Archive for August, 2009

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Review – Rhod Gilbert and the Cat That Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst, Pleasance Courtyard

In comedy, edinburgh, review on August 31, 2009 at 6:19 pm

It won’t come as a surprise to Rhod Gilbert afficionados (Gilbertados, as they are known) that it hasn’t been a good year for the comic. After his 08 Fringe show, he was accused by the critics of focusing on daily annoyances at the expense of weighty issues (“The Scotsman said my material was ‘unremittingly trivial’. Pot fucking kettle, Scotsman. I’m not the one devoting 48 pages to Scotland every day.”); his mother and girlfriend seemingly agreed with the critics; there’s also something about a cat; and it doesn’t seem that he’s mastered the science behind duvet design yet either.

Gilbert is a superbly funny performer: his ability to express the frustrations of daily life are second to none and, as far as this critic is concerned at least, I couldn’t care less that his material doesn’t major on Proportional Representation or the Suez Crisis.

I didn’t love the set wholeheartedly: after a while his tone (which runs the gamut from indignant right the way to righteous indignation) can become wearing and the attempt to wrap the set into one coherent motif (the business around the cat) feels forced. But despite these minor complaints Gilbert comes across as likeable, self-deprecating, modest and extremely funny.

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Review – Arcadia, Duke of Yorks

In london, review, theatre on August 23, 2009 at 12:16 pm

Being told that you are in seat AA1 is exceptionally good news if you’re at an airport. At a theatre, however…

In this instance, however, all was not lost. There was quite a lot of neck craning going on in the first half, after which I just gave up and paid attention to the footwear on display. Luckily, this side of things was being looked after by none other than Amy Roberts, holder of not one but four BAFTAs and one international Emmy nomination. If I’m going to stare at shoes for two and a half hours, there’s nobody I’d rather have choosing them.

Arcadia is a wonderful play: unapologetically intellectual without being a swat, nimble without showing off and effortlessly funny, it is the George Wingate of modern English drama. There can be few plays more more deserving of the term masterpiece.

This production, directed ably by David Leveaux, is entirely solid, without being truly revelatory. Samantha Bond as Hannah, Neil Pearson as Bernard, Nancy Carroll as Lady Croom, Lucy Griffiths as Chloe (wearing a nice pair of wellies on occasion) and Dan Stevens as Septimus all acquit themselves admirably. Certainly no complaints.

Without a doubt, however, the highlight honours go to Lydia Larson, understudying for Jessie Cave (of Harry Potter almost-fame) as Thomasina. Larson is superb, glittering with charm, intelligence and naïveté.

Also worth a mention is Ed Stoppard, son of the man himself*, as Valentine (wearing quite a nice pear of Converse who is brilliant, but in an utterly bizarre way. Involved and involving, nervous, shy and completely convincing, he brings the part to life in a way I’ve never seen before.

* I wasn’t going to mention this family connection, since I thought his performance stood up by itself, but since he’s talked about it to The Telegraph and The Guardian, I feel it’s probably alright.


Alan Bennett: The Second Subsidy

In london, preview, theatre on August 20, 2009 at 8:49 pm

“The challenge for the NT in future will be to replace what has effectively been a boost in subsidy provided during the years of The History Boys”

The National Theatre announced it’s Autumn season today, but what they really announced was details of the new Alan Bennett play, The Habit of Art. It’s difficult to make clear quite how important and eagerly anticipated this new production is: Bennett’s previous play, The History Boys ran for five years in London, around the country, around the world and on Broadway, made five million pounds for the NT and made stars of it’s young cast: it’s now difficult to turn on the TV or go to the theatre without stumbling across a History Boy alumnus like Dominic Cooper (Mamma Mia, Phedre), James Corden (Gavin and Stacey), Matt Smith (the new Dr Who) or Samuel Barnett (Desperate Romantics) all of who made their name in this play.

The Habit of Art is no mere sequel to a successful blockbuster (the story line, two poets meeting in old age, could scarcely be more different) but Nicholas Hytner is at the helm once again and Frances de la Tour returns. If this new show is half as good as its predecessor then the NT will have a major, major, major success on their hands. The pressure must be immense.

Needless to say, when booking opens there will be Night Mail crossing the border bringing the cheque and the ticket order like never before. I know this is a familiar refrain on here, but this time I’m really not kidding: if you want to see this, then you definitely need to book early.

So, unless you fancy spending the next six months listening to dinner party conversation about a play you haven’t seen, then get yourself to the NT website on 2nd September – or the day before if you sign up for their free email list.

Another quite exciting production at the big grey building this autumn is Pains of Youth, an intense psychosexual drama about six medical students who really, really need to find some new flatmates. Needless to say, they ignore my advice; but I suppose that’s where great drama begins.

Also worth a punt is Mixed Up North at Wilton’s Music Hall. It all sounds a little bit on the edgy teen angst side, but it is directed by Max Stafford-Clark, who’s not exactly famous for turning out duffers. Again, book and book soon. All the fun begins on 2 September.

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Review – Hamlet, Donmar/Wyndhams

In london, review, theatre on August 17, 2009 at 8:39 pm

Hamlet

The wonderful thing about each production of Hamlet is that it feels completely different to its predecessors. Just by virtue of the play’s staggering length in the folio (not to mention the quarto version to boot), it’s impossible to perform intact and, as such, each director approaching the play is forced to see the angel in the marble and cut until he sets it free.

The Hamlet created by Michael Grandage here is dark, hostile, cold and threatening. Christopher Oram’s superb set towers over proceedings with obsidian brutalist menace while the fiercely monochrome design through the production speaks to threat, danger and monotony (and leaves Charing Cross Road during the interval feel like an offensive burst of vulgarity which, to be fair, it probably should most of the time). The few flashes of colour which we do get are well used and beautifully realised and all the more effective for their rarity. There’s no doubt about it: this is a stunningly well designed and beautifully thought out production.

They key thing is, of course, Jude Law. The reason most people are here, roasting ourselves in the Wyndhams in August, queuing up outside for hours beforehand to gain a standing ticket isn’t because Michael Grandage has judiciously cut the play or Christopher Oram’s been hanging around the Barbican looking for set design inspiration. The real reason this show is completely sold out and the hot ticket in London at the moment is because Jude Law is playing Hamlet. We’ll come to that, because first I’d like to discuss cardigans:

Never in the history of Shakespeare, has there been a production of Hamlet which has done so much for cardigans. Wearing grey cardigan after grey cardigan throughout the first half (they are curiously absent in the second, the intellectual reasons for which will be detailed in an academic text shortly to be peer reviewed) Jude Law single-handedly manages to rehabilitate the knitwear industry within the space of 80 minutes. (Never slow to spot a trend, Japanese cult store Uniqlo – previously famous for their brightly coloured and affordable clothing lines – have launched a range of grey-scale cardies which can be purchased on their website in shades including grey, dark grey, salt and pepper, jet grey, navy grey, vibrant grey and light black.)

Jude? Jude is superb. He’s moody, menacing, funny, likeable, understandable, sympathetic, impossible and ambigious. He lacks the physicality of David Tennant, but there’s nothing lacking: Law does with a nuance what Tennant did with a hopscotch. Neither is right or wrong, but whatever Law’s doing he’s certainly doing it right for him. His performance wonderful.

The rest of the cast are very much in a supporting role. Claudius (Kevin R McNally) and Gertrude (Penelope Wilton) do the job just fine, but they never get much above playthings for Law to bounce himself off. Ron Cook’s Polonius is Polonial, Peter Eyre (Ghost/Player King) has a few superb moments and Gugu Mbatha-Raw manages to pull off that rare feat of being properly bonkers as Ophelia without being annoying, but this play is all about Jude Law asserting himself as one of the very best actors we have. And a little bit about cardigans.

P.S. There’s a good guide to getting tickets for this (and other) impossibly sold out shows over at Life in the Cheap Seats.


Review – The Girlfriend Experience, Young Vic

In london, review, theatre on August 15, 2009 at 11:20 am

The Girlfriend Experience

The Recorded Delivery Writing and Performance Technique consists of recordings being played to actors through headphones during the performance, allowing them to copy “not just the words but exactly the way in which they were first spoken” so that “every cough, stutter and hesitation is reproduced”. The technique is used to good effect in The Girlfriend Experience (distinguished alumna of the Royal Court following a sell-out last year and now playing at the Young Vic).

As an aside, it seem that The Young Vic is the place to be on a Friday night. Spotted in the foyer before the play were not only Benedict Cumberbatch, but Sarah “Green Wing” Alexander and Peter “Darth Maul” Serafinowicz. I almost didn’t stay for the rest of the play after that excitement.

Anyway, glad I did, because the Recorded Delivery Writing and Performance Technique (hereafter, RDWaPT) is actually less gimmicky and more effective than I had imagined. The dialogue feels utterly unlike any other play I’ve seen: characters talk over each other, they gabble their words, they repeat themselves, they say things which don’t garner a response; it glitters with ordinariness; it feels, in short, like a real conversation.

The play follows four prostitutes working in a small flat not far from Bournemouth seafront, and specifically focuses around “The Girlfriend Experience”, whereby punters are offered a more “intimate, loving” service. The real girlfriend experience the play focuses on is a different one, however: that experienced by the women as they attempt to develop relationships outside of their work, and it is here that the play is at its funniest and its most tragic. There is something horribly sad about the terribly low expectations of these women – for Tessa, holding hands on the seafront is rapturous – and the near certainty that even these will be disappointed.

The women presented are likeable and funny, and there’s plenty of very amusing moments, but there’s also something almost unpleasant about the production. Most of the laughs come from what are essentially very unpleasant experiences for the women concerned: disappointment about a boyfriend who’s only interested in going dogging, drinking litres of cider ahead of an appointment, explaining that the sheets will be changed before a sixteen year old daughter sleeps in the room, etc, etc.

Playwright Alecky Blythe is unfailing sympathetic towards her subjects, but there is something slightly unseemly about a middle class London audience paying £22.50 to laugh at the genuine misfortunes of others.

On a lighter note, it should also be noted that the production is (unsurprisingly) utterly filthy. Spare a thought then for the American father who wearily asked his two teenage daughters whether they were going to write about this for their “What I did this summer” school assignment. I suspect it wasn’t at all what he expected from an Artistic Director like Kevin Spacey.

“The under 25s are an abomination and a disgrace to our society.” Discuss.

In theatre on August 9, 2009 at 5:42 am

Last week’s Sunday Times carried a pretty thin article repeating lots of the old stories about audiences behaving badly. The hook is that “A number of West End theatres are now employing bouncers to cope with intoxicated patrons” – quite what drove the Times, The Telegraph and The Mail to all discover this as a huge problem on the same sleepy Sunday morning remains a mystery, as does why they all seem to have interviewed the same people and use the same structure to their articles*, but anyway, we’ll leave that to the journalists concerned.

The thesis of the articles is that the problem is driven by cheap ticket prices and the availability of alcohol in the auditorium. Ronald Harwood (Collaboration) says that he is “deeply opposed to the taking of drink into the auditorium”, which is self-serious enough to surely be meant in parody. But that’s nothing, nothing compared to the comments section on the Mail’s website. Sue from “Soutyhampton” is my favourite:

This is what happens when tickets are given away to under 25s. They have no social skills at all. They are vulgar and have no culture at all. It is a complete waste of money. It should have been given to families with an increase in culture but cannot afford the tickets. Or it could have been given to pensioners who likewise are unable to afford tickets. The under 25s are an abomination and a disgrace to our society.

So, should alcohol be banned from the theatre? I mean, it obviously goes without saying (unless you’re Harwood or read the Daily Mail) than no, of course not. First, people can drink before the theatre if they want to. Second, it’s not as if you can really drink THAT much actually during the performance; even during the epic August: Osage County I only got through three gin and tonics, and don’t get me wrong – I was trying. Third, there are plenty of examples of theatre venues which allow drinks in (e.g. the National) while managing to prevent widespread civil unrest. Fourth, there are plenty of examples of places other than theatres where drinks are consumed (e.g. restaurants, pubs, airplanes) and people don’t generally go around pissing in the corner.

Are cheap tickets the devil’s work? Well, no, again, obviously not, in fact it goes without saying that they’re a good thing – or should go without saying anyway. There are plenty of fine venues which give away tickets for very little (or, indeed, nothing at all) without notable bad behaviour: the National, the RSC, the Royal Opera House, everybody involved in the Night Less Ordinary scheme, etc, etc.

(By the way, if you can’t get any of those cheap deals, you might want to try the Buy One Get One Free offer from the Telegraph box office, or the Daily Mail’s Theatre Travel Breaks or, even better, the free programme and champagne from the Times> when you book for the Bridge Project.)

* The similarities in the articles are striking. All three open on the “woman caught ‘pleasuring’ her partner” (although in the Telegraph’s more refined offering it is merely a couple “caught being overly intimate with one another”; both the Times and the Telegraph agree on the crucial fact that this occurred in the stalls, but the Daily Mail is strangely mute on the exact location). Next comes the theatregoer who “relieved himself” at Sondheim’s A Little Night Music (both the Times and the Mail say the cast were “stunned” by this; the Telegraph just gives us the facts). Then comes an identical quote from Nica Burns, co-owner of the Lyric and the theatrical mastermind which brought us Thriller. Then comes an identical quote from the hereto little-known bouncer Desmond Atuehene who works the door for Mamma Mia! and seemingly represents the burgeoning theatrical security industry to the Fourth Estate. Then close on the wonderful quote from Harwood. Put these together and what do you have? A story worthy of not one, but three national newspapers!

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Review – The Mountaintop, Trafalgar Studios

In london, review, theatre on August 8, 2009 at 9:01 am

The Mountaintop by Katori Hall invites us into the motel room in which Martin Luther King (David Harewood) spends his last night before his assassination and through an encounter with a maid (Lorraine Burroughs) to whom there is more than meets the eye.

The portrait painted of King is complex: he comes across as impassioned, god-fearing and brave, but also vain, lascivious and, as the evening reaches its surprising climax, terribly afraid. There’s certainly no doubt as to which side we are to be on – King remains a saint, even with his vices and despite his denials – but the presentation here is wonderfully human and wonderfully real.

The twist, which I won’t spell out here, is beautifully managed, despite some fairly dodgy stagecraft (and some of the least realistic theatrical lightning ever to grace the London stage) and the change of pace in the production is immediate and convincing.

Both actors here are superb. Harewood manages to evoke King without ever veering into parody and offers a thoroughly convincing presentation of the famous man. Burroughs has, in some ways an easier job, but the way in which she plays her strength and her vulnerability off against one another are deserving of high praise.

At 80 minutes with no interval* the production is tightly paced and leaves one almost breathless at the end when one thinks how far we’ve come in a short period of time. A superb achievement.

The Mountaintop runs until 5 September at Trafalgar Studios (book tickets here) after which Lenny Henry will be in to play Othello.

* According to signs on the doors there is strictly no admittance to latecomers so I would advise arriving on time, but actually a lot of people there last night seemed to spend their time doing little else other than walking in and out of the auditorium, so no need to rush yourself at the bar

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A Night Less Ordinary

In preview, theatre on August 7, 2009 at 9:40 pm

Before the Arts Council decided that it was all about the middle aged, they used to think that theatre was all about the young people. A relic of this golden age is A Night Less Ordinary, a remarkable scheme whereby those under 26 years old are offered free tickets for shows at theatres as diverse as The Donmar, The Royal Court, The Young Vic and the mighty Ambassador Theatre Group.

Taking advantage is fairly straightforward: simply phone the box office to book, arrive at the theatre in good time to collect your tickets and bring suitable identification or impressive street slang to prove that you’ve lived for less than quarter of a century. Needless to say, selections are restricted but it’s certainly possible to pick up some pretty good tickets if you call up with enough notice.

My top picks:

  • Enron at the Royal Court. Good tickets available for late in the week shows (including Saturday night) from the 8th of October. Just phone the box office on 020 7565 5000 during normal opening hours.
  • The Mountaintop at Trafalgar Studios. Phone the all-powerful Ambassador Theatre Group booking line on 0870 060 1488.
  • The Girlfriend Experience at the Young Vic. Give them a ring on 020 7922 2922.
  • Pornography at the Tricycle. Tickets available on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays up to 14th August – get in quick and call on 020 7328 1000. Or if you fancy a trip to Kilburn (and who doesn’t!) then you can also turn up in person.