Beginning - Dorfman

Well. I thought it was smashing. Olivier nominations for Justine Mitchell and Sam Troughton too please.

Very funny and incredibly touching, there were laughs and tears, tears and laughs and so on and so forth. I'd never particularly warmed to her before but I though Justine Mitchell was marvellous and I'll even forgive her the dreadful lamé skirt but I thought Sam Troughton was sensational, a real delight of a performance of a lonely man almost always on the edge of tears. When he talked about his heart breaking, you could very well believe it.

I have to say though, I don't think I'd have eaten that fish finger sandwich. It wasn't in the oven for very long.

And I hope that . . . 

how it looks days seats at this theatre
I am curious about play (review are good) , however on the date I am interested/ can go tickets are bit expensive for me
know. and I thinking about try with DA
but never done this .

Whoops

Somewhere along the line I'd decided this was the smash hit show of the National season that I'd missed, and certainly when I checked a month ago or so I couldn't get tickets for the Dorfman run and was disappointed. So last week I waited in the 1500 person queue for the NT Friday Rush (thankfully they were all heading for Cranston and ignoring all other shows) and got 2 tickets to this, row J in the circle.

The first thing I'll say is that it was the worst audience I've ever sat in. If I can bring myself to do it, I'll post about that in the appropriate thread.

The second thing I'll say is that I read a lot on here and on the monkey's site about sitting closer to the stage for 'intimacy', not feeling so 'remote' from the actors. I've never really felt that before so don't usually care, although have a longstanding tendency to try and sit as close as possible in the stalls than go for back circle seats if I can afford to. In this, I really felt too far away. It's a tiny theatre, but the intimacy of the living room setting was just totally lost back there, and I think I didn't get to engage as well because of it.

The third thing I'll say is that hype is a dangerous thing, and so I think I was expecting something a bit more earth shattering than what I got, which is my fault entirely.

With that set up, onto the play itself. It was fine. Some nice moments, really well written I thought for what it is, this one long scene between these two characters whom I'm sure I passed facsimiles of walking to and from the theatre on London's streets. The actors were great, the set was lovely. I think if I'd walked into previews at the Dorfman I would have been very happy with this as an interesting piece of small-scale theatre exploring this endlessly awkward moment of potential romance between two people with a lot of baggage. What I felt walking out was that I'd had a difficult evening trying to 'get into' an interesting play that I'd worked up to be the five star play of the year.

The circumstances of my visit made it really difficult to love the show, but I definitely liked it. If I pegged it to a star rating it was between 3 and 4 somewhere. My advice: sit closely, expect nothing, have fun.

Just been to the matinée this afternoon, managed to get row N of the stalls for £18. Originally asked for a day seat which were all gone but got offered the above instead which I thought was probably a better seat. I was there at half 12 and evening dayseats were still available.

I loved it, well acted witb a good blend of humour and poignancy. Particularly liked Sam Troughton as Danny, who managed to look suitably awkward most of the way through but also had some of the best lines. I think Justine Mitchell may have as cold as sounded really croaky throughout.

Saw this earlier in the week from the middle of the front row, which I think was £15+£3 booking fee on TodayTix.

I presume it was an unsold day seat.

There was a huge section of the stage I didn't even see until the show ended (with there not being an interval), but if you can work around that, it's a good view when the actors are near the front of the (high) stage. There's also a tempting looking fish finger sandwich left right next to you at the end (no, I didn't eat it, but the couple next to me were chatting about it as I left and clearly tempted).

Ran much closer to two hours than the advertised time, made obvious by the clock on the wall. It felt rather stretched out to me.

Some excellent performances by the leads and I'm glad I got to see it. Lots of true to life moments shining through. Not fully to my taste, but I can see why it has a following.

UK tour in September, though I could only find a date for Bath. I loved this play so much I saw it twice in the West End. No word on casting but if Justine Mitchell and Sam Troughton are reprising their roles I'll see it twice again!

www.theatreroyal.org.uk/event/beginning/

Anyone have a full list of dates?