Nine Night - Dorfman

Going tomorrow - will let you know.

Have heard it is very good. I wonder why they didn’t change the title as there is already an excellent play with the same theme called Nine Night by Edgar White. Seems very disrespectful as though trying to erase a history and a playwright’s work. I can understand if a young writer knew nothing about White’s play, but the National’s ignorance is offensive given that the details of this play are kept in the NT’s archives.

Quite. White's play is The Nine Night. Would I on the principle mentioned above be barred from writing a play called Homecoming or Crucible?

I can think of at least three different novels called Night Watch/The Night Watch, and The Power Of Love is an extremely popular name for a song, and people cope with that degree of replication just fine. I think two plays with very similar titles is probably okay.

I suppose not but you probably wouldn’t unless you were self consciously referencing such well known plays with your own. For example, the way that Aime Cesaire does with A Tempest.

OMFG

Firstly let me say
There is NO way this is not transferring

The Dorfman really is doing well
For itself

Once in while
You go the theatre

And you see something
And you just know
It’s going to go down in history

For me this doesn’t happen often
Due to being a fussy person

Perhaps performance wise
The last time I thought this was
Yerma
Although I had issues with the play first time around
Billie Piper was undeniable

Same with Denise Gough
PPP
Although again for me the play was massively flawed

Other example was at one of the first previews for OMTG
I just knew it was going to be massive

Nine Night for me
Is probably the best new play I have seen
In the last 5 years
And the best new play
I have ever seen at the NT

In 2 hours
This play
Ticks all the cultural equality boxes
And smashes through them and beyond
It transcends culture colour and race

I was so pleased to see such a diverse audience
At least 1/3 black patrons
And never have I heard such laughter
Joy and tears in a play
One of the best and most enjoyable audiences I have had the pleasure to sit with

What looks at face value like
A simple domestic drama

And initially seems as if it’s going to offer cliches

Cleverly rises above that

Cecilia Noble only has to move her lips and the audience were in hysterics

The play looks at where black people specifically those of Jamican origins are in the U.K. now
But rings a bell with immigrants from anyplace
It doesn’t offer easy answers either
But some problems and issues don’t have any solutions
They just are
And sometimes raising them is enough

After constant steaming piles of sh*t at the NT
Particularly plays stuck up their own arse
Like Consent and that even more awful one Rufus Norris attempted to direct

Here is something to be PROUD of

It has some of the funniest killer one liners
I have heard for years
And there are some real soap opera moment
Which had the audience whooping and gasping

But the ending is unbearably moving
Franc Ashman captures grief in such a shocking and raw
Way
It reminds us of our own mortality

Please please please go
And see this play

Have never seen such a reaction

At a play

It really brings into stark reality
The inequality in theatre
And life

This play is way better than The Ferryman

Let’s see how much recognition it gets

My review would go
So far as to say

The biggest landmark in black theatre
For a decade
Since Elminas kitchen

Based on the reviews here, and Parsley’s rave, I have just booked. Parsley,you should be on commission... though maybe not for some of the other plays you see. Seeing this the same day as The Writer...

I'd already booked to see this in the evening after part 2 of The Inheritance at the matinee, so it's sounding like a great day - and I have the Monet & Architecture exhibition in the morning. However, back to the point: re Parsley's suggestion of an NT Live broadcast, that would be great if the play and production are really that good, BUT aren't such relays are usually planned months ahead and haven't they so far relied on being a known quantity, either in terms of the work, eg a Shakespeare or popular opera, or a new play but by an established writer?

Not saying it shouldn't happen but it might take a while. Though from the sound of it, if it did, this could be the best use of NT Live yet and might do more for theatre generally if a different audience could see something to which they could relate.

I wasn't aware of this until Foxa pointed it out and despite being half-Jamaican I am not familiar with the concept

As much as I slag off Norris and as much as I hate the Dorfman as a space I am glad this studio space is being used to put diverse works on and get more people who look like me (or who look nothing like me) into the theatre.

Booked to see it again in the last week, as I was enjoying myself so much I’m sure I missed some of the subtleties and the opportunity to see it again in the intimate Dorfman instead of a souless West End Theatre (Deserved transfer permitting) is too much of a temptation to resist.

Not many tickets left for the run, looks as if it will sell out in the next few day, if it does not transfer the NT would be insane not to bring it back as they did for the Barber Shop Chronicles.