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Post by samuelwhiskers on Oct 4, 2021 17:25:43 GMT
R&J has been performed for 400 years with content warnings and I am not aware of any evidence at all of anyone suffering as a result. The question is whether warnings are actually of genuine help or are a response to a culture of over-sensitivity that seems to exist in a certain groups. You could easily just go and ask actual rape survivors, people who have been sex trafficked, people who have lost loved ones to homicide or suicide, people who have been in mass shootings or lost loved ones to masks shootings, people with PTSD, people who grew up in war zones, or people who have experienced any other form of trauma. Because if you bothered to actually talk to a single person who these content warnings are aimed at, you’d quickly learn that not only are they a “genuine help” to actual rape/violence survivors, they literally save lives. I have a close friend who was kidnapped and escaped sex trafficking as a young teen, now has C-PTSD, who attempted suicide after seeing a play that was triggering and feeling physically trapped in the middle of a row. When I was at doing my A Levels one of the set texts was about incest, several students requested a change of text. I was a teacher for a few years, every time I taught a classic text that had violence or suicide in it, I’d have at least a couple of students who became very distressed because of personal experience. I live in an area with high gang crime. Two teenagers were stabbed to death right outside my house and this isn’t rare. I bet those kids’ friends would have a very different reaction to R&J. I could give a hundred examples of people suffering real mental health problems due to PTSD triggers. The idea that in 400 years of performance, not one single teenager who’d lost a loved one to suicide or homicide was dragged on a school trip to see R&J, is simply implausible. To say “I’m not aware of it” is just plain weird - how much first hand contact do you have with kids living in areas with high rates of gang violence?! The fact that oppressed groups are most likely to have experienced violence, rape, gang violence, etc. means they are the most likely to need content warnings. It’s only ever people (usually men) from safe comfortable backgrounds who go around whining about how people are special snowflakes.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Sept 17, 2021 22:34:58 GMT
Have they started to get the running time down? It was 2 hours 55 mins last night.
Amusing but painfully slow, and more walk outs than I can remember seeing.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Sept 17, 2021 8:16:33 GMT
Apparently auditioning completely unknown disabled actresses for the role of Laura, per Twitter. Interesting way to go if they do decide to go that way.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Sept 2, 2021 21:00:32 GMT
I just finished reading David Weston’s memoir of the tumultuous Lear tour (which starred McKellan and Barber). Wonder if they shared fond - or perhaps not so fond - memories!
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Aug 6, 2021 20:49:36 GMT
I don’t know anything about musical theatre but I enjoyed this, despite the sweatbox that is the SWP’s studio. However I felt changing the era did not work at all.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Aug 6, 2021 8:19:44 GMT
No, she has no drama school training. Allen dropped out of education completely aged 15 to move to Ibiza.
Comparisons with Piper (who attended stage school for years, took acting classes as an adult, then went on the audition circuit, and started her career in small acting roles) are not really accurate.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 26, 2021 19:49:51 GMT
Billie trained at stage school - I think she possibly originally trained to become an actor rather than a singer - and did loads of acting classes in LA before she started going out on auditions, then started her professional acting career with fairly small telly roles and worked her way up. Which is pretty much the standard acting path. She didn’t just land a West End role because she was a pop star.
I don’t think Lily Allen has acted a day in her life before. Nothing wrong with wanting to explore new creative outlets, but your very first acting job being a West End lead is inevitably going to draw scrutiny. And let’s face it it clearly is pure celeb casting. No one cast Billie in her stage plays because of ‘Because We Want To.’
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 21, 2021 9:35:42 GMT
How does a cheese cross the road?
Caerphilly.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 20, 2021 16:28:50 GMT
Good for him. He and Meghan were and continue to be treated disgracefully by the Royal Family. As far as I’m concerned anyone who earns their own living - and Harry’s basically the only royal who does - is free to do whatever they like. If people don’t like it then just don’t read it.
As for “never complain never explain” none of the royals except the Queen and maybe Anne have ever abided by that. Charles has whinged on and on about his terrible childhood and how sh*t the Queen was as a mum plenty, his public feud with Edward is just ludicrous, and William’s a thousand times worse. William spends so much time complaining about the press (Tatler, the Rose thing), lying to the press (Covid and Scotland), censoring the press (C4), threatening the press (Rose again), and leaking stories about his brother to the press (all the stuff with Jason Knauf and Christian Jones), it’s a miracle he ever gets any work done.
Oh wait he doesn’t.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 1, 2021 13:30:40 GMT
So there are going to be two Animal Farms debuting next year? The James Graham one and the Robert Icke one?
Golly. Trotters at dawn!
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jun 30, 2021 10:48:05 GMT
With the exception of Marys Seacole (and with reservations about the audience-directed poetry) it sounds pretty boring and unoriginal.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jun 23, 2021 19:19:20 GMT
The only reason I know is that I was recommended to email someone there about a job and accidentally wrote “Young Vic”. Oops. Didn’t hear back, surprisingly.
I didn’t know till now that it’s not in *that* Newcastle!
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jun 23, 2021 8:19:52 GMT
The New Vic is a theatre in Newcastle. Lots of Ayckbourn plays have transferred there.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jun 12, 2021 17:56:59 GMT
Anyone know vaguely how long this is? I know they’ve not announced running time, but are we talking a straight 80-90 mins or closer to a 2 1/2 hour with an interval kind of deal?
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jun 9, 2021 10:36:29 GMT
I wish Greggs did a vegan or at least vegetarian sausage cheese bean melt.
Lidl do a vegetarian cheese and bean slice but the Royal Opera House get really sniffy iff you try to bring one in.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jun 8, 2021 21:53:40 GMT
Reader I ordered that second portion of cheese fries
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jun 8, 2021 21:53:10 GMT
Come out of theatre. Walk straight into Covent Garden Shake Shack. Order cheese fries.
Walk over Waterloo Bridge eating cheese fries.
Get to the South Bank. Still hungry.
Notice somewhere else selling cheese fries...🍟🤤🤤😳
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jun 4, 2021 18:51:37 GMT
The NT doing a new season announcement of basically fine but uninspiring productions with a couple of “oh that’s cool I guess” spotted within it.
Nature is healing etc.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jun 3, 2021 21:52:31 GMT
Took my best friend to see SRB’s Lear at the National for her birthday. Stopped by Las Iguanas for a cocktail first. Misunderstood the 2-for-1 happy hour deal; got two of every cocktail we ordered. Then realised we were in the front row. For the performance being filmed for NT Live.
“Please be silent.”
Oops.
Sorry Simon.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 29, 2021 15:26:30 GMT
It costs between £6k and £10k to bring a small fringe show or one-person show to Edinburgh Fringe. You have to pay a registration fee to the Fringe Festival itself which is a few hundred pounds. Being listed in the programme is an additional charge on top of that. Venue hire fees are ludicrously expensive. Then there’s transport and accommodation, marketing, public liability insurance, props, technical crew. That’s for bare minimum, performers doing their own gig as DIY as possible, no one being paid, style shows. Trying to present a professional-looking high quality production might necessitate hiring a professional director, producer, designer, hiring rehearsal space. That can double the budget. It’s very expensive. www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23778487.amp
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 26, 2021 19:46:00 GMT
Weirdly, the only place I’ve ever been pickpocketed was in Harrods.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 12, 2021 18:54:20 GMT
Just please don’t revive “Greenland” I was in the front row for that. Prayers and well wishes accepted.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 11, 2021 9:28:59 GMT
I miss my little overnight trips to SuA (s’up £29 Premier Inn special deal!) much more than I miss the actual RSC productions themselves. Not that the RSC haven’t done wonderful productions but it’s been a long time since I found them inspiring as a company.
I’ll watch the rehearsal since I’m doing some work stuff on that play anyway, but the RSC just isn’t on the radar right now.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Apr 30, 2021 17:57:39 GMT
Nobody loses their career over an “allegation.” That’s simply not how the industry works.
Whenever you see someone’s career turn upside down and witness everyone abandon them overnight, it’s because they were widely disliked and everyone knew they were a nightmare.
Ever wonder why some celebs survive scandals unscathed and some lose their careers overnight?
This is not a large industry. Everyone knows who the abusers and who the bullies are. It’s a shame those with power aren’t more willing to lead (though I know for a fact plenty of people have refused to work with NC over the years because of his behaviour) but the idea that commissioners are just sitting there going, “Well gee he always seemed like a nice bloke, but the Guardian say he’s cancelled so we won’t hire him anymore” is not based in reality.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Apr 30, 2021 17:17:35 GMT
I really wish people would stop acting like “not getting to be a celeb anymore” is overly punitive.
The hysteria about being “locked up” and “denied access to the world” is completely disproportionate to what’s actually happening: that TV and film companies no longer want to offer someone roles because it will damage their viewing figures.
99.99% of people who desperately want to be movie and TV stars, do not get to be movie stars. Being a celebrity is not some sort of right. Being denied celebrity status is not a punishment, but the natural consequence of behaviour in a job that’s entirely dependent on public likability. Celebrities exist only on the grace of the public. If the public lose interest in a person, they simply don’t get to be a celebrity anymore. Plenty of celebs have lost their careers and livelihoods simply because they gained weight, or aged, or had children, or became ill, or acted in a couple of boring projects. No outrage there, is there?
Why should a movie or TV studio decide to hand their millions of pounds to Noel Clarke, instead of the hundred other talented artists in their pitch slate? Why is choosing someone else over him an egregious punishment?
In many industries, being accused of being abusive or a bully is cause for firing; a cafe manager would certainly never say “well that waiter has screamed at half a dozen people but they’ve not been convicted of a crime so I can’t possibly fire them.” Why should actors be treated as untouchable and held to a different standard, with lasting fame some kind of birthright except in cases of criminal conviction?
Noel is perfectly free to pursue any job he wants, and to continue to self-produce his work. And other people are perfectly free to choose not to give him money for that work.
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