A Mirror - Almeida / Trafalgar Theatre

That's good to know, I'll keep checking back, thanks Rory!

Oooh, thanks for the heads up!  I'm a huge JLM fan so desperate to get tickets to this.  Fingers crossed!

Thank you. I called but they said it's already gone and there's nothing available at the moment.

Tickets released/available across the run.

2 hours no interval? Better start my bladder training now.

Really looking forward to this. I am pro no interval, the speedier the better for me. I find that the breaks just tire me out and I want to go home, especially if it's an evening performance.

Saw this tonight and LOVED it.

For me, it's an excellent, mischievous and Brechtian play about creativity, identity, and what it means to express yourself in a totalitarian environment. Jonny Lee Miller is perfect casting.

Some spoilers follow (but not too much lol) . . .

First of all, although you get an order of service on your seat, detailing the wedding service of "Leyla and Joel at Almeida Hall," I'm not going to talk about that. That's part of an ingenious Brechtian framing device, which throws you out of the play, as Brechtian devices deliberately do, but which is so well done that it doesn't come across as distracting and didactic, as such devices often do, but playful and exciting instead. Saying any more about that would be too spoilery.

So the main body of the play features Jonny Lee Miller as Theatre Censorship Czar, Celik, who sees himself as an enlightened fellow, a cut above your run of the mill monster. Celik wants to save talented innocents, such as Michael Ward's nascent playwright, Adem, from getting chucked into the gulag for inadvertently insulting the State. He's going to channel Adem's productivity, such that Adem produces good work, but doesn't get himself cancelled. . .

I recall seeing "Frankenstein" at the National 4 times, twice with Lee Miller as the Monster, and twice with Cumberbatch as the Monster. I chose to take family and guests to the Lee Miller monster version because Jonny Lee Miller humanises monsters, and I found that the more moving version, with Cumberbatch playing the cerebral Frankenstein utterly and tragically brilliantly opposite him. Where Cumberbatch's Monster had been terrifyingly Borg-like, building himself calculatingly and incrementally into a frightening weapon of revenge, Lee Miller's monster was an aching howling wounded cry of flailing human anguish.

There's no doubt that if you are the head of theatre censorship in a totalitarian state, you are a monster, but once again, Lee Miller makes us care about this monster. At his core, Lee Miller's Celik is like an excited child, infectiously wanting to play at theatre with all and sundry, trying to ignore the truth about what he really is.

This is undoubtedly a play of ideas, as my mind was racing for the full two hours duration: I thought of that Russian Newsanchor who bravely suddenly announced on Russian state TV that she wasn't going to pretend that the "Special Military Operation" wasn't a war any more, and promptly got herself cancelled; I thought of how important writing and legacy is to Katurian in the play "The Pillowman;" I thought of the 1420 YouTube channel interviewing Russians on the Streets of Moscow, and how 95 percent of them answer "Oh, I'm not a political person. I don't know anything about politics;" I thought of Ann Dowd's utterly astonishing portrayal of Aunt Lydia in the TV version of "The Handmaid's Tale," in which Dowd is at once the most loathsome tyrannical monster, yet somehow, somewhere, some part of her wants to think she's doing the right thing; I thought of Tom Hollander's calm and calculating Berezovsky, thinking he could mollify the worst of Putin in the Almeida's "Patriots;" I thought of Martin Crimp's "The Treatment," in which a Hollywood screenwriter's vision is twisted by degrees, substituting BS for truth; I thought of Complicite, and how they demonstrate the power of manipulating storytelling, for good or for ill, especially in their adaptation of "The Master and Margarita" and that thing where we had to wear earphones and they told us countries were just stories we tell ourselves (lol); and I thought of how in Nikita Mikhalkov's Russian version of "Twelve Angry Men," he changes the ending to suggest that the power of the glorious State is much more important than the rights of any impertinent individual.

And that's what this play does: it makes you think while Jonny Lee Miller puts a human backbone behind it.

I felt that Geoffrey Streatfeild's conceited character, Michael Ward's truthful character and Tanya Reynold's conflicted character also brought heaps of humanity, humour and stakes to the table, providing Lee Miller with terrific support

There was a speech that Streatfeild had that felt a little too explanatory, like the denouement of Psycho, where too many loose ends are tied up, but it's just a niggle.

All in all, I felt Sam Holcroft has crafted a terrific play and this cast do it justice. 4 and a half stars from me.

PS: Tonight, the running time was 2 hours, 5 minutes straight through, beginning 5 minutes late and concluding at 9:40pm. I had plenty of time to catch my last train at 10:40pm.

I really enjoyed this! Initial reaction was that this gave off similar vibes/themes to 'That Is Not Who I Am' at the Royal Court (but so much better) and 'The Pillowman' (but without all the excessive gore), but it really is a lot more than that. The 2 hours didn't feel like 2 hours at all and the actors were all great.

Fully agree nottobe. I saw this on Friday night and I would say it was one of the best productions I have seen this year. So glad I finally got to see the outstanding JLM on stage. I had only seen Tanya Reynolds in Sex Education so I knew of her ability to do comedy roles but I thought she was great in this. I also enjoyed the audience participation element, which runs the risk of coming across as a bit gimmicky but not here.

I was surprised to see some empty seats (I counted 10) despite the night showing as sold out and after I struggled to get a ticket. It was my first time at the Almeida and the seats were probably the worst I have experienced in terms of leg room. I loved how intimate the theatre is though and really wished I had a chance to see Streetcar here instead of at the Phoenix. I think it would have been a completely different experience.

Seats on sale for both performances on Saturday 2nd September

Thanks for that, I just booked a ticket for this in a couple of weeks.