Love at NT

I also booked but will have to change the date (thank goodness the NT allows this), as I am finally having the knee op I've needed for 8 months, so will be confined to quarters for a fortnight. (I mention this for the benefit of anyone inclined to make ill-informed comments about those preferring aisle seats.) Hence I'll be keen to read early reports!

No, and still keen to read reports, as it has proved impossible to change my booking unless I am prepared to pay £25 extra to exchange my ticket, which is way beyond my spending limit for any space at the NT. Neither do I wish to have a refund and lose £2 of the original cost, so if it turns out to be brilliant, I may offer my ticket on here - I got a great deal.

I saw this on Friday



I 100% support making people more aware of the difficulties faced in negotiating the perils of council housing and temporary accommodation sector



However the acting and projection of the actors leaves much to be desired and really let the play down



It also fails to offer any real insight into how the characters shown ended up in their individual situations

They were all portrayed as helpless and lacking any initiative

There was some nice character observation and quirky scenes and the 2 children actors (it seems the roles rotate between 3 girls and boys) were excellent

But I felt it was bit of a wasted opportunity

Some of the audience were obviously stunned and moved at the end but as the play did not offer any solutions or even bother to challenge the characters but treated them all as victims it was rather limiting 

I think there have been better plays and documentaries and films tackling this subject matter 

OK, probably time to accept that I won't be going to the ball as post-op I won't be mobile enough by Thursday 29 December and the NT want an extra £25 to change my ticket as I got a great deal.

So, if I were able to work out the logistics of payment and collection (haven't collected ticket yet for this very reason), would anyone be interested, please?

I've got a brilliant (imho) aisle seat in the front-facing stalls (F17) for the evening performance on the above date, for which I paid £10. Worst case scenario I lose £2 obtaining a part-refund, but if anyone here would like to benefit, please let me know.

Saw this last night. Absolutely brilliant, uncontrived, meaningful theatre.

While some may find the pared back drama uneventful, this for me was more impactful than the National's earlier minimally contrived dramas: "The Flick" and "Beyond Caring."

Some spoilers follow. . .

As an antidote to the by-the-numbers dramatising of most plays, "The Flick" felt fresh, involving three characters simply sweeping a cinema and living life. But for all it's exceptional characterisation, vivid observation of moment to moment interaction and authentic pace, "The Flick" was a hoary old love triangle.

In "Beyond Caring," Alexander Zeldin also opted for a meticulously slow and detailed observation of life, involving endless sweeping and factory work through the night. But he snuck in obvious contrivances to ram his points home. Janet Etuk's character not only had to sweep through the night, she had to do it with arthritic hands, constantly bullied by her unnecessarily cruel and pedantic boss, played by Luke Clarke.

In this play, Etuk and Clarke are back, but now there is nothing contrived. They are a couple, just like any couple, with two kids, the girl excitedly rehearsing her nativity play, the boy lost in a laptop. This is a world the National audience will recognise: it's them.

The couple happen to be living in temporary accommodation, Apartment 5, and each day, off stage, Luke Clarke's Dean visits the requisite Government Office to sort out permanent housing.

Next door, in Apt 6, Nick Holder's character cares for his infirm old mum, played by Anna Calder-Marshall, so he can't work. He's also off each day to the benefits office.

No doubt the National audience also have mums and sons, who would look after them, if it came to it.

The play is these two families interacting, in their shared living space, in believable, and for the most part, in apparently uncontrived ways. The details of their interactions are routine and relentlessly credible, and through small well-observed scenes, we come to know and relate to everyone in the play. For everyone, a different detail will signal the moment you are completely sucked into this world: for me, it was when Dean put up Christmas decorations to make the anonymous housing cosy for his kids. From that moment, this show upset me more than any show this year.

The lights are on in the auditorium, so in the least intrusive, most effective Brechtian way possible, we are forced to acknowledge that the characters we are watching are just like us.

The danger for a show like this one is that people who need to see it, won't. Which is why the National Dorfman is the perfect auditorium. If any space is booked in London, as a matter of rote, it's this one, where the danger of a great show selling out prompts regulars to buy tickets to every show regardless.

This isn't as entertaining or as well-characterised as "The Flick," but it's more immersive, it's more recognisable, and it's ultimately more hard hitting.

Anna Calder-Marshall as the Old Mum, Janet Etuk as the expectant Mum, Luke Clarke as the Dad, Nick Holder as the Carer and Darcey Brown as the exuberant little girl are pitch perfect.

5 stars

Managed to get a dayseat online for tonight. Glad to be reading such positive things.

🎄

Presumably, like the many people who are in that situation in real life, they had a house and a solid income when she became pregnant 8 months or so earlier.

Ooh, I think you're showing your age a bit, Parsley. I don't think your personal opinion has anything to do with the fact that living has become extremely expensive and wages haven't risen in line with that. The average house used to cost four times the average annual wage, so getting on the property ladder was way easier than nowadays, when the average house costs twelve times the average annual wage. Even so, there's an expectation that people should be spending a third or less of their take-home pay on their mortgage or rent costs; actual figures are closer to half. It looks like employment is way up, but the people who compile the statistics merrily include part time jobs and zero hour contracts, while a not insignificant number of people are both in employment *and* homeless because they're simply not earning very much. As people can't afford to buy property, they are very much at the mercy of private landlords, against whom they have very little legal protection. I'm really happy for you if you're stable enough to find the entire preceding paragraph preposterous, but having been through redundancy and unscrupulous landlords and with the property ladder an EXTREMELY distant dream, I can confirm from personal experience and basic empathy that the country is in crisis and it's extremely unlikely to be the fault of the person who is unemployed, and/or homeless, whether they're pregnant or not.

And if you don't want to discuss the problems with modern society on this forum, then you should really avoid seeing plays that are DESIGNED TO START A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE PROBLEMS WITH MODERN SOCIETY.

World population needs to stop growing

People need to have fewer or no children

And get with the times

That show at the RC a whole back presented the issue nicely

Yup and yup @baemax

While I personally have chosen not to have children, that isn't actually really here or there in the equation. No matter how much a person saves without say a windfall or partner/parents/fallback we are all unfortunately only a few catastrophes away from financial disaster. Employment is precarious, life is expensive. One could lose a job and then have a car accident that incapacitates and costs you money all within a few weeks (just by way of example) and savings only last so long. And take far longer to build up.

Personal, far less dramatic example: I had a relatively well paid job, for 12 months. It was fixed term and due to ongoing budget cuts, was cut. I was 3 months out of work, at the end of which a large chunk of my car decided to fall off. Luckily I'd just started a new (far less well paid job but one taken by necessity). Even then, by my calculation I was about 4 weeks away from having nothing left in savings once 3 months living off them and a very expensive car were taken into account.