The Pillowman - Duke of York's

It’s quite something to go from casting Aaron Taylor J to Lily Allen.

The main problem I had with it, and what I still can't figure out, is


Perhaps that's explained better in the text / with other productions people have seen.

Saw this last night and I have to say I really disagree with the comments about Lily Allen's performance, I thought she was great and carried the show really well! She must have been quite emotionally exhausted afterwards. If I hadn't known it was her I would have thought it was someone else, she looks so different to the Lily Allen whose music I grew up with as a teenager in the mid noughties. The two police officers were great too, especially Steve Pemberton.

I hadn't seen or read the play before so, although I knew it would be dark, I went in fairly blind and...wow. It as quite hard to sit through at times, and I didn't laugh anywhere near as much as the audience. Some parts were genuinely funny, while others I had more of a grimace on my face at because of the subject matter (for example during a racist joke).

Ons slight thing that confused me (as I wasn't familiar with the play) was that near the start when Katurian told the story about her parents, it was a little boy rather than a little girl- they gender swapped the character but kept that unchanged for some reason?

Overall I'd probably give this about three and a half stars, not a bad play at all but like someone else said it did lack stakes and tension about the ending, which would have pushed my score up to four stars. I think when the interval came around I wasn't that excited or curious to find out what would happen next, which is a problem. I also don't think the subject is my personal cup of tea (is it anyone's?!) and that coupled with the gore means I doubt I'd have seen this at all if I wasn't curious about Lily Allen's acting!

Please could you post the link? I can't find it.

After giving this production a watch and mulling over it for a while, I've more or less come to the same conclusion as everyone else has. Whilst the rest of the cast (especially Paul Kaye) do a good job, Lily Allen was the weak link. Whilst she wasn't 'awful'and admittedly, she does have her 'moments', but she was horribly miscast in this role.

It's a real shame, as 'The Pillowman' is one of the 'modern classic plays', as someone had previously called it on this thread and seeing it be revived in a 'middling' production with questionable casting choices is a bit of a let down. Maybe if Aaron Taylor-Johnson was able to do this, it might have helped, but we may never know, unless this gets a second life and either he, or someone with better acting chops than Allen, is cast as Katurian. But who knows.

I entirely disagree with this, so it's super interesting that this is your take.

They're great parts and a great text, for great actors and directors - we just didn't get that here for me.

What is the biggest crime is that they have taken a play that was truly creepy and chilling at the NT years ago- and robbed it of all atmosphere and suspense.

I’m so sad that people are leaving thinking the play isn’t good.

Certainly Lily Allen’s weak performance doesn’t help things.

Maybe Allen's performance has improved over the course of the run, and that explains the different opinions?

I saw this this afternoon, with a fairly lengthy show stop due to illness in the audience.

Thought it was absolute brilliant, with very difficult subject matter. A play that made you laugh but also feel uncomfortable.

We had the understudy for Ariel, who was very good, and Lily Allen and Steve Pemberton were both fantastic.

Got a standing ovation at the end and Lily Allen was clearly very emotional, particularly in the last scene.

Huge respect to the FOH staff who dealt with everything professionally and quickly.

I was a little apprehensive going into this because of the various reviews and comments I had seen, but I actually did really enjoy this. Lily Allen was not great, but the rest of the cast I thought were fantastic. The story itself is also very interesting and I came out of the show glad that I had gone. Well worth the day seat price of £25

I went there to see their version of Candide.

Left me wondering why the quality was so poor, particularly the sound.   People do a better job Videoing school plays.

For obsessives only.

So yes I was glad I saw their Candide (even if I constantly wondered why it was such a poor record.)

Can anyone with access to The Times screenshot/copy and paste this here please?


*If that's allowed of course!