Royal Court - Caryl Churchill: Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp.

Always exciting to see Toby Jones in something.

Welcome Forrest! I loved Tom Motherdale in Richard III too! He was fab wasn’t he! Hope you enjoy and happy posting!

Thank you for the warm welcome Latecomer!

Also, glad to hear I'm not the only one looking forward to seeing Mothersdale back on stage (and who enjoyed Richard III).

Welcome @forrest good to get some new enthusiastic musings on the board.

If anyone (like me till just now!) hasn't booked yet, they seem to have released a few seats in row A of the stalls for quite a few dates including previously sold out ones. These are Band B so £32 - a lot of non sold-out dates previously only had £49 tickets further back available.

They’ve added an extra row of seats so row A is now second row - I (and I’m assuming many others) have asked to be moved to the new front row (BB) which is why these are now showing on sale.

No one seen this yet? I'm going tomorrow.

Extremely weird but interesting.

Not sure about the circus acts.

Three short plays before the interval, one long one after.

Frankly didn’t think much of the shorts but they all built together.
The final piece, Imp, is excellent.

Saw this last night, and it's a brilliant and unforgettable night, culminating in a one-hour play, "Imp" that is my instant favourite Caryl Churchill play for being entertaining, illuminating, and beautifully expressed in equal measure. There are echoes of Pinter and Beckett, but the play is distinctively Churchill, and I think "Imp" is one of the best new plays I've ever seen, one that seems to describe all the world in a living room, with Toby Jones and Deborah Findlay lending it so much hilarity and humanity, that I feel it is unlikely you will ever get a chance to see this play with a better cast, even if you are young!

Some spoilers follow. . .

The first half is three short plays, with two circus performers (a juggler and an acrobat) filling the time during set changes. The circus performers are useful to fill the time, and also to counterpoint the dreadfulness of human behaviour described by the first three pieces, suggesting the yin and yang of human accomplishments.

(1) Glass - There used to be a children's show called "Bagpuss," in which inanimate objects on a mantelpiece, powered by the love of a child, would come alive at night to tell stories and repair broken things. This play is like Caryl Churchill firing bullets through Bagpuss, as the actors embody mantelpiece ornaments, only for the insecurity and destructiveness of broken Britain to ravage them. As a concept, it's neat and mean, and the actors, in particular Patrick McNamee as an optimistic vase and Rebekah Murrell as "Glass" are affecting. The story seems to borrow from Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince," no amount of borrowed sadness or unhappy realism can shatter the towering love embodied in "Bagpuss!"

3 stars.

(2) Kill - Stephen Fry has recently been touring a 7 and a half epic of storytelling, "Mythos," venerating and embodying Greek myths. But everything he tells in 7 and a half hours, Churchill hilariously savages and decimates in 15 minutes, ripping those Greek myths to absolute shreds. And the sheer genius of the piece, is in the perspective: a droll Tom Mothersdale embodies all the Greek Gods, and insisting he doesn't exist, and that human imagination is responsible for the whole shebang, he matter-of-factly retells every violent and bloody and horrible thing the Greeks made up. If this were a University debate: it's Oxford (Churchill) 1, Cambridge (Fry) nil! This is a peerless short piece, and Mothersdale's comic timing rocks!

4 and a half stars.

(3) Bluebeard's Friends - Evil people in history, including prominent Nazis, have liked classical music and art, and had friends, and it especially hurts to know evil people have pretensions to art and affection, when we look to both for some small salvation. Bluebeard's friends, friends of a monster, Bluebeard, are an easy target for Churchill, in the wake of his death. But what makes this great is the way Churchill expands the whole concept of Bluebeard's friends to incorporate familiar concepts of modern life, like commerce and marketing, as well as how she digs deep into the ways we deny or admit complicity, and how opportunism often trumps values. It's often a gruesome piece (blood warning), images are striking and indelible, and thanks to a fantastic ensemble (Sarah Niles, Sule Rimi, Toby Jones and Deborah Findlay), there are some shockingly funny line deliveries: shocking how funny the deliveries, and funny how shocking the lines!

4 stars.

(4) Imp - is a one hour play, following the interval. It is the climax of the evening, and I think it is one of the best pieces Churchill has ever written, despite or perhaps because of her age. Through a Beckett type set-up, involving one set, two lonely characters, and two frequent visitors, Churchill seems to describe everything about human life: Survival, Shelter, Food, Companionship, Careers, Staying Sane, Getting through the day, Reproduction, Jealousy, Affection, Enmity, Temperament, our interaction with Great Art (from Shakespeare to the Greeks), and most importantly, Superstition and Religion, which is where the titular "Imp" comes in, and which brings that primitive charge you get in plays like "Jerusalem," that also address the primitive and superstitious.

Toby Jones and Deborah Findlay play cousins, who live together, and have dome so for so long as to always speak their minds. This latter quality allows the pragmatic Jones and superstitious Findlay to cut through so many issues so quickly, in such a humorous way.

I won't spoil the plot, but the Jones - Findlay double act is one of the best and most entertaining and most rewarding I've ever seen on stage!

As long as you don't hate Pinter and Beckett at their most comedic, you must GET A TICKET!

5 stars! Highlight of the Year!

I went last night to see this - my first trip to the Royal Court.

I will be honest I don’t feel I fully understood the first three shorts before the interval. Glass was really intriguing and I could have done with it being longer and more developed. Churchill was very well acted and I loved the balance of noir with human, but apologises I have no clue what murders they were discussing or if it was all fiction.

Imp after the interval made me realise I wasn’t losing my mind as I felt I connected and aligned with what was happening.

The cast were brilliant and every play had something that intrigued me.
The circus acts whilst pleasant seemed rather odd to me.

Seem to have been amongst the other hundred TB members last night, me and my friend oddly felt a little less connected to Imp than the first three. It didn't help that I was overheating (t's September?!?!) in the circle throughout Act 2, but I didn't feel like I got much out of it, aside from some great moments with Toby Jones.

On the other hand I really enjoyed the first three, I agree that Glass should have been slightly longer and more fleshed out because I was really intrigued and enjoying it. It does help to quickly google Bluebeard before you go if you haven't heard of the tale, in particular I liked the comedy and relevance of the group rationalising and attempting to empathasise with someone who is clearly awful, I was reminded of some of the online commentary recently about Mugabe. 'Kill' feels like less of a play and more like a performed poem, credit has to go to Mothersdale for what must be an incredibly difficult to memorise monologue.

And I was struck in each part by the brilliant design, I really enjoyed the black hole of the stage and these incredibly simple sets just existing, floating in the middle of it all.

Oh gosh, I was there on Friday too! Sadly I was a bit dazed (four hours plus in a no frills train with unexpected train change to standing room only for extra added joy, after a fairly sleepless week) but really enjoyed it. I wasn't alert enough to spot theatreboarders or Hollywood types but did sit on the table next to Churchill through dinner beforehand.