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Post by David J on Dec 3, 2016 21:30:59 GMT
Very interesting piece
Light hearted at first, it follows this barber who is the life and soul of the place
His daughters getting married and he has won £8,5000. Then he has a stroke and seeing all the homeless he begins to get ideas of giving all his money
Some nice parallels to today. It brings up all these questions or morality and human nature
It's funny seeing his daughter and her fiancé react to the thought of the money he should be giving them flit away
As Sheppey says "where is this peace and kindness?"
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Post by showgirl on Dec 4, 2016 6:45:33 GMT
Looking forward to seeing this and all the reviews I've read have been encouraging. Glad, as it was the only play from the new season that I definitely wanted to see (though I did take a chance on a couple of others), and even then I was afraid that the new AD would spoil it with one of his trademark quirky approaches. Fingers crossed it's the standard approach as I've never even heard of, let alone seen, a prior production.
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Post by David J on Dec 4, 2016 9:44:39 GMT
I don't know about quirky (only saw his French without Tears), but there are this underlying religious tone to the play and the ending is a bit ethereal
But that's just the play really
This isn't in my top 10 play revivals of the year but it is close
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Post by lonlad on Dec 4, 2016 23:36:45 GMT
It's quite wonderful but friends had tickets on Thursday and said the show was canceled due to absence of understudies - as was true with the Hampstead Theatre/Kushner play the day before - any idea if performances resumed Friday/Saturday? John Ramm is brilliant in the title role.
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Post by tlt on Dec 5, 2016 1:11:49 GMT
This is a fascinating play which is not quite what it seems. There are indeed some ecellent performances in this production. Sheppey does not win the lottery as some reviews have said (but not, I note, David J!  - he wins the Irish Sweepstake, which supposedly raised money for Dublin hospitals and was actually illegal outside Ireland (common knowledge at the time). Tickets were smuggled into Britain and the even bigger markets of USA and Canada and it caused a depletion of and channelled sterling into Ireland. While it did a smidgeon of good for the hospitals and employment in Ireland, this was outweighted by a much bigger racket which funded less salubrious causes and made tycoons of some businessmen. Once one finds out about the Irish Sweepstake, Sheppey's Good Samaritian involvement with the habitués of the police court in the local community takes on a different hue ... I discuss this in my review at bit.ly/2gEEGOn |
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Post by lonlad on Dec 5, 2016 1:25:39 GMT
The Irish Hospitals Sweepstake *was* a lottery:
>>The Irish hospitals' sweepstake was a horse-racing based lottery established in the Irish Free State in 1930 to build new hospitals and improve facilities.
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Post by David J on Dec 5, 2016 2:03:19 GMT
Can I just point out that my 'exceptional' review didn't say he win the lottery  |
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Post by tlt on Dec 5, 2016 19:23:52 GMT
The Irish Hospitals Sweepstake *was* a lottery: >>The Irish hospitals' sweepstake was a horse-racing based lottery established in the Irish Free State in 1930 to build new hospitals and improve facilities. You're quite correct - late night posts are not my forte obviously  - but it was illegal in the UK, Canada and USA and there was other less than salubrious stuff going on! See www.turtlebunbury.com/published/published_reviews/pub_rev_sweep.htmCan I just point out that my 'exceptional' review didn't say he win the lottery No indeed as I said!!! |
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Post by showgirl on Dec 9, 2016 4:46:18 GMT
What a surprise, for much of the time a joy and revelation, and then a disappointment! I thought the acting, casting, direction, etc, were pitch-perfect, and for the first 2 acts I was absolutely riveted, revelling in the play and wondering why on earth I'd never even heard of it, let alone seen it before. Come the 3rd act, however, and all was painfully revealed: the play takes so peculiar and, for me, a whimsical and dissatisfying direction that it almost ruined what had gone before. I know it's the script so nothing to be done, short of someone writing an alternative ending, but talk about wilful artistic vandalism! I'd love to have known what other audience members thought but had to miss the rare post-show discussion in order to travel to the play I was seeing that evening. (Wrong decision, as that was Once In a Lifetime, but I've said my piece on the appropriate thread.)
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Post by Jan on Dec 15, 2016 22:32:55 GMT
The last three "rediscoveries" from this era I've seen all originally starred Ralph Richardson and in all cases it is clear why the plays didn't get revived. He obviously didn't know how to pick them. Didn't much enjoy this. Thin premise stretched out way too long. Well acted but I didn't like the drag act. Sorry.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2016 22:36:05 GMT
But No Man's Land also originally starred Walphie and is a classic revived regularly and successfully.
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Post by Jan on Dec 15, 2016 22:37:27 GMT
But No Man's Land also originally starred Walphie and is a classic revived regularly and successfully. He took a lot of persuading to appear in it. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2016 22:38:21 GMT
Perhaps he preferred to be better than the play he was in?
Although Inner Voices was a no-score draw!
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Post by Jan on Dec 16, 2016 7:02:28 GMT
Perhaps he preferred to be better than the play he was in? Although Inner Voices was a no-score draw! What is also notable is how many West End plays he must have been in, and what star power he had because some of these duds were obviously written specifically for him. I thought just for a few moments in Inner Voices you could see what he had got, but overall it was disappointing because he didn't know his part. |
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Post by showgirl on Dec 16, 2016 7:21:17 GMT
The last three "rediscoveries" from this era I've seen all originally starred Ralph Richardson and in all cases it is clear why the plays didn't get revived. He obviously didn't know how to pick them. Didn't much enjoy this. Thin premise stretched out way too long. Well acted but I didn't like the drag act. Sorry. I'd been tempted to comment on what you refer to as "the drag act" but thought it might count as a spoiler. However, yes, now that you've mentioned it, the third act did clarify why one of the cast looked distractingly like an unconvincing drag act! |
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Post by Jan on Dec 16, 2016 7:55:40 GMT
The last three "rediscoveries" from this era I've seen all originally starred Ralph Richardson and in all cases it is clear why the plays didn't get revived. He obviously didn't know how to pick them. Didn't much enjoy this. Thin premise stretched out way too long. Well acted but I didn't like the drag act. Sorry. I'd been tempted to comment on what you refer to as "the drag act" but thought it might count as a spoiler. However, yes, now that you've mentioned it, the third act did clarify why one of the cast looked distractingly like an unconvincing drag act! I pondered whether to spoiler it. But we're meant to ignore it, it's not in the text, so it is not really a spoiler. Of course during the first act I'm wondering why the characters in the play don't seems to know that one of the women is a bloke in a dress, maybe it is a plot point, like "The Crying Game", but of course in 1933 when the play was written it couldn't be. What it seems to be is a fairly clichéd directorial decision which says "Wilde, and Rattigan, and Coward, and Somerset Maugham were all gay (or bi) when it was illegal so some of the women in their plays are not really women, they are homosexual men in disguise" and they use that as an excuse to cast in that way. However here it just undermines the play it because at the interval the audience are all discussing this casting and are checking their programmes to see what's going on and actually it's nothing to do with the play at all (the new character who appears in the last act can be either gender right ?) |
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Post by showgirl on Dec 16, 2016 11:19:20 GMT
Hah, as someone who never buys a programme, it hadn't occurred to me that others would be checking the cast list!
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Post by Jan on Dec 16, 2016 12:12:05 GMT
Hah, as someone who never buys a programme, it hadn't occurred to me that others would be checking the cast list! I don't buy one either, but I heard several doing it. One poor old soul professed herself amazed it was a male actor, another lady (and here's the problem) was saying she was struggling not to laugh at those scenes. |
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- he wins the Irish Sweepstake, which supposedly raised money for Dublin hospitals and was actually illegal outside Ireland (common knowledge at the time). 
- but it was illegal in the UK, Canada and USA and there was other less 