A Little Life - Richmond/Harold Pinter/Savoy/ Cinema

Did I just book cinema tickets to see it for the fourth and final time? Of course I did! Really curious to see how this was filmed.

Also, a nice surprise to see Elliot Cowan pop up a few times in the new TV series Fifteen Love. I’ve not seen any of his previous work but interested to know what he does next.

Just heard, it is indeed transferring to Broadway with west end cast.

I'm sure they will be taking a well deserved rest first and if true it would have been hugely helped by the writers strike especially in Thompson's case as he would be locked into Bridgerton and especially as he is probably set to lead Series 4.



Or alternatively it could be over a year away and Series 4 done and dusted for him. Whatever the case he won't be able to do it if it isn't around their timetable.

But what a career opportunity for all if so. But very much a marmite production. Wonder how it will go down.

If true, then that’s brilliant news for all involved. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything else in the theatre that’s had such an impact on me and stuck in my mind so much since seeing it (hence having to go back for a second visit last week!).

The cast absolutely need a long break before resuming, but I’d assume they’re scheduling 2024 dates for Broadway. If so, as others have said, the writers strike and production shut downs may well have made this viable if Bridgerton filming is on hold.

Completely agree with this.  I also mistook which 'Luke from Bridgerton' I would be seeing when I saw this for the first time (I thought it was Luke Newton!).  But Luke Thompson has been the standout for me during this production.  He doesn't have a huge back catalog but I'd love to see more of him.  I hope he does more theatre in future. 

I think he has been making a name for himself in the theatre world particularly at the Globe and Almedia and a lot of Shakespeare. He was in Scott's Hamlet and if I remember rightly maybe some other really well received stuff but smaller characters. However if you consider timings he must have come out of RADA in 2013...I've heard him say he went there with Buckley and thats the year she graduated because I saw her in the Tempest at the Globe that summer with Allam. I think he was also in plays there that summer but not that one. 6 years later he went into Bridgerton and then lockdown. Not long really to make a name for yourself. Unless you get this one movie or TV gig making a name in theatre takes a while.

Anyway I think he is probably there now with this.

I think a lot is snobbery about culture which seems light weight. Everyone at my work watches Bridgerton but many would say but yeah it's rubbish but I love it. Which got me thinking about it because it isn't rubbish. The story its based on is slight and mills and boony but its amazingly well acted and its production values are absolutely astounding from production design, costume, director, music. To be honest this came from the second series which, perhaps given the lead, seemed higher quality but also could be the characters bedding in because like I said I couldn't tell one brother from another in the 1st. If Thompson played Darcy in a BBC Pride and Prej no one would doubt he had immense talent going into this. No one doubted Norton even before he was in HV because he played a vicar in a sweet ITV drama and the lead in a BBC Andrew Davies literary heavy weight drama.

I saw S.Ronan in Macbeth at the Almedia...first time on stage and never once doubted she'd be amazing because I'd been told repeatedly over years from her heavy weight film work that she was great. To be fair she was great in everything I saw but also she had the critical weight behind her.

I think sometimes we need to get our heads out of our behind about how we view things we consider lightweight. Why because it is about romance or has mass appeal or whatever? Sometimes you want cavier and somethings a burger and chips. The likes of Bridgerton may be burger and chips but its high quality ingredients and tools and ovens.

And you know what I have never not enjoyed a Mills and Boon. Just wouldn't want to read just that. Balance in everything.

Yes. I hadn't seen that though. I knew she was well received. I went in to Macbeth thinking she'll be great. I mean she was. But you just expect her to be. It isn't going to make anyone think to go 'Saorise Ronan was really brilliant.' I mean obviously. I huge stress upon her personally because once you have that expectation you have to maintain it. I don't think that's how she, or anyone else, would see it though because it's a job at the end of the day and each challenging in its own way. Most things are about 20% ability and 80% sheer hard work.

I'd love to see Lee Pace and/or Zachary Quinto in a Broadway cast if everyone from London doesn't transfer (assuming that happens).

I would make a slight correction but Happy Valley aired before Grantchester. It was a strange turn going from serial killer to vicar in one year.

Poor old James Norton sat there starkers whilst people started shouting for an ambulance in the stalls! It was all handled fantastically though. Excellent work by cast and crew.

We were in the front row of the stage seats and found this production quite an unforgettable and special experience. From the cast being touching distance from us, the sensory overload of the smell of bacon and cleaning products, the sheer weight of the trauma unfolding in front of us... An event theatrical experience if ever there was one.

I'm honestly still quite taken aback by the places James Norton went to during this. I think the word fearless is probably a bit overused in theatrical terms but this was an absolutely fearless performance. Van Hove and Norton really took the depiction of Jude's abuse to the absolute limits, I think, of what can be shown on stage. It was genuinely quite distressing and I don't know how Norton does it every night. But beyond the nudity, the physical violence, the degradation, the stuff many actors just wouldn't do, there was a performance for the ages that will be talked about for the rest of Norton's career. It reached a crescendo for me towards the end of Act 2 whilst Jude sat in his wheelchair, unable to process the latest misery inflicted upon him. He said nothing. You could have heard a pin drop. The couching and the fidgeting melted away and we all sat there enraptured by this man's wordless performance. It was as exquisite as it was heartbreaking.

Zubin Varla too was just wonderful. A master at work, IMO. My partner said he will never forget how haunted Varla looked during the curtain call. I'm not a parent but I felt everything Harold went through.

Luke Thompson was also excellent, and I think this will help to cement his viability as a future leading man in serious theatrical productions. Elliot Cowan was sensational in roles that must be almost as tough to play as Norton's. He was so nuanced, it never fell into caricature which I think it would be easy to do.

All of that said, I think the play itself just isn't that good, particularly during the lighter moments at the start. It moves at breakneck speed trying to fit too much in to too short a space of time. As someone who's never read the book, some of it seemed completely pointless, like JB's jealousy of Jude, which felt jarring and added nothing. I imagine it's sacrilegious to those who love the book, but I'm not even convinced it made theatrical sense to have Malcolm and JB in the play at all. Dr Andy's character was ludicrous, and his implausibly long list of medical specialities were distracting. "I'll perform the operation myself!" Er, can't I have a leg surgeon instead, please?

Direction wise, I thought it was one of Van Hove's better recent efforts. The now ubiquitous video screens were well used and aided the feel of the piece. He wasn't afraid to keep it brutal and literal and confrontational and it reminded me a little of the in-yer-face theatre of the late nineties and early noughties (a formative style that I loved in my teens!) I thought the stage seating was an inspired idea, forcing the audience sitting in both directions to see the reactions of their fellow patrons as it all unfolds. The lighting coming up on the audience too... No passive voyeurism allowed here, nor a safety blanket of anonymity. It was confronting in the extreme.

One of the lines that I found very moving was Jude's "Not having sex: it was one of the best things about being an adult." Utterly harrowing, and inconceivable to those of us fortunate enough to have had safe childhoods. Van Hove states, amongst other things, in the programme that it's a dissection of the overvaluation of sexuality in relationships. I wish this had been explored more in the play text as it was fascinating to watch Jude and Willem navigate their relationship, but it was ultimately quite fleeting.

Probably a 3 star play for me, but the 5 star performances elevated it hugely.