I'm Not Running (National Theatre)

I’ve just returned my tix for this because my OH said he didn’t want to go. Stamped his foot, he did. I noticed that the tix were quite expensive. I should have learnt by now....

Thanks for the info. A quick phone call to the box office tonight and I’ve managed to swap my more expensive circle seat for one of the £15 stalls seats and got a credit note for the remaining balance.

Afraid i didnt think so, not even SRB could save it.

Thanks to all the naysayers here just binned my ticket for January and decided to go see Christmas Carol at the Old Vic instead...

At least this time

You didn’t ask someone else to buy the ticket

Having no intention of going in the first place

On the disappointing theatre thing, chalk another up- a very very very dark matter at the bridge, which I booked last year and was so looking forward to.

Despite the terrible reviews of this we decided not to return our tickets but to go to this afternoon's performance as planned. I remember loving The Secret Rapture back in the 1980s and Plenty and thought that there must be something in any David Hare play which would redeem it. I was wrong. This was just awful. Quite a lot of empty seats towards the rear of the stalls but also quite a lot of people seemingly finding the play hilarious (my partner and I didn't laugh once). I do feel sorry for the actors who face a long run of this - although I see that there is a big break in November when they could, at least, cut it down a bit. At this rate I don't think I'll be renewing my National Membership next year - I've seen too many duds there recently.

He's written books about his research for earlier plays. So it seems an odd thing not to do now. Research helps, and amidst the information processed there is a tendency for ideas to crop up.

Just to reassure anyone who's returned their tickets: you've done the right thing. I've seen pretty much everything Hare has written since the late 80s, and this is very poor. The dialogue and characterisation are unbelievable; the play in no way relates to contemporary politics - debates within the Labour party today without mention of Brexit or Momentum? The final showdown was ridiculous - why the male's sudden attack on feminism? - and from the front row it was hard to tell whether the rest of the audience was laughing at the character or the writing, so unlikely it all was. With the exception of the off-piste Moderate Soprano the only really good writing Hare has done over the past 20 years has been based on reportage/interviews.

And I'm seeing A Very, Very, Verk Dark Matter on Saturday afternoon...worst theatre-going week ever?

I was in a £15 seat tonight and can't say it wasn't value for money at that price. Definitely a play of two halves though. The first half sets it out as a play of ideas, a consideration of the party system and what makes people get into politics and does politics really change anything. Being theatre though the playwright feels obliged not just to introduce a narrative sub-plot with characters but to flesh them out and make it into a little entertainment and as it goes into family saga it drifts away from politics.

Second half though it's playing to the gallery time. When Alex Hassell, playing Jack Gould, who has a passing resemblance to Hugh Laurie, goes into a hysterical fit in his argument with former lover turned political rival Pauline Gibson (Sian Brooke) you know the pass of serious drama has been sold. This has become Public Lives: Elyot and Amanda do Politics.

I make a distinction between politics and plays about politics, I'm not into propaganda, so I'm not bothered there isn't anything about Corbynism, Bevanism, Keir Starmer or Keir Hardie. If I were inclined to be fair to Hare I'd say what he is trying to do is deal with the general rather than the particular. Perhaps this is meant to be universal rather than topical. This isn't his finest hour but it passes the time if you don't treat it too seriously.

I didn't know lead actress Sian Brooke much, although I must have seen her years ago from her cv, but whilst her acting was very good I found her voice grating. Maybe she was suffering from a head cold or maybe it was just me.