College drama

The Watsons, by Laura Wade, at Mountview.

This is an absolute triumph! I saw it tonight and was blown away by how fiery and funny it is.

It is significantly more feisty and more furious, and consequently, much funnier and more effective, in my opinion, than the Menier production, which I rated 4 stars.

I mention it because there are still loads of tickets for tomorrow's matinee available and a few for the evening performance as well, so if anybody is at a loose end tomorrow, and likes Jane Austen or Laura Wade or Pirandello or a zinging youthful ensemble on fire, this is an affordable ticket that won't let you down.

Some spoilers follow. . .

The plot is that we follow Jane Austen's unfinished novel, "The Watsons," as far as Austen wrote it, and then Laura Wade jumps into the plot herself (played by Kgalalelo Thakadu) to finish it. . .

At first, because Jane Austen is peerless, we resent the Austen novel expiring: Jake Ritblat's Lord Osbourne is the absolute archetype of an endearing, bumbling, aloof Darcy character type, and Evie Weldon is one of the best speaks-her-mind feisty resilient Jane Austen heroines I've ever seen!

But the whole youthful ensemble are killing it, and together with the banging soundtrack and confrontational staging, this version of "The Watsons" is, for me, the full 5 star package, making sense of Wade's bonkers twists and turns, and imbuing them with such fizzy feeling that I didn't get the sense I got at the Menier that the plot progression was a mere intellectual exercise, but rather that it was fully moment-to-moment alive.

You won't get a more louche wicked Jane Austen archetype than Daniel Varbanov; you won't get a more priggish well-meaning Jane Austen archetype than Toby Ineson; you won't get a more flighty little sister Jane Austen archetype than Grace Cunningham; and along with a smoking ensemble, and a brilliant lead in Evie Weldon, this production lets the characters run riot to the nth degree!

Great fun for Austen lovers and great fun for lovers of absurdist metatheatre, that somehow all resolves seamlessly and wonderfully. For me, 5 stars.

Absolutely.  Often the student company have 3 yrs of being an ensemble under their belt, so directors can get further faster, and sometimes excel beyond a commercial or subsidised theatre production schedule - where everyone meets for the first time at the Day 1 meet and greet.

Directing for student productions is a gift, rather than second rank.

I think in Musical Theatre the Drama School outcomes are very reliable - after all, they came onto their course able to sing very well, and move. Growth potential in non-singing actors is harder to guage at entry and across a course - but of course many are brilliant by time of public showings.

I have worked with one of the Oxford cast a few times - Tobias Forbes. How was he,?

Thanks
Looked them up and signed up to mailing list

Recently discovered Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

From Sondheim to Jacobean drama, great productions and very welcoming

Just booked the following at RADA this November:
- Yerma
- Wild Honey

They are also doing Is God Is.


www.rada.ac.uk/