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Post by loureviews on Feb 9, 2017 15:26:50 GMT
He was an amazing actor and by all accounts a very nice chap indeed with a wicked sense of humour. Also half of a very devoted couple with his partner Geoff until his sad early death back in 1987.
I will always remember both the RSC Prospero and the performance as Clement Attlee in 'Tom and Clem'. A huge stage presence. Also much fun on film and television.
I would have loved to have seen him play the Fool but far before my time.
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Post by loureviews on Feb 2, 2017 17:26:10 GMT
Tomorrow evening - Richmond Theatre, Round the Horne.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 28, 2017 21:29:57 GMT
Everyone else other than Lucie was horrendously flat so perhaps she was the best choice; but the song hasn't got a hope of winning.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 22, 2017 17:41:37 GMT
My thoughts on this:
A delightful revival of the Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock musical is running on London’s fringe right now, and I heartily recommend it.
You might have come across this story before, in the films ‘The Shop Around The Corner’, ‘In The Good Old Summertime’ or ‘You’ve Got Mail’. You might have seen the versions shown on television in 1978 and on digital live-streaming last year.
Georg Nowack (played at the performance I saw by understudy Peter Dukes, who was rather good, if a little plain) is an awkward bachelor who serves as one of the sales clerks in the perfumery of Mr Maraczek (Les Dennis, whose decision to use a truly awful accent colours his role) in 1930s Budapest. He’s been corresponding with an unknown lady after placing an ad in the lonely hearts column, and he’s going to meet her soon for the first time.
Amalia Balash (a perky Scarlett Strallen, who steals the show with her “Vanilla Ice Cream”) comes to the shop for a job and instantly finds herself at odds with Nowack, and she is also corresponding with a ‘Dear Friend’ which we quickly find out, is her nemesis himself. In the meantime, Ilona Ritter, a vision of bad hair dye and thick make-up (played with scene-stealing effervescence by Katherine Kingsley, who has a whole library of comic expressions and barely disguised malice) is dating smarmy cad and fellow shop-worker Steven Kodaly (Kingsley’s real-life spouse, Dominic Tighe, who is perfectly hissable) and watching her life slowly slip away.
The main cast is rounded out by Ladislav Sipos (Alastair Brookshaw, playing the twitchy family man who ‘never disagrees’, with aplomb) and a new discovery, Callum Howells as delivery boy Arpad Lazslow, whose “Try Me” is an Act 2 delight. Norman Pace has joined the cast as Head Waiter, and he’s lots of fun in the restaurant scene, and surprisingly strong-voiced. I also liked the couple who found romance through reading: “Victor!” “Hugo!”
For a fringe production in a small venue, a lot of thought has gone into the revolving sets and production design, and Paul Farnsworth definitely deserves praise for his sparkles, bright colours, and leaf/snow combination indicators of the change of the seasons. Fine choreography too, and a more-than-decent house band give the fifty-something songs life and breadth (although the repetitive ‘Thank you madam’ refrains could easily be chopped after the first couple of times). If only the wigs had looked a little more realistic, it would have been quite perfect; but this is a fun little confection that certainly raises a smile in this winter season.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 22, 2017 10:19:42 GMT
Neil Brand is mainly known for writing, improvising and performing music to accompany silent films.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 21, 2017 18:52:59 GMT
Ok thanks. We have tickets for White Devil but I'm having second thoughts now.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 21, 2017 18:52:08 GMT
I like this play and looking forward to seeing it again.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 21, 2017 18:44:16 GMT
Just back from this. Lovely, sweet and I left with a smile on my face. It's a good score, and there are some lovely performances here although Les Dennis will never escape the memory of his Mavis impersonations!
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Post by loureviews on Jan 21, 2017 10:06:49 GMT
Can anyone advise what the seats are like? Wooden benches without backs or something more substantial? Thanks.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 18, 2017 21:48:19 GMT
We saw Ms Jenkins live at the Barbican over Christmas. She did sing You'll Never Walk Alone and although I don't like her voice, I don't dismiss it entirely. However, it is her complete lack of personality which makes me think she will be terrible as Julie. She usually wears floaty ballgowns and has diamante encrusted microphones for goodness sake. That's her audience, chaps who like that sort of thing.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 17, 2017 17:18:27 GMT
Sadly I can't come now as we are watching an FA Cup match then instead. What an exciting life we lead.
Hopefully can come to a future one.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 15, 2017 14:23:51 GMT
Is it going to be all young 'uns?
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Post by loureviews on Jan 15, 2017 14:22:02 GMT
If I'm near the front and feel it is not quite SO standard I will clap with hands slightly higher than usual, which feels like a halfway compromise.
Some musicals are sneaky. Sunny Afternoon going from a 'let's all get up and dance' rendition of Lola into bows felt an obvious tactic to get an SO the show didn't really deserve.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 12, 2017 19:04:05 GMT
Tentatively yes I can come to this. Would be interested.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 11, 2017 18:10:15 GMT
True about the ending. Deeply moving and not for laughs at all.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 9, 2017 16:03:11 GMT
I completely missed the flying cup from up in the circle at the Saturday matinee.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 8, 2017 19:24:51 GMT
My thoughts, ported over from my blog:
Ibsen's difficult late play comes to the National Theatre in a new version by Patrick Marber, directed by Ivo van Hove. In a modern production, set in one white box, minimally furnished, and airless except for one window (adding to the oppression of the story), it begins with two figures already on stage, one sitting motionless on a chair to the side, and one playing the piano, occasionally flinging themselves forward on to the keys in frustration or despair.
The former is the maid, Berte (Éva Magyar), who throughout the play is present, seeing everything along with the audience, but ignoring all just as she is largely ignored. The latter is the titular Hedda Gabler (Ruth Wilson), newly married to academic Dr Tesman (Kyle Soller, here using his American accent rather than the one we have grown used to in his appearances as the doomed Francis Poldark on television) but bored and without purpose.
"Academics are no fun!" she whines, and even stapleguns flowers to the walls when she is particularly fed up. Not for this new bride the glow of happiness - even the expensive house she now lives in is theirs purely through a quirk of fate, a caprice that made Tesman think she had "set her heart on it." She is trapped in circumstances she is powerless to change, in a cage from which she can not break free.
For Tesman's part he can't believe his luck, not just that the General's daughter has chosen him, but that he has "special access" to her body. This makes him just as unsympathetic a character as their supposed friend, Brack (Rafe Spall) who is a smooth but repellent sexual predator who, in the final few scenes of the play, defiles and abuses Hedda in a most appalling and shocking way, helped by an inspired use of prop design to provide the gore often missing from this play.
Hedda Gabler is a proud woman, but not in any way a nice one. She torments her school friend, Mrs Elsted (Sinéad Matthews) and ruins her life, under the cloak of supposed kindness. She goads the weak-willed career rival of her husband's, Lovborg, her former lover, into desolation and destruction while fantasizing of the beauty of his "wearing vine leaves in his hair". She lies, cheats, manipulates, and destroys. She is a viper in her words, too, hurting the kindly but interfering Tesman aunt (Kate Duchêne), and pushing away her devoted husband.
This production may rely too much on musical interludes ('Blue' by Joni Mitchell appears several times, and 'Hallelujah' the Leonard Cohen song, as rendered by Jeff Buckley - but clumsily edited - cuts into one scene), but its sparseness and the decision to stage much of the action on the fringes of the stage worked well for me, as it forces the eye to follow the characters as they separate or interact. Entrances and exits are blurred, so we end up unsure as to the proportions of the room(s) we are viewing. A video entry phone is the only concession to technology.
Marber's adaptation may bring more laughs to the fore than the piece requires, but there is no denying the cumulative power of script, direction, and performance. Wilson, Soller, Spall and Matthews are all excellent, with only Chukwudi Iwuji's Lovborg missing that final note of mental disintegration that his fate would seemingly require. Hedda's final act may shock some, "People do not do such things", but at least the events of this production are delivered in such a way that she clearly does not have a choice if she is not to spend her days in a living hell.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 8, 2017 14:51:16 GMT
Yes the fire malfunction was amusing but these things happen.
Might be a spoiler in your post there about something else. I was thinking how to refer to it without removing the element of surprise for later audiences.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 7, 2017 17:20:02 GMT
I have to formulate my thoughts properly but that was a fantastic production of a difficult play.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 6, 2017 13:22:37 GMT
Bruno Tonioli gushing like a schoolgirl over anyone involved with the film. Who was the woman doing dome of the interviews? He was appalling wasn't he? It really put me off. Although the chance to see the likes of Grover Dale and Rita Moreno was fun.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 5, 2017 15:20:14 GMT
First theatrical experience: Must have been the local church panto; if we are talking professional, something at Oldham Coliseum in around 1977 First musical (Amateur): Mack and Mabel, Grand Theatre, Leeds, 2000 First musical (Professional): Charlie Girl, Manchester Opera House, 1987 First onstage appearance: performer in Multiversity, Sheffield Showroom Cinema, 2005 First West End Show: Miss Saigon, original cast, Drury Lane, 1989
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Post by loureviews on Jan 1, 2017 21:44:43 GMT
Caught up with this, and was distinctly underwhelmed, apart from the dual Mary Poppinses and the Aladdin finale. What a dull show, and the songs from Aida do nothing for me.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 1, 2017 21:42:39 GMT
Was very pleased about Patricia Routledge, Mark Rylance, Ray Davies, Bryn Terfel and of course Doddy!
I don't have a problem with people accepting (or not); sometimes it is just a reflection of the impact of a career - although I agree that sportsmen and women may be honoured a little too early when compared with their counterparts in entertainment and theatre.
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Post by loureviews on Jan 1, 2017 21:38:45 GMT
I did indeed, and wearing even less at the RSC in 'Troilus and Cressida'. Ahem.
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Post by loureviews on Dec 23, 2016 23:18:24 GMT
Just back from this. Really liked it although I wasn't sure about Stott to start with. Shearsmith was excellent and a nice little bit from Simon Rouse (from The Bill many years ago) as Thornton.
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