|
Post by Honoured Guest on Nov 16, 2016 16:32:48 GMT
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee takes oral evidence on Whitehall's relationship with Kids Company
Loving this already! Who'll be cast as Camila Batmanghelidjh, Alan Yentob and Bernard Jenkin?
|
|
1,119 posts
|
Post by martin1965 on Nov 16, 2016 18:17:21 GMT
Sounds dire to me and am only curious who they cast as the loathsome Batman woman.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2016 18:25:55 GMT
Don't know about the casting but whoever gets the costume design gig is going to have an absolute blast!
|
|
|
Post by Honoured Guest on Nov 16, 2016 19:37:25 GMT
From the director of The Boys in the Band.
|
|
4,598 posts
|
Post by Someone in a tree on Nov 16, 2016 20:53:01 GMT
Don't know about the casting but whoever gets the costume design gig is going to have an absolute blast! Costume design or optical illusion?!
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 8, 2017 20:27:44 GMT
|
|
7,562 posts
|
Post by alece10 on May 9, 2017 13:02:29 GMT
I care so little about that dreafful woman I cant say I'd want to see it. Mind you I do like Alex Hanson.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 9, 2017 13:17:01 GMT
Don't know about the casting but whoever gets the costume design gig is going to have an absolute blast! It could be quite a high budget If they are being accurate Will needs miles and miles of fabric
|
|
4,598 posts
|
Post by Someone in a tree on May 9, 2017 16:08:51 GMT
Camilla how ever you spell her family name is a walking optical illusion - the special effects here are going to amazing
|
|
|
Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 11:47:07 GMT
What has happened to all the love proclaimed for new British musicals in the West End?
You lot deserve The Girls etc.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 13:18:58 GMT
The Donmar isn't technically the West End, if we go by the commercial vs non-profit definition rather than the geographical one?
|
|
|
Post by Honoured Guest on May 10, 2017 14:08:19 GMT
The Donmar isn't technically the West End, if we go by the commercial vs non-profit definition rather than the geographical one? I didn't say it was a West End theatre; I did say it was in the West End. That's a statement of location: a true statement. (I know you were just trying to annoy me. And you have).
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 14:25:02 GMT
^The only reason they are doing the show, really, is that they got an amazing deal on turbans and Technicolor outfits when Really Useful had a costume sale last month. H from Steps banking on not having to go back now that they're "In" again...
|
|
2,452 posts
Member is Online
|
Post by theatremadness on Jun 23, 2017 13:25:02 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2017 13:39:10 GMT
Well at least we know that by the end of that number the committee really want to learn.
|
|
|
Post by oxfordsimon on Jun 23, 2017 14:51:01 GMT
It sounds like a mixture of the worst bits of Stephen Ward with the Embassy scene from Chess (with all the red tape) Bureaucracy does not make for good music it would seem....
|
|
3,057 posts
|
Post by ali973 on Jun 23, 2017 15:35:28 GMT
It's very London Road.
|
|
2,452 posts
Member is Online
|
Post by theatremadness on Jun 23, 2017 15:45:05 GMT
Ever since they announced this, I've felt like they were trying to set out to create another London Road, which I adore. It remains to be seen, but it looks like they've taken the words and set them to their own composed music, as opposed to London Road's setting the music to the rhythmic and pitch patterns of human speech. If they have set out to attempt to create another piece of innovative theatre like London Road, that clip looks like they have ended up as a distant relative. Not sure how the whole thing plays out, of course!
|
|
7,562 posts
|
Post by alece10 on Jun 23, 2017 18:30:25 GMT
Does sound a bit London Roadie so I'm quite intregued. Plus I love Alex Hansons voice.
|
|
1,233 posts
|
Post by Steve on Jun 27, 2017 17:25:36 GMT
I loved this, a thrilling* musical verbatim battle between the Brexit-voting, pennypinching Committee and Camilla Batmanghelidjh, the embodiment of so much unashamed otherness that the cowed Committee would rather just hammer her partner-in-kindness, BBC insider Alan Yentob again and again and again instead! Some spoilers follow. . . *Of course, this show may not be thrilling if the prospect of hearing half the testimony of a Parliamentary Committee about an overspending charity really turns you off. I say half, because this show runs 1 hour 30 minutes without an interval, and the hearing it is extracted from was 3 hours long. In fact, it's less than half the original hearing, as said running time also includes multiple injections of written testimony submitted by interested parties to the hearing, read out by the actors, as well as the musically-rendered, poetic repetition of key phrases that Hadley Fraser (or should it be "phraser"?) and Josie Rourke wish to emphasise (For example, "We want to learn," which got me thinking, "what you really want is a scapegoat!"). Because I confess, I came to this show biased and invested, as I admire Camilla Batmanghelidjh, having attended a Kids Company (Batmanghelidjh's now defunct Charity) Christmas event in 2013, in which she raised a ton of money for the most vulnerable children in London, including the children of drug addicts, violent abusers, sex workers and the poor, and all combinations of the above. That holiday period, she had already overseen the wrapping of 7,000 presents, as well as food parcels for their families. She was Santa Claus to these children, albeit not bedecked in a blood red suit, but all the fabulous colours of the rainbow. Still, even for those who consider Batmanghelidjh to be "the loathsome Batman woman" or simply "that dreadful woman" (descriptions taken from this thread, above), there is still much to stimulate, as this is a dramatic face-off between two sides, and if you really do hate her, you can just root for the other side, The Committee (of Brexit-voters). The inclusion of that critical detail in this show, spelled out at the beginning, that the members of this Committee all voted for Brexit, is topically energising but also problematic. For the Committee's Brexit stance ostensibly has nothing to do with monitoring the spending of a Children's charity, except to exercise a Remainer like me to internally rage at the Committee "So you are willing to tank the economy to slow down immigration, but you begrudge the poorest kids in London getting a fancy pair of trainers to treasure at Christmas!?" (At one point, indeed, the Committee all accusingly hold up examples of the fanciest footwear, as if treating poor children with such trainers were a terrible crime). But this is problematic, as voting Brexit is patently not a signifier of heartlessness, and if Brexit voting audience members get the feeling that the show is implying as much, that will alienate them, and will not serve the needs of the children, which ultimately is all that matters. Sumptuous strings underlie most of the musical phrasing in the show, which infuses dry political statements with swells of emotion. An enigmatic Sandra Marvin is fantastic as Batmanghelidjh, embodying the unnerving unshakeable confidence that Batmanghelidjh had, that she was always doing the right thing, no matter how spendthrift and questionable her accounting practices. As Alan Yentob, Omar Ibrahim is more openly bruised and fazed, infusing Yentob's defeated martyr with a rebellious and incendiary compassion for the Charity's children, who he insisted be prioritised before spending cuts. Marvin and Ibrahim are the stars of the show, as the focus is on them, two lone figures, humiliated by the tabloids, facing off against the vast panel of the Committee and Public Opinion. Their back is to the front facing audience, so while seated, the front facing audience must watch the faces of Marvin's Batmanghelidjh and Ibrahim's Yentob on two big panel screens directly above the arrayed Committee, who directly face that audience. In a side seat, I could see the profiles of both the Committee and the Questioned facing off. But the front facing audience need not fear that they will not directly see the faces of the stars of the show, as, at emotional highpoints in their testimony, Batmanghelidjh and Yentob spring from their seats to pace the floor, facing the audience in all directions, as they sing impassioned defenses of their actions. On the Committee, I was delighted to see David Albury, who impressed as the junkie, Fleetwood, in Southwark's "This Life" and who impressed again as the Committee's Junior Clerk. As Chief Clerk, Joanna Kirkland is a wonderfully empathetic circus master of the proceedings, a uniquely unbiased voice, standing between the condemnation of the Committee and the indignation of the Accused. Alexander Hanson is his usual delicate yet commanding self, as the Conservative Bernard Jenkin MP, confidently and precisely leading the Committee through some lovely sounding harmonic interrogations, and I also loved Anthony O'Donnell as Labour's Paul Flynn MP, hale and hearty yet flinty. As far as verbatim musicals go, I enjoyed this much more than the equally brilliant "London Road," which, with the poor working girls dead, had no rooting interest, as it revealed the shallow callowness at the heart of middle class flower arrangers, enjoying tea and biscuits on top of those girls' graves. Here, Marvin's Batmanghelidjh and Ibrahim's Yentob may be buried, but they furiously and entertainingly resurrect themselves and their cause for an almighty and ambiguous battle, which noone can win, and only London's most vulnerable children must lose. 4 and a half stars.
|
|
4,598 posts
|
Post by Someone in a tree on Jun 28, 2017 7:23:37 GMT
4.5 stars also from me
This is fabulously gripping piece of theatre. Keeps you thinking throughout and debating aftwards in the pub!
As musicals go this is as obscure as Pacific Overtures and it's all the more better for it
|
|
4,047 posts
|
Post by kathryn on Jul 1, 2017 17:29:42 GMT
Just saw it this afternoon. It's no London Road - and I say that as someone who disliked London Road but recognised that it was an artistically interesting achievement. In comparison, this just felt....slight. Maybe it was simply the running time - only about 1 hour 20 minutes, and I actually had to check as I left that it was indeed the end and not the interval, because for a minute there I wondered if I'd made a mistake and was going to miss the second act!
It needs something more than just the Committee. Maybe if they'd interpolated some of those individual cases that were being referred to it would have had more meat. Or some of the political manoeuvring and tabloid outrage that preceded the Committee. On its own, the Brexit-focused introduction to the MPs added little. We had no real introduction to Camilla and Alan, the show just assumed everyone knew about them - which, given the demographics of the audience they almost certainly did, but is an interesting assumption to make.
The only conclusion the show really reaches is that the whole thing is a show trial, which it obviously was. It doesn't really examine who the show was for, though, and perhaps that is a lost opportunity.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2017 17:48:41 GMT
Thought this was dreadful
Left after 20 mins
|
|
|
Post by partytentdown on Jul 1, 2017 17:54:24 GMT
Thought this was dreadful Left after 20 mins gasp
|
|
1,434 posts
|
Post by showtoones on Jul 2, 2017 1:26:37 GMT
Parsley only likes 42nd Street and Beckham...talk about not being open to new experiences
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2017 9:21:44 GMT
Parsley only likes 42nd Street and Beckham...talk about not being open to new experiences Not really I loved An Octoroon And Anatomy of a suicide Both of which some people on here didn't even understand PLEASE don't made sweeping generalisations
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 2, 2017 9:44:19 GMT
Two reviews on this page, one beautifully considered review that talks about the show and gives ideas as to who might also respond to it, whilst respecting others' views, the other nothing but a yelp of existential pain, being of no interest to anyone other than if they want to monitor an ongoing breakdown.
I blame reality television.
|
|
4,047 posts
|
Post by kathryn on Jul 2, 2017 12:38:02 GMT
'A yelp of existential pain'?! What the f***! How on earth was anything I said 'a yelp of existential pain'?!
|
|
151 posts
|
Post by gra on Jul 2, 2017 12:48:06 GMT
Two reviews on this page, one beautifully considered review that talks about the show and gives ideas as to who might also respond to it, whilst respecting others' views, the other nothing but a yelp of existential pain, being of no interest to anyone other than if they want to monitor an ongoing breakdown. I blame reality television. Love it! Totally agree. Unfortunately people respond to these sad 'yelps' and only encourage further posts.
|
|
1,192 posts
|
Post by theatrelover123 on Jul 2, 2017 12:54:20 GMT
'A yelp of existential pain'?! What the f***! How on earth was anything I said 'a yelp of existential pain'?! Panic ye not. I THINK the yelping being referred to was coming from Parsley?
|
|