend by the prospect of a new play from a new voice with interesting themes, the tantalising promise of innovative design technology in the Lyttelton which is open to spectacular design, several enticing cast members, and the Travelex pricing which is more affordable than the generally offputting NT prices for the good seats.
There are only four or five of these Travelex shows each year and it's an embarrassing failure if the NT can't manage to fill the theatre for all of them. There must be hordes of potential attenders who are completely unaware of reviews. And some of my listed reasons would surely also attract them.
Obviously my own comments posted in this thread when I'd seen the show were not entirely positive. (!) But it really seems like a calamitous abuse of the Travelex sponsorship to produce a show and be unable to fill it. It really isn't that bad! There must be groups who could have been reached out to who would have enjoyed their visit and wouldn't otherwise have attended.
"It's your national theatre" (if you're already a member).
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 11, 2017 11:11:10 GMT
This is the problem when a theatre becomes centred on its "members". When they put on a show that the members don't all rush to like lemmings, the theatre has no fallback strategy to attract the wider public. This is a Travelex production - the whole purpose of which was to draw in the wider public!
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 11, 2017 10:05:19 GMT
Yes, Hamlet productions just keep rolling along. In February, David Thacker directs a new production at the Octagon Theatre Bolton, starting just a couple of weeks after the RSC tour opens at the Lowry in Salford.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 22:06:46 GMT
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 21:43:08 GMT
Merkinette - merkin for women
Merkini - small, two-piece merkin
Munchkin - merkin which stays on during oral sex
Merkinel - merkin shaped like the German Chancellor
Murkin - luminous merkin, visible in the dark
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 18:40:05 GMT
Just to carry on boring you all to death as usual, my other Chess story is that, an hour or two before a preview of the original West End premiere production of Chess, I bought a prime stalls ticket from the box office, in person. As I walked away, I glanced at the ticket to check the details and saw, printed on it, "Gala Charity Performance - Black Tie". As I was wearing a casual short-sleeved shirt and jeans, and had been told none of these details on buying the ticket, I went straight back to the window to ask whether I'd be let in. After giving me a dirty "You are a troublemaker" look, the clerk disappeared to ask his supervisor. He returned and asked me where I was sitting. When I said Stalls, he said I was in luck because Princess Margaret was seated in the dress circle and I wouldn't have been allowed in there in my clothes. Actually, it turned out to feel very uncomfortable seeing it mid-Stalls because virtually everyone else was in Black Tie evening dress, and I sensed a general feeling that I'd dressed this way as some especially planned class protest. This occasion was one of my very first West End theatre experiences!
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 18:27:07 GMT
Perhaps it's just me, but I saw the Aberystwyth Arts Centre annual summer musical production of Chess and I just couldn't make head or tail of anything.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 17:31:30 GMT
I think I've probably conflated two shows and Antony Sher was (or wasn't) in the other one!
EDIT: Yes, Sher was (or wasn't) in Berkoff's NT production of The Trial.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 17:11:28 GMT
What do these squares mean? Are they "good" like stars? Or "bad", like black holes? And can I type them on a traditionally laid-out keyboard which doesn't show them as an option?
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 17:07:19 GMT
It was very early in his artistic directorship that Richard Eyre programmed Steven Berkoff's Salome. It was reported at the time that Richard Eyre didn't personally like Steven Berkoff's work but that he wanted to broaden the range of theatre proggrammed by the NT, to reflect more fully the range of work going on in British theatre. I seem to remember that the advertised lead player missed many performances (Was it Antony Sher?) but that audiences who saw the less wellknown alternate performer said that they were glad to have done so because the first-cast actor would have dominated the play too much. Am I getting muddled in my memories?
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 14:08:19 GMT
The Donmar isn't technically the West End, if we go by the commercial vs non-profit definition rather than the geographical one? I didn't say it was a West End theatre; I did say it was in the West End. That's a statement of location: a true statement. (I know you were just trying to annoy me. And you have).
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 13:57:52 GMT
( Leicester has a square?) Yes, near the National Gallery.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 13:55:45 GMT
It's just the Daily Mail creating an artificial controversy to attract the attention of its target demographic.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 11:54:49 GMT
Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 11:47:07 GMT
What has happened to all the love proclaimed for new British musicals in the West End?
You lot deserve The Girls etc.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 11:31:14 GMT
He meant Parsley the investor, I expect.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 11:29:42 GMT
Randomly, we had a preshow annoucement stating someone in the cast (Brenda Edwards I believe) had been for a routine dentist checkup earlier in the day, and had unexpectedly had a tooth out. Naturally I expected the on stage announcer to state she was therefore indisposed, but no - he tells us all she has a numb face but will perform, making me wonder why he bothered telling us in the first place. Opera companies always inform the audience if a singer is affected by a temporary health issue. Otherwise, people would make unfair critical judgments of the singer's abilities.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 10:02:58 GMT
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 9:53:13 GMT
Are the stools chrome or wooden? And three- or four-legged? Feet on bar or dangling in air or grounded?
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 9:49:38 GMT
This play isn't American, so it seems odd that the NT chose to programme it.
Maybe they misread the name Yael Farber as Yale on the front of her pitch?
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 9, 2017 15:44:37 GMT
& somebody here has said it is 105mins Theatrelover123 reported that their friend said that. It must be true. Although Theatrelover123 says it's 125 mins.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 9, 2017 12:20:35 GMT
Yes, you're right!
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 9, 2017 12:08:01 GMT
And London Road was an NT Live from the Olivier too.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 9, 2017 11:58:50 GMT
Slightly OT, but I wonder whether they'll NT Live Follies. No other musical, unless you count Threepenny Opera, has been part of NT Live and it's possible that maybe it's too much of a risk for something to go wrong?! Who knows! FELA! was broadcast by NT Live.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 9, 2017 11:55:19 GMT
I think it's safe to assume that Parsley hasn't invested in this West End show.
There is room in the West End for both The Ferryman and 42nd Street.
Intelligent human drama and mindless american spectacle appeal to different demographics.
There is no need for investors in one to slag off the other.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 9, 2017 11:17:01 GMT
Yes, I was highly engaged by this - the performances, the situation, the dialogue, the design, the whole thing. My only personal niggle is the playtext itself which is a super-fine-tuned, award-winning product of the American professional playwriting training system which isn't really my thing. I prefer the two British traditions of dirty gut honesty and artistic experimentation. If I were being unkind, I'd say this play is a lovechild of Driving Miss Daisy and The Lion King.
But it was good to see the show and it's good to see the range of theatre on offer being extended to include the modern American model. And the performances and production are great. And the play is involving and interesting throughout. So why aren't I more ecstatic about it? I guess it's just too American, although Jamie Lloyd and the cast have done everything possible to disguise its provenance.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 9, 2017 11:04:02 GMT
They tried splitting them into troupes under different directors for a while too. Yes, quite similar to the present RSC model, except that the RSC mini-ensembles are each restricted to one theatre whereas those NT mini-companies did one show in each of the three NT theatres.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 9, 2017 2:40:12 GMT
TheatreBoard would welcome a musical version of Un Chien dans a Loo.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 9, 2017 2:35:33 GMT
I'm amazed in this day and age that it's still financially viable to run these shows at the NT in rep. I'm glad they do though It isn't. They are resorting to all sorts of tricks to make it look like they are. The Dorfman doesn't run rep any more, and the others sometimes play full weeks of a production, even a full month at times. Gone are the Peter Hall days of 3 shows in a week... But, as someone said earlier, almost all the plays were cross-cast from within a big company of actors in the Peter Hall days. So the extra cost of playing in rep was just production staff to switch the sets around, plus a very few, relatively underused actors who were just in one or two plays. And when an actor wasn't performing, they were in rehearsal for a forthcoming new production. In the Peter Hall rep system, like the present rep systems at the RSC, Pitlochry Festival Theatre and the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, the actors were all worked very hard so it was an efficient system. Now, almost all the NT productions are individually cast, as a matter of policy, so each theatre has three separate companies of actors employed at any one time - two as actors in the two plays in rep and one rehearsing the next show to open there. Simplistically, that could triple the cost of actors, comparing now with the Peter Hall days.
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