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Post by samuelwhiskers on Feb 2, 2020 16:09:55 GMT
Sorry, I wasn't getting at you at all. Just a pet peeve how theatres say "debut play" when they mean "first major production." The theatre industry is obsessed with the idea of new 'raw' talent at the expense of allowing writers the essential time to develop their skills, and promoting the idea that highly experienced writers who have been writing for a decade or more are actually new writers just puts undue pressure on genuine new writers imo.
Clearly Blythe is a largely unknown writer, and is new in terms of being new to a mainstream theatre audience. So kudos to Hampstead for that. Will be interesting to see.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Feb 1, 2020 5:40:04 GMT
This is another of those “first full length professional production at a major theatre” being described as “debut play” situations. Sorry to be pedantic but Al Blyth has been an award winning playwright and screenwriter for 15 years.
I hate this trend of publicising writers who have been writing for donkey’s years as “new writers” or “debut writers” just because it’s their first major production.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 31, 2020 19:24:53 GMT
I saw an incredibly moving play about two South African gay men in the Cottesloe years ago that was performed entirely by puppets.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 29, 2020 21:01:34 GMT
Wonder if it'll be as good as Greenland.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 29, 2020 21:01:03 GMT
I'm not sure whether this is bad behaviour or etiquette or what ..... Two Chinese girls sitting next to me at today's matinee of Jamie were both wearing face masks which they kept on for the entire show. I wasn't aware we had been transported to Wuhan. Sorry to be flippant, but I think it's insulting to infer that our audiences are so plague ridden that they can't attend a show without masks. Don't infer it then. In this case it's probably cultural, but some people who are immunocompromised genuinely have to wear them.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 26, 2020 0:17:37 GMT
Yes!! And surely character development is key to an ongoing series? It’s strange to me that TPTGW and especially PPGW had so much character development and character-led plot development (when both those plays would have been strong as pure farces without those elements), but for for ongoing TV series where such development is essential, they decided to strip it out.
The only way a second series could work is if they make it a comedy about the ongoing adventures of the members of the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 25, 2020 18:37:00 GMT
I liked the {Spoiler - click to view} aeroplane bit.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 25, 2020 18:35:44 GMT
It should be law that if you rip open anything velcro in the middle of a quiet dialogue moment of a serious drama, anyone sitting near you can legally kill you.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 25, 2020 18:34:35 GMT
I'd really love if any future TV series showed a bit more 'behind the scenes', so we saw more of Chris Bean and the other characters as themselves, and the relationships between them. They used moving between the actual play and the behind the scenes goings-on so brilliantly onstage, thinking of things like accidentally playing the voice recording footage in PPGW, and surely TV could do this far more effectively? It's a bit flat without it. People unfamiliar with Mischief's stage shows possibly don't even realise it's supposed to be the same group of characters putting on different 'shows' every week. The episodes still work, but it feels a bit "this is a straight up spoof of a courtroom drama" or "spoof of a period drama" and the play-within-a-play element that lets you connect emotionally to the characters.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 25, 2020 8:37:41 GMT
I wonder if people at the National are reading this and sniggering, going, “Hey let’s announce we’re turning Kitchen into a Mongolian BBQ or a Chuck-E-Cheese next.”
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 25, 2020 7:57:01 GMT
How on earth is a slice of pizza more difficult, “stressful” and “embarrassing” to consume than a plate of pasta? I honestly don’t see the difference. Pizza and pasta are both carby junk foods you can eat with one hand. Burgers and meatballs are basically the same thing just shaped differently.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 24, 2020 11:35:54 GMT
Goold has a musical he’s directing in development at the Almeida right now.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 23, 2020 9:33:35 GMT
Agreed.
The middle section (basically everything with the 12 women in the room debating) is fantastic, a few lines a little on the nose but some of the strongest writing I've seen in years. And the end of the first half is incredible.
The first scene and even the second scene with the comedy lineup are unnecessary (and the first is painfully boring) and don't add anything to the play. The second scene has some good if tonally misplaced one-liners but we don't need such a massive scene just to introduce the characters, Ocean's 11 style. Is Kirkwood so insecure about her own writing ability that she feels the characters won't become clear and distinct through the writing, so forces us to sit through ten minutes of each character popping up in turn to say, " I am Mrs Smith, I have 5 children and a layabout husband, and I [insert pained anecdote showing they are the 'feisty' one, or the 'naive' one, or the 'menopausal' one]"?
Cut both scenes. Maybe keep the silent prologue. Otherwise cold open with all the women entering the debating room. Closed space, closed time. Ramp up the claustrophobia and the tension. Don't delay it with a bunch of one-liners about kissing books, or needless exposition.
The indeterminable ending or I should say endings dribble and blather and weaken all that went on before. I would end the play the second the guard does the thing at the end. Or possibly have Peake's character re-enter and a brief conversation before she accedes to the request. Bringing back one of the random women to monologue on and on and ON about some dog and nutmeg. Who cares?
It's a shame, because there's a phenomenal play there if it had only been cut a little.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 21, 2020 23:43:50 GMT
Airs on ITV on Easter and just had a big splashy press launch in America.
Has the full schedule for the tour been announced?
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 21, 2020 23:37:54 GMT
Olivia Colman and Jonathan Sayer from Mischief Theatre at Snowflake (Kiln Theatre) last night. There separately I should say before I start a rumour! Too late.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 19, 2020 19:08:41 GMT
I’ll spare you all my 40,000 word dissertation on how the the usurpation of Richard II by Bolingbroke undermined the concept of the divine right of kings and set in motion 620 years of slow rot for the English monarchy. (And frankly Henry VII taking the throne on the weakest of all claims should have destroyed the idea of dynastic rule completely.)
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 19, 2020 12:21:49 GMT
Yeah, GBBO forgot the magic formula for judges is one nice one who connects with and empathises with the contestants, and one “mean” judge who gives the proper criticism. Prue is often harsher than Paul so they don’t play well off each other.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 19, 2020 11:54:47 GMT
I didn’t see the Globe Henry VI this winter because I didn’t have a spare zillion pounds and a spare spinal column, so I’m happy to get to see it here, albeit in cut down form. . You think it will be cheaper ? No, but the RSC make all tickets £15 for disabled people so I can see anything in SuA very cheaply. The Globe allegedly has a handful of disabled tickets available for limited performances but I’ve never seen them.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 19, 2020 10:45:17 GMT
They are still royals and they still have their HRHs, they just won’t be using them. (But they will still be using Duke and Duchess.) Same as how Camilla is Princess of Wales but doesn’t use it.
Diana being stripped of her HRH didn’t affect her fame or popularity one bit, and the media and people around the world call her Princess Di (a title she never held) to this day. And she was not a “blood royal” like Harry.
Meghan and Kate are still known worldwide by their maiden names and not their titles.
To the world media he will always be “Prince Harry” and he’ll always be Diana’s son. And soon to be son of the King.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 19, 2020 9:42:38 GMT
A “comedic rebuttal to the MeToo movement” is how it was described to me by someone who had read it.
I don’t know if it’s due for summer, I was told 2020 so I assume summer.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 19, 2020 9:40:25 GMT
I didn’t see the Globe Henry VI this winter because I didn’t have a spare zillion pounds and a spare spinal column, so I’m happy to get to see it here, albeit in cut down form.
Nothing in their summer season appeals to me at all.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 19, 2020 0:13:32 GMT
Has the terrible Steven Moffat play been announced yet?
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 19, 2020 0:10:05 GMT
So the Queen has found a way to bilk her granddaughter in law for the cost of renovating one of her own houses (a Grade II listed royal property which she would have had to renovate sooner of later anyway), despite granddaughter not living in it.
You don’t get to be one of the richest women in the world without being savvy, got to hand it to her.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 15, 2020 21:28:33 GMT
I’m glad this play has sparked so much fascinating and valuable discussion.
I do wonder what the experience of seeing this play is for ethnic minorities who are not black, and for those who are lighter skinned or “white passing.”
Ditto those with mobility impairments or other disabilities that bar them from participating.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jan 14, 2020 15:34:41 GMT
Anyone going to see Charlie Russell’s improv thing at the Boulevard?
I wonder if we’ll start to see the core team members increasingly doing more outside of Mischief.
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