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Post by Honoured Guest on May 16, 2017 15:51:02 GMT
Travelex sponsors four or five NT productions each year which have lower ticket prices than the other NT productions, and have many tickets priced at £15. The design budgets of these productions is less than on other shows.
It used to be that most of these Travelex productions were very popular, and the scheme was devised to attract a wider audience to the NT by lowering the cost barrier. But Ugly Lies the Bone has struggled for an audience and Salome has been a critical disaster, and not much liked on this forum either.
So I was preparing for the worst with Common. Which is perhaps unfair, but that's the fault of the NT's recent Travelex track record.
"It's your national theatre" was an advertising slogan that the NT used about thirty years ago.
Of course, Common might be good. It's a Jeremy Herrin Headlong play.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 16, 2017 15:01:05 GMT
This is the next NT Travelex show, following on from Ugly Lies the Bone and Salome.
It's your national theatre.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 16, 2017 11:20:06 GMT
Enjoyed this last night at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, on my first visit there. The stand-out feature, for me, is the dance by Aakash Odedra and his company. I'm kicking myself that I haven't seen them before when they've performed several times here in SouthEast Wales. I'll certainly go to see them in future. The music is very pleasurable but I slightly regretted that I couldn't properly focus on the Indian instrumental soloists, as I would in a normal concert, because there's so much else going on in an opera. I hope you all also enjoy it at the Royal Festival Hall on Friday, which is virtually sold-out. Now to challenge my Penalty Charge Notice which was issued to me in error, to the best of my understanding.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 14, 2017 13:50:17 GMT
Well worth seeing, if Mold is within reach. A full-on production of the play with lashings of freshness. I agree very much with the attached review, which praises in detail, but would advise not reading it before seeing the show. Recommended! www.asiw.co.uk/reviews/importance-earnest-theatr-clwyd-mold
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 14, 2017 11:05:04 GMT
Judi Dench?
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 14, 2017 11:00:10 GMT
Emi, you've pushed me over the edge. I do now plan to see it, hopefully this week, and will read your review afterwards!
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 14, 2017 10:51:33 GMT
If I manage it amid deadlines I'm downing in I'm going to 'Golf Course War Machine' at RWCMD, a friend wrote it and the director is directing a play of mine so I'm hoping to get to support them. Thanks for reminding me about that! It's performed by Melanie Stevens who was deliciously intimidating, from the audience participation point of view, in The Memo for Big Loop last year and who I remember as a lively Autolycus in The Winter's Tale (which had Edward Bluemel as Leontes) at RWCMD.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 14, 2017 10:32:42 GMT
Sukanya (Royal Opera / London Philharmonic Orchestra / Curve) at Symphony Hall, Birmingham - World premiere production of Ravi Shankar's first opera.
How My Light is Spent (Royal Exchange / Sherman / Theatre by the Lake) at the Sherman - New play by Alan Harris about phone sex in Newport.
Y Tŵr (Music Theatre Wales / Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru) at the Sherman - World premiere production of Guto Puw's first opera, opening the annual Vale of Glamorgan Festival of music by living composers.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 12, 2017 21:22:38 GMT
Last November's Royal Court at 60 gala celebration included an extract from Rita, Sue and Bob Too. It has stood the test of time very well, although it's completely different from today's new theatre at the Royal Court. Out of Joint have revived it before, but last time they toured smaller theatres, including Soho Theatre for the London performances, and played it in a double bill with a new play, A State Affair, by Robin Soans. This tour is to larger theatres such as Bristol Old Vic. It's good that the Royal Court is restaging some of its heritage, with Road in the summer directed by John Tiffany and then Rita, Sue and Bob Too in January.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 12, 2017 10:24:17 GMT
I'm going to London on December 5th, do you guys think this will still be on by then? It will still be on but Follies will then be on for only about half the week, on average, sharing the Olivier Theatre with St George and the Dragon. We don't know the schedule yet, so we don't know if Follies will be on on any particular date.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 12, 2017 10:19:50 GMT
Directed by Patrick Marber.
I saw the movie in the cinema and it held my attention but I forgot it afterwards.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 12, 2017 10:03:00 GMT
so perhaps they're slightly aging up Pinocchio That would explain the moustache.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 11, 2017 15:53:35 GMT
Might catch this in Northampton. It's in the Derngate, (not the Royal).
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 11, 2017 15:25:03 GMT
The entire Bridge Theatre is onsale for Richard Thompson - stalls and all three galleries - in the end on configuration being used in the rest of the week for Young Marx. I've seen and heard Richard Thompson live many times over the years, often solo. He keeps things fresh, always giving his many fans a reason to see each tour, while also always referring back to some of his vast back catalogue. A lot of the fans are of his generation but not all of them by any means.
He's a singer-songwriter and in his early years was a folk reviver with the folk-rock movement. On the Fairport Convention front, he's on the bill again this August at the annual Fairport's Cropredy Convention where I once made an appearance selling homemade sandwiches in aid of a local church's fabric fund. We sold out and packed up the van just before Fairport Convention closed that year's festival with a set lasting two and a half hours - my introduction to the world of folk-rock! This was in the old days, before Health & Safety, when we just roped in a gaggle of willing volunteer old ladies to make the sandwiches on our home kitchen table, and there was no thought of any curfew (unlike nowadays) so the music ended at 2.00am.
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Post by Honoured Guest on May 11, 2017 13:14:44 GMT
It was a newly discovered Shakespearean history play which astonishingly foretold our present royal family.
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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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