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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2019 12:07:19 GMT
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5,691 posts
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Post by lynette on Mar 1, 2019 20:29:26 GMT
Jude the Obscure is one of the most painful and depressing works in the Eng Lit canon. No spoilers. Won’t be seeing this one.
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Post by tmesis on Mar 1, 2019 20:43:57 GMT
I love Jude the Obscure so I will be seeing this one.
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Post by lynette on Mar 2, 2019 16:43:55 GMT
I love Jude the Obscure so I will be seeing this one. We should meet up for a drink, tmesis, we obviously have alot to discuss. 😁 |
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Post by tmesis on Mar 2, 2019 18:17:02 GMT
I love Jude the Obscure so I will be seeing this one. We should meet up for a drink, tmesis, we obviously have alot to discuss. 😁 Yes since I'm a Hardy obsessive you would obviously love talking to me about his lesser known works like 'Desperate Remedies' and 'The Hand of Ethelberta.' |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2019 9:50:15 GMT
It's not a particularly chirpy tale is it, I think I'll wait to see who they cast first.
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Post by Fleance on May 4, 2019 8:10:32 GMT
Jude sounded promising, so I went along to a preview at the Hampstead, a theatre which I love, having seen the earliest production of The Elephant Man there in 1977 and many fine plays since then. I'm afraid Jude was not up to the usual standard, though I did find it interesting, with some good performances, particularly Caroline Loncq and Luke MacGregor. The first act was pretty good, the second a bit of a muddle. I did not like the performance of the woman who played Jude. Time Out began their review with an appropriate line about Jude being Edward Hall's final production as Artistic Director at the Hampstead Theatre: "What a weird way to end."
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Post by NeilVHughes on May 11, 2019 16:35:45 GMT
Found this to be a complete mess, too many ideas unfulfilled with a central character who is impossible to warm to.
Having not read the book someone who has may get more out of it but for me this was the first clunker of the year and up there with Obsession with a porcine equivalent to the treadmill.
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Post by lynette on May 11, 2019 21:40:21 GMT
Found this to be a complete mess, too many ideas unfulfilled with a central character who is impossible to warm to. Having not read the book someone who has may get more out of it but for me this was the first clunker of the year and up there with Obsession with a porcine equivalent to the treadmill. Terrible book. So I decided not to risk this. Good call, me. |
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Post by showgirl on May 12, 2019 4:00:25 GMT
I must learn to stop being swayed by Libby Purves (Theatrecat) as her rave reviews keep swaying me, only for them to turn out to be over-generous and out of synch with the majority. I've never managed to read any Hardy and have been caught out too often by booking for turkeys (or less successful productions) in the main house at Hampstead over the last year or so, and I did manage to adhere to my resolution to wait and see with this one. However, LP published another 4-star review just before PN so I yielded and booked a cheaper seat than usual (thank goodness!), only to see that I might regret it.
I will probably still go so if anyone could give any info on the configuration and sightlines I'd be grateful, please, as no-one who has seen this has mentioned it but the usual layout has been changed quite a lot.
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Post by Fleance on May 12, 2019 13:11:08 GMT
I must learn to stop being swayed by Libby Purves (Theatrecat) as her rave reviews keep swaying me, only for them to turn out to be over-generous and out of synch with the majority. I've never managed to read any Hardy and have been caught out too often by booking for turkeys (or less successful productions) in the main house at Hampstead over the last year or so, and I did manage to adhere to my resolution to wait and see with this one. However, LP published another 4-star review just before PN so I yielded and booked a cheaper seat than usual (thank goodness!), only to see that I might regret it. I will probably still go so if anyone could give any info on the configuration and sightlines I'd be grateful, please, as no-one who has seen this has mentioned it but the usual layout has been changed quite a lot. We sat in G1 and G2 in the stalls. My impression, though, was that any seat in the house would be fine. Although it was the weakest play I've seen at the Hampstead for a long time, I'm glad I saw a preview. It wasn't boring, and I'm a sucker for anything that incorporates the classics, and with the Hardy connection thrown in, I couldn't resist. Brenton and Hall were in the house and mingling at the interval. What "turkeys" have you seen at Hampstead over the last year or so? I try to go to the Hampstead whenever I'm in London, as I love the theater spaces, and it's just a convenient hop up on the Jubilee from Bermondsey. In the last few years, I've seen The Hoes, Caroline or Change, The Slaves of Solitude, Gloria, Kiss Me, The Moderate Soprano, Stevie, Wonderland, The Last of the Duchess; and the transfer of Sunny Afternoon. I liked many of those plays, to some extent, although I found the end of Kiss Me to be irritating. I also liked The Glass Supper (downstairs, 2014), which got a one-star review from Lyn Gardner in The Observer, whose headline was: "Objectionable People Shrieking Loudly.:" |
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Post by joem on May 25, 2019 23:04:40 GMT
Weakest Brenton play I've seen since Dr Scroggy's War. it seems to me that perhaps he has been concentrating on plays with real characters because he is finding it difficult to create convincing ones of his own? The central character of Jude/Judith (Isabella Nefar) neither credible nor especially sympathetic, her entire back-story seems forced.
Not sure why Brenton felt the need to link this to Hardy's novel. Surely it can't be for box-office appeal? As it is, the link is tenuous and does neither Brenton nor Hardy any favours. Those of you who didn't want to see this because you find the novel depressing can breathe a sigh of relief. The bad news is that this isn't especially cheerful (although Caroline Loncq has some fine lines in a good cameo as, Deirdre, an Oxford don) and it also features a cloak and dagger sub-plot which gathers strength as the play develops but seems, frankly, like a discarded plot by Brenton from his time in "Spooks".
It's a shame because in many ways this is a clever play, but there are simply too many issues thrown in and barely discussed, the Euripides device seems forced and the main plot incredible and it all ends up as an unsatisfactory mishmash of unresolved ideas.
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Post by showgirl on May 26, 2019 4:10:52 GMT
I dumped my matinee ticket for this yesterday to see Amour (see that thread). Not something I would want to do and rare for me but I decided it was worth the risk and extra cost and think it was. Even my new Hampstead main house policy of not-booking-ahead-but-waiting-for-reviews didn't save me this time but I'm getting there.
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Post by tmesis on Jun 1, 2019 16:41:59 GMT
This is not much of a homage to the Hardy original and I agree with most of the comments. The first act is particularly tedious but it does become considerably more interesting after the interval. You never really warm to any of the characters though, and in particular 'Jude' herself.
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