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Post by samuelwhiskers on Aug 7, 2017 10:26:27 GMT
I saw Simon Russell Beale do a bit of Falstaff on stage and he was so wonderful. Wish I could have seen Roger Allam!
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Aug 6, 2017 18:28:26 GMT
Dont say i didnt warn you. Rover would have been a better bet for a transfer imo. Ha, I saw The Rover, The Two Noble Kinsmen and The Seven Acts of Mercy in the Swan and, for different reasons, none of them was to my taste. I thought that The Rover was treated far too light-heartedly as a charming romp and it paled in comparison with Ned Bennett's production of a new play based on The Rover which was totally in-yer-face and exuberant with the sexual humiliations, attempted rapes, lusts, etc., etc.. 100% agree. Tonally it was all over the place. I saw Vice Versa the other week which was another patented RSC historical romp. Fun and impeccably well done, but the script was like someone had chucked the entire Carry On canon into a random word generator.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Aug 6, 2017 18:25:03 GMT
An African setting in a Stratford production can only be generic. There's no point setting it in the Congo or Zimbabwe or wherever because few would have enough familiarity with the specific context. Also, respectfully, this is nonsense. They wouldn't dare do, for e.g., a generic Chinese setting. They could quite easily have committed to the African idea, done some research and replaced the usual RSC generalities with some detailed cultural ideas. And got rid of the Jamaican gravedigger! From what I know of the production that's what they attempted to do. I've heard a bit of why they decided to set it in West Africa, and some of the research and cultural specificities that were involved. It's a shame if it came across as generically African. A flaw in execution, not intent. Admittedly I'm biased but I enjoyed it more than the Almeida Hamlet. The Almeida one was more intellectually rigorous and dazzling and certainly trendier, but I found it facile in places. RSC, regardless of the setting, fairly traditional.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Aug 5, 2017 14:21:40 GMT
You mean Andrew Scott, though actually I'd be MUCH more interested in Adam Scott's Hamlet than Branagh directing another snoozefest. Hamlet starts playing Cones of Elsinore, gets distracted, loses interest in vengeance. Wacky hijinks ensue.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Aug 3, 2017 23:40:22 GMT
I used to live on the same road in West London as David Tennant + family. He doesn't seem to have any problem buggering off to the US for six months for screen jobs (they have nannies, so I guess his wife is fine alone), but SuA might be a bit too close to get away with that. Or not pay enough, more's the point. Bertie Carvel lived on a boat too when he was doing Matilda. Presumably not the same boat, but you never know.. If they had a London base they could originate some productions in London to run for a whole season then transfer for a short season in Stratford, treat it like a tour. Even when they were at the Barbican for 12 months a year, and then 6 months, they never really did that though. They actually rehearse some of their productions in Clapham as far as I know, used to anyway, to reflect the fact the actors and directors live in London. There is an account somewhere of an ill Robert Stephens after a Friday Stratford performance of King Lear queuing for the bus to Coventry to get the last train back to London for the weekend. At the same time the directorate (Noble?) were in the habit of flying first class to USA to arrange transfers. Back in the dark ages before the M40 extension and Chiltern trains. I was on a bus back to Cov with Robert Stephens after a performance of Julius Caesar! You then connected with train to Euston, seems mad now but if you didnt have a car that was the only way from London!! And now we think we're hard done by if we get stuck with one of the blue Chiltern trains instead of the far superior black ones. The first time I ever had a meeting with the RSC I had to get up at about 5am to catch the train, then discovered all the people I was there to meet had travelled up on the same train. Then we all promptly went back to London again. Oh well, nice to have a little jaunt.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Aug 3, 2017 23:22:59 GMT
I've been seeing so much, 'We don't need another Hamlet! Andrew Scott's is definitive!' the last few days... Is anything ever definitive? Especially with some of the 'classic' roles. I've seen productions of plays I love but over time I forget bits and when someone comes along that I like I've off to see it again. Plus with the many sides/parts of Hamet can any one actor play them all, don't you pick what you did a bit like Cleopatra? It makes me very sad that no one wants to give their definitive Pericles.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Aug 3, 2017 12:11:29 GMT
Norris wore some kind of disco wig to introduce the Queer Season Wig Off reading. Looked damn self-conscious, but it's endearing that he did it.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 30, 2017 22:11:05 GMT
Meanwhile Simon Godwin is lurking, Nomi Malone-style, at the top of the big NT staircase. Think he'd need to self-identify as a woman to get the gig. I reckon Simon's ambitious enough for that, and as anyone who saw the 1991 BBC series "Five Children and It" can attest, he certainly has the acting chops.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 30, 2017 14:22:30 GMT
Meanwhile Simon Godwin is lurking, Nomi Malone-style, at the top of the big NT staircase.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 30, 2017 13:52:32 GMT
I'm impressed Oxford Playhouse let you book disabled tickets online. (My personal pet peeve. Why do so many theatres insist disabled people have to jump through extra hoops to book?)
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 29, 2017 17:06:12 GMT
What on God's sweet green earth is a "Watch Me Wednesday"?
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 28, 2017 20:06:11 GMT
The Olivias are going to be on Woman's Hour tomorrow - no, today, for it is now Friday! Glad they pointed out the line nicked from Father Ted. (Insert laughing emoji here.)
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 27, 2017 12:29:48 GMT
Science-wise I had more of a problem with the idea that {Spoiler - click to view} scientists will one day "punch through" to a parallel universe and somehow create a new solar system and a new earth that exactly matches our own, but sped up so billions of years pass in minutes. And then presumably stops so we can hop go the Stargate and live on this new virgin earth without the sun going supernova a week later? It's quite a beautiful idea in its own way but the IVF metaphor was pushed home a bit hard.
I read Asimov's 'The Gods Themselves' which handles this stuff so well, and handles the science elements so well and in so much depth you practically need a Physics degree to understand it. The metaphorical science of Mosquitoes suffers by comparison.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 27, 2017 10:55:23 GMT
And that's just for the "reviews for pay" riots!
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 27, 2017 10:52:01 GMT
Oh I read that and thought it meant sort of artistically professionally rather than as an audience member, I've done both and seen great and not so great at both, it's just the Globe is much more accessible for me and has cheaper options. Will look forward to your views regarding Much Ado lynette So,did it mean actors and directors have to choose? Sorry if i misinterpreted the comment. Still daft. 😂 Sorry, my fault for not being clear. She was talking about directors and theatre-makers, not audience (and I think not so much actors).
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 26, 2017 13:30:00 GMT
I hope so. I attended a QA with Lucy Bailey some years ago where she talked about there being a division in British classical theatre between "Globe people" and "RSC people" and implied you had to pin your colours firmly to one mast or the other, and never shall the twain meet. I hope that is not the case. Doesn't seem to be for actors, at any rate.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 26, 2017 12:03:51 GMT
Tons of free tickets on the usual suspects. Feels like every other performance since previews has had comps available. I can't remember the last time I saw a play papered so heavily.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 26, 2017 11:56:17 GMT
Oh, I liked that subplot a lot; powerful (albeit overlooked from the sheer number of different plots). I thought the "implausible" plot point would be {Spoiler - click to view} a teenage hacker single-handledly bringing down CERN/LHC and his aunt who can barely use email taking the fall for it, but everyone writing it off as an unexplained accident anyway, because people always just shrug and go "eh complicated s**t always goes wrong" when their globally significant €billion project crashes. And a boy criminally sabotaging his mum's work and entering into a conspiracy of silence with his aunt about it isn't a massive secret that's inevitably going to explode in their family at some point down the line.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 24, 2017 22:08:28 GMT
I'll say one thing for online lotteries, they can be invaluable for people with disabilities who can't physically dayseat. Some theatres do disabled concessions which is great but not all.
I have a friend who always dayseats with a flask of Irish coffee, at least in winter. I am told Jack Daniels Fire is especially good for this.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 22, 2017 13:16:04 GMT
It does occur to me that no one ever uses a mediocre or flat out terrible play from a male playwright (of which there are many) as representing "male playwrights" (or arguments pro/con) as a species.
Otoh the chap sitting next to me grabbed my arm in the interval, so desperate was he to share his almost evangelical love for "the best first half he's ever seen" so horses for courses and all that.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 22, 2017 13:06:49 GMT
That stupid tinsel confetti stuff (I don't know what it's called, you know what I mean) raining onto either the stage or the audience.
Flooding the stage seems to be increasingly popular.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 21, 2017 20:36:16 GMT
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 20, 2017 23:16:52 GMT
Sarah MacRae (Hero in the Tennant and Tate Much Ado) and Carolyn Pickles (Broadchurch) at Mosquitoes last night.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 20, 2017 15:01:36 GMT
It irrationally annoys me when people hand over the entire ticket bundle with the receipt and all the rest, rather than detaching them and just handing over the ticket.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Jul 20, 2017 11:10:25 GMT
I got jabbed in the back too! The layout is so incredibly poor it seems almost designed for back-jabbing. Who on earth thought it appropriate to design an auditorium so the audience's feet rest on the backs of the chairs in front?
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