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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 20, 2021 23:37:38 GMT
Yes, I agree with that. Keeping a huge building like the NT open is so expensive (heating, the sheer number of staff including cleaners, security, foh, and backstage staff) it’s not worth doing just for one poor selling show.
I’m sure the cast and crew are happy not to have to travel and spend every evening in a room full of people, to lessen their chance of contracting Covid and having to cancel Christmas plans.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 20, 2021 23:10:01 GMT
That’s an issue with the commissioning model and the cliqueness of theatre. There’s no lack of incredible playwrights (especially emerging playwrights), but the major theatres just won’t engage with them, or if they do engage it’s with so many restrictions and on such exploitative financial terms that talent walks away and either goes into TV or self-produces their own work.
The NT in particular has a problem with the disconnect between the Studio and the NT proper, the huge number of development commissions they do every year, and their insistence on rushing plays onto the stage before they’re ready. It’s honestly shocking that talented emerging playwrights (who have perhaps had critically acclaimed shows at the Bush, SWP, Vault, etc.) get rejected for not coming from the right background, not being willing to play the game, writing too many characters, writing outside their marketing stereotype, all sorts of BS reasons. Yet other playwrights will have productions greenlit and scheduled before they’ve even written a word.
Unless a show is created specifically to be improvised or devised or something there’s absolutely no reason to schedule a production run without seeing a script first.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 19, 2021 10:38:07 GMT
One of the cast, Shaniqua Okwok (who plays Dora), posted on IG stories that Saturday’s performance (18 Dec) is now their last. Sadly some of the members of the cast and crew didn’t want to continue anymore. I feel very sorry for everyone. With even The Ocean announcing some dates cancellation due to COVID, now all the NT productions have cancelled and will resume after Christmas. Normally I support actors over this type of thing (eg all the Cinderella stuff) but my god, what a bratty thing to do. The videos she made rolling her eyes at her colleagues for daring to sing/have fun together/do vocal warmups - so childish, especially to film people seemingly without their knowledge. I doubt Manor being pulled is as simple as “the cast don’t wanna”; presumably the NT made the decision based on multiple factors in terms of sales and Covid. It’s expensive to keep a huge venue like the NT open for just one show and if ticket sales are low it probably makes financial sense to just shut the building.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 16, 2021 19:57:44 GMT
I was sitting directly behind Goold at Spring Awakening press this week and he was furiously typing notes into his phone the entire time.
Would have thought copious note taking was more common during previews; it’s normally, well, press who scribble away during press nights.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 15, 2021 16:23:09 GMT
1. Best of Enemies 2. Old Bridge 3. Leopoldstadt 4. Pride and Prejudice (Sort of) 5. Come From Away
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 9, 2021 19:00:51 GMT
Sure thing. Thanks. I’m definitely offended now. So offended. Thank you for educating me so I can now understand what I should and should not be offended by. Appreciate it. Clearly some Jewish people were hurt and upset by this. Why can’t you accept that - and accept that not all people (certainly not all Jewish people) will agree on everything or have the same emotional response to things, and the fact this doesn’t bother you doesn’t invalidate their hurt, or mean they’re telling you that you must be “offended.”
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 6, 2021 20:48:53 GMT
Prompter with laptop has been replaced by prompter with paper script in folder. The power of TheatreBoard!
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Dec 2, 2021 14:31:52 GMT
I use the spray (which costs like £2) and it works like magic. Not a hint of fog.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 25, 2021 11:36:51 GMT
maybe it's just me, but it's not that hard to plan ahead so you don't have to get up, even for a 3+ hour film. I'm loving this new trend of abandoning them! It has nothing to do with “planning” and everything to do with being young and able-bodied.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 24, 2021 22:23:50 GMT
It’s definitely better than Damned by Despair, if only by being weird enough (or even possibly bad enough) to avoid total boredom.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 24, 2021 16:13:47 GMT
What happened to TodayTix’s search feature?!
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 24, 2021 16:13:13 GMT
YV’s Best of Enemies is going into the West End next year (not a musical obv), not sure which theatre.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 24, 2021 16:11:45 GMT
It’s so very weird I kind of liked it just for the sheer weirdness factor alone. The set and some of the staging choices are bonkers. The script itself is boring and doesn’t address any of the issues it seeks to address more than superficially. A few nice gags. Some awful jokes.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 24, 2021 10:42:15 GMT
In my head a Chelsea Bun has currents and rock sugar or light icing on top, and a Belgian Bun has thick white icing and a glacé cherry on top.
However, I am very much not a baking expert so that might be nonsense.
(Am willing to conduct scrupulous research on the matter if it will serve the greater good of this thread.)
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 23, 2021 22:20:49 GMT
The people who don’t know what a Belgian Bun is obviously don’t go to Greggs enough.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 19, 2021 10:52:54 GMT
Money laundering/tax scam.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 15, 2021 19:03:27 GMT
I once witnessed MM waft up to Maxine Peake after a performance of her critically acclaimed Hamlet and say “oh I didn’t tell you I was coming because it’s terrible unfair on actors if they know that *I* am watching.”
Then say “well I see there are adoring fans waiting for your autograph” while waving her hand towards a (hilariously furious) Hollywood movie producer.
She has a truly awe-inspiring level of self-confidence.
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NT 2022
Nov 12, 2021 12:20:04 GMT
via mobile
Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 12, 2021 12:20:04 GMT
And again no sign of ‘Jack Absolute Flies Again’!!!! That’s a shame, it’s the one I was most looking forward to.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 12, 2021 12:19:13 GMT
Agreed. I thought this was a fantastic play.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 7, 2021 21:17:17 GMT
I can explain.
It’s nothing to do with having a villainous character who is Jewish. It’s having a Jewish character whose specific “villainous qualities” are well-known antisemitic tropes that have been used in racist propaganda for centuries.
If someone created a villain who was a serial killer who went around butchering people with a chainsaw, and that character happened to be Jewish, that wouldn’t necessarily be antisemitic since there’s no history of Jewish people being associated with chainsaws.
If you don’t mind a quick history lesson: during the Middle Ages Jewish people were banned from many jobs and guilds and were forced to become money lenders, which was considered dirty/bad and not something decent Christian people were allowed to do. The entire reason that the association between Jews and finance exists in the first place is because Christian Western societies quite literally forced Jews to do so.
The authorities and the Church (remember this is when the Church had huge power) then demonised and violently oppressed Jewish people for doing the very thing they themselves had forced them to do.
The historical association of Jews and finance was then weaponised to incite Jew hate, and this association has been a mainstay of antisemitic propaganda ever since. Over time this association grew and grew, and developed into conspiracy theories, about Jews secretly controlling the world (as well as racist tropes about Jews being greedy, Jews being Demonic, Jews not caring about anything but money).
This antisemetic propaganda has been directly responsible for centuries of murder and oppression, including forced exiles and genocides.
For example, one of the main reasons WWII/the Holocaust happened was because the Treaty of Versailles (the Treaty that formally ended WWI) enforced such incredibly harsh penalties on Germany - Germany was ordered to pay Reparations to a cost that would be £284 BILLION in today’s money - that the country went broke and plunged the German people into severe poverty and starvation.
Now the number one rule of government is always find someone else to blame and scapegoat for your failures, and always find someone weaker to blame. Of course the German government were not going to hold their hands up and say “hey we screwed up, we went to war and lost and this is our punishment.” Instead the German government launched a deliberate plan to convince the German people that their country’s financial situation was the fault of the Jews, who were secretly hoarding money.
It’s the exact same thing the Tory government and Tory press do when they try to pretend the country’s financial problems are due to disabled people claiming benefits (disability benefit fraud is something like 1% and the amount the government pay out in disability benefits is negligible) to detract attention from the fact the UK would have a lot more money if the government made corporations pay tax, and cracked down on corruption! But it’s easier to lie to people that the reason they had to wait ten hours in an understaffed A&E is because Jim from next door who has MS used his benefits money to buy a TV.
The Holocaust simply would not have happened if the German government hadn’t used Jews as a scapegoat, and the reason they were able to do so is because of literally centuries of antisemitic propaganda painting Jews as money hoarders. (There’s plenty of information out there if you want to research, start by looking at post-WWI era propaganda posters and magazines.)
This continues to this day. That’s without even going into the Elders of Zion, blood libel, Q-Anon.
That’s the reason this specific set of characteristics is antisemitic. Because it’s referencing a specific stereotype that was invented in order to scapegoat Jews, demonise Jews, incite racial hatred, and justify forced expulsion and genocide.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 6, 2021 22:51:45 GMT
The character wasn’t called Peter. Ludicrous false comparison. He was named the most stereotypically Jewish, absolutely 100% Jewish-coded name there is, for a character (“the evil hook-nosed money grubber who secretly controls the world”) that’s basically a great big walking Antisemitic Stereotype 101.
That’s like saying a character who spends every scene getting drunk and randomly blowing up things with petrol bombs who happens to be named Seamus O’Leprechaun absolutely isn’t an Irish character and how could any Irish person possibly be offended because clearly it’s nothing to do with Ireland or Irish people.
FYI multiple people including actual Jewish people raised concerns and complaints about this during the play’s long journey to the stage, and were overruled and shut down. They knew. They were absolutely aware it was a name that screams “THIS CHARACTER IS JEWISH” and refused to listen to Jewish people’s complaints for months until it turned into a social media scandal.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 6, 2021 10:56:32 GMT
The Royal Court being hypocritical racists. Must be a day ending in Y.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Nov 2, 2021 3:55:48 GMT
I also find the seat thing frustrating.
Btw James Graham has yet another new (short) play titled ‘Shoot’ debuting this winter, which will be broadcast on Sky Arts this Christmas.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Oct 22, 2021 11:12:27 GMT
I remember that. I attended some kind of launch event (at iirc the Shakespeare Institute? I don’t know why it was there and not at the RSC itself) when Doran was first appointed, where he gave his first speech about his plans for his tenure. I remember him explaining the whole thing about the plan to do all 37 plays in six years but that the marketing people were making him say 5 years, and I remember the whole thing about how previously the emphasis had been on the C in RSC and his emphasis would be on the S.
I guess it’s “Company” in terms of “ensemble”. Previously the RSC had an actual “acting company” where an ensemble of actors would commit to the RSC for a long period. Traditionally if you joined the RSC you’d sign a three year or a one year contract and it’d be a long term job and comprehensive Shakespeare training. Of course certain actors like David Tennant would join as a one-off (though I think DT was part of a longer term RSC ensemble pre-fame) but most of the actors were on a longterm contract and acted in most of the plays. Since Doran, of course they are still a company in the wider sense of everyone who works there, but they don’t have a specific “acting company” but instead cast each production individually. The old way was more like the rep system, I guess.
Personally I liked the idea of having a long term ensemble but I can also understand that there are practical and creative problems with that model.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Oct 18, 2021 11:06:22 GMT
I wouldn’t be able to post here under my real name because I work in theatre and it would damage my career. I don’t post anything that’s hateful or bigoted but simply saying I disliked a production could easily cost me a job. It’s nice being able to share my honest opinions on what plays I like and dislike because that’s the whole point of a board like this.
People advocating for an end to anonymity never think about vulnerable people who need anonymity, eg victims of stalking, rape and incest survivors, people living in abusive homes, minors dealing with family abuse, people living with mental illness or even some physical illnesses, and people struggling with sexual or gender identity, all of whom might rely on the Internet as a safe space to discuss issues and gain support over subjects where discussing those things under their real names might actively endanger them.
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