An Enemy of the People - Duke of York's Theatre

Post of the year!

The second half was stronger with less gaff. Rolled my eyes at the load of present day references Matt Smith rounded off in his speech but he delivered it with alacrity

Didn’t mind the q&a either with many audience members giving their views. But it does against the outcome where the townsfolk turn against Stockmann. And it made the paint episode so out of left field as a consequence

Ending was abrupt

I feel that amongst this great play is a load of ideas Thomas Ostermeier threw together and what you get is a hand-fisted hodgepodge of a production that I have seen done better by other directors

3.25 stars

I really enjoyed this. Not usually my genre but it was dynamic, fun, and well-acted.

The political messaging isn’t nuanced, true. And I agree it’s somewhat strange that despite the entire audience (more or less!) agreeing with the doctor, the end happens the way it does.

Today Smith ended the audience contribution after someone said “The whole world needs the doctor” - a nice (if unsubtly punny) end to the scene.

Overall I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did due the genre being so outside my usual area of interest but hey, nice to be surprised!

Pleasant enough bun fight.

2 x Olivier nominations for this. Paul Hilton and Priyanga Burford for supporting performances. Well deserved I thought when I saw the show last night. Matt Smith gives a very committed performance too. Would recommend.

Honestly this sounds like Satre’s definition of hell.

The plant was sat near me in the Stalls the other night. He made a point of shouting out something early to let the cast know where he was. And then he was the ‘last’ person to speak, giving quite an eloquent diatribe, which the cast then used as the point to move on. I’m sure many of the audience didn’t twig but it was quite apparent.

I really enjoyed this tonight. Standout for me was Priyanga Burford whose comedic timing during the Q&A was spot on. Some really ridiculous comments made tonight from the audience which I won’t go into here but some completely missed the point of the whole play and went on random rants about completely unrelated topics.

Nice to see Nigel Lindsay on stage again but would have loved to have seen more of him. Also, what was the point the dog?

I didn’t realise the first three rows of the stalls had covers to pull over during the paint ball scene. A few members of the front row got hit badly and Matt was very apologetic at the end. Again, not sure what the point was of this either.

Four stars.

This rounds out my theatre week in London. I always feel a bit glum when my time in London is over. There’s so much talent in the West End and looking forward to my next shows. Thankfully not too long to wait for Swan Lake in April.

Not really sure how I felt about this.

I hadn't seen any productions of this play before, but nonetheless, the updated parts of the material were screamingly obvious. Did anyone seriously buy that this friendgroup would form a band? What the hell was that dog for? What the hell was the pseudo-standup routine at the end of Act 1 for? What the hell was that kiss for!? Weird, weird choices made by the creative team.

(In contrast, when I saw The Doctor back in 2022, literally nothing gave away that it had been adapted from a 1912 play.)

And while the audience participation was interesting, it ultimately belies the central theme of the play. How can we as an audience buy into Stockman's ostracization when canonically, we the people wildly applauded his speech? A cleverer modern adaptation would've tied this into the play; maybe Stockman gets what he wants, the people listen, but then the baths close and he's jobless and miserable. This would've acknowledged the changing attitudes of society while still highlighting the flaws of Stockman's character. This version, in stroking the audience's egos while vilifying a small cast of easily-identifiable "elites", completely dodges the anti-democratic message of the original play and turns it into a simple black-and-white morality tale.

Let's say... 5/10? I liked the performances, and I can definitely see the skeleton of a great work beneath all the "reimagined" bits. But I think they should've either chosen to change less or change far, far more.

I really enjoyed this tonight. I wasn’t familiar with the original play before going in other than the themes/broad description of the setting and premise. We were in row BB - splash zone - which was fun! The cover really didn’t interfere significantly with legroom btw, you can just pop your feet up on it, it’s fine. We each had a few specks of paint on our faces/hair that we noticed on the way home but it’s not permanently staining or anything. I felt like it was almost an Easter Egg nod to Matt Smith in the American Psycho adaptation.

For me it’s a solid 4* performance but the only part I didn’t quite get - and maybe I’m overthinking/overinterpreting this, but, in the first act, a LOT of the delivery of lines feels more like monologue than dialogue, the timing was off and expression a bit lacking. Especially between Matt Smith and Paul Hilton, more so from Smith, it was like they weren’t actually reacting to what the other had said, they were just waiting for them to stop speaking so they could deliver their next line. These are GOOD actors, look at them go later on, that it must be a directorial choice to present their speech like that? Like in real life, people have already decided what their position is and what they’re going to reply no matter what the other person actually says. They’re not open to dialogue, they just want people to hear their story. It was more marked in the characters that are determinedly single minded. I hope that rambling makes sense.

I really enjoyed the set with it’s weird wall-breaking scene changes, and the “band practice” music sections made perfect sense to me - I recognised myself and my friends when we were in our mid-late 20s, newly minted professionals, highly educated and socially privileged, politically idealistic but socially naïve, still living a student lifestyle drinking and smoking and playing covers in a “band” despite having actual grown up commitments in our lives. The line about “you sound like an undergraduate” hit home! I figured they all knew each other since teenagers and finding themselves back in their home town as young adults, The Kiss made sense in that context - although it was kinda random that it had no ramifications and wasn’t referred to again. And it’s not based on anything in the original Ibsen?

It is a bit confusing that the “people” (audience) in the town hall scene are broadly if not overwhelmingly supportive of Stockmann but yet back in the reality of the play he’s hounded out of town. Too many idealistic liberals in the average West End audience! We had some interesting speakers though. A few were definitely genuine, one Ukrainian woman speaking was a little jarring. I also really wanted more exploration of Hovstad’s sharp about turn, but there’s just no time given to develop him.

A big thing that bugs me about plays like this, and A Mirror currently playing in the West End as well - we’re watching them and staging them in the U.K, where we’re completely free to do so and we find the communal artistic examination/exploration of corrruption entertaining. Wikipedia says that when this was staged Beijing in 2018 it was shut down after 3 performances because the audience used the town hall section to criticise the CCP and that just did not fly. For many other countries this sh*t is still real, so it feels a bit weird that for us it’s a jolly night out at the theatre?

Anyway all that said, solid 4* from me and I’d recommend to a friend, and now I want to track down other adaptations and read the original Ibsen as I did find the story and premise intriguing!

Lol, I’m not making things up, it genuinely wasn’t a legroom issue for either of us!

Maybe it’s changed, it didn’t seem 6 inches high and it was a bit tucked under the row in front. I initially popped my bag on it as I was settling into my seat and the usher just asked that we don’t do that, so bag went under my seat and I alternated between popping my feet up on the box or tucked in, and when my feet were up they were nowhere near the middle of the seat back in front.

Ha we were in the same row last night! The town hall scene did feel quite lively didn’t it, some people really getting into it.

I’m afraid I’m the wag that offered “antidisestablishmentarianism” for the improv bit just before the interval. Sorry, 2 glasses of wine down and it just came out. I hate myself a bit haha.