Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Dear Vic

In Uncategorized on January 20, 2010 at 8:45 pm

Dear Vic,

Thanks for writing again. I do appreciate it. But I think we both know that we need to talk about us.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate your friendship. It’s really not. It’s just that you only seem to write to me when you want something, like money or for me to come and see a play you’re involved in. Frankly, I put up with enough of that at university.

I promised myself I wouldn’t get personal, but your latest letter us a perfect example. Asking if I want to “renew” our friendship for 2010 at a cost of £30 makes me feel a little like you’re using me. I also don’t appreciate the rigid labels you insist on applying to everything: £150 to be a “good friend” seems unreasonable given how good a friend I’ve been to you (I came to see The Investigation, for heavens sake!) and a £1200 fee to be your best friend just feels like you’re being mercenary.

I know that I haven’t been a perfect friend. I didn’t come to see Kursk and I was a little rude behind your back about The Girlfriend Experience. I’m also not proud of some of the circumstances around how we started our friendship: I was on the rebound following a really messy friendship which left me really vulnerable (did you see Speed the Plow?), but any sort of accusation that you were just a “younger model” are absolutely false and the fact that you both have similar names is pure coincidence.

But I’m sure you’ll admit that there are mistakes on your side as well. I think we both know that you’re not proud of what you did on Annie Get Your Gun. You never send anything on my birthday. And any time I write to you asking to borrow some money you just ignore me or fob me off with “the Arts Council doesn’t allow us to make loans or gifts to audience members”. And I thought we were friends.

Look, I’m not saying that we should be enemies or that we shouldn’t see each other any more. I just think we need some space to consider what it is that we both want from this friendship.

All the best,

-ST

RE: Applause during Legally Blonde The Musical press previews

In london, theatre on January 12, 2010 at 3:36 pm

Dear Sirs,

I am writing on behalf of the Honourable Association of Theatre Critics for Real Newspapers to express my concern about your organisation’s behaviour during recent previews for Legally Blonde The Musical.

Staggering the press previews for this production might be helpful in offering Theatre Critics flexibility in their timetables and allowing Theatre Critics to experience what a real performance is like but it really misses the point about why we Theatre Critics are Theatre Critics in the first place. I didn’t get to have a chat with my mates beforehand (who are also Theatre Critics, you understand) and the chances of seeing another Walker/Shuttleworth bust up was dramatically diminished by having to guess which night they’d both come to.

All of this pales in comparison to the dreadful treatment afforded some of my fellow Theatre Critics. Some have reported being forced to sit in the middle of a row (!) containing ordinary people. As if that’s not bad enough, some of these people enjoyed the show and applauded at the end whilst standing up. I mean really. The last time I stood up in a theatre was in 1954 and that was only because Harold Hobson needed the loo.

Needless to say I hated your pink fluffy enjoyable play at The Savoy. Hated it with a passion. Not enough to pay for a ticket and justifiably break the embargo (what do you think I am, a blogger?) but enough to tell everyone that Michael Billington will HATE this when he writes about it on Thursday. That’ll teach you.

Yours faithfully,
Honourable Association of Theatre Critics for Real Newspapers

The decade’s best theatre

In theatre on December 24, 2009 at 10:27 am

Quick, the future is coming!  It’s nearly 2010, which means that in a matter of days we may all be living in a futuristic dystopia in which the theatre we all know and love will be entirely replaced by monstrous mechanical beasts, bloodthirsty zombie actors and Hollywood stars treading the boards.  Given the impending apocalypse, I’ve been giving some thought to which productions from the last decade I will take into the bunker with me (the door presumably guarded by John Simm) to preserve for future generations and which I will leave to fend and die in the mutant-filled wasteland of Shaftesbury Avenue.

All of which is a rather roundabout way of saying that this is my list, in no particular order, of the top theatre of the last decade:

The Histories, RSC, Stratford upon Avon, 2006-8
In terms of sheer scale and ambition, there are few endeavours that can match the RSC’s epic cycle.  Running through all eight of Shakespeare’s history plays* with a common cast, this unflinching endeavour covers 118 years of English History, took almost two years to perform and was seen by over a quarter of a million people.  It all culminated in one weekend in which all the plays were run through in chronological order over the course of four days in the lovely Courtyard Theatre in February 2008 – one of the most spectacular displays of acting and technical endurance one can imagine.

The Pillowman, National, London and tour, 2003-5
Just reading this play – a superbly dark, funny and thoughtful work about the nature of creativity and the importance of art - assures Martin McDonagh as one of the cleverest and funniest playwrights working in English today. Seeing the perfectly cast David Tennant, Jim Broadbend and Nigel Lindsay bring it to life confirmed it.

Festen, Almeida and West End Transfer, London, 2004
Meticulously directed and designed (particularly the dinner scene, memorable not least for its realistic eating, which is surprisingly difficult to get right on stage, I hear) production of this bizarre and chilling dogme film.  Jonny Lee Miller led in Islington and later Paul Nicholls (of Eastenders fame, ish) took over for the West End transfer.

August: Osage County, National, London, 2008
Dark, funny and wonderfully performed US transfer. It’s length (not one, but two intervals to endure at the Lyttelton bar) should have counted against it, but its humour and enthralling depiction of a family falling apart kept the seats full right until the closing curtain.

Masque of the Red Death, BAC, London, 2007
Not everybody loved it (“it’s not theatre, it’s too dark, it’s daft, the masks don’t fit, there’s no plot, it’s boring, it’s stupid, I thought the estate agent next door was an internet cafe because I’ve never seen a Foxtons before”) but I suppose that was never the point. Punchdrunk, claimants to the throne of Britain’s most inventive theatre company, once again brought their own brand of site specific magic to the Battersea Arts Centre, transforming the Clapham Junction venue (yeah, not really Battersea is it) into a haunted house amusement fair for theatre and dance geeks. Everybody has their own version of the night to tell and if you couldn’t get tickets (which many couldn’t, despite it running for months) then you truly missed a unique event.

Hamlet, RSC, Statford and London transfer, 2008
It’s not easy to pick just one Hamlet for the decade. Trevor Nunn made headlines and a star of Ben Whishaw (just witness the length of the returns queue to see his Cock at the Royal Court**) when he cast a bunch of 20-somethings in 2004.  And Jude Law was pretty impressive at the Donmar.  But for me, David Tennant’s intensely physical Hamlet, Patrick Stewart’s wonderfully underplayed Claudius and Robert Jones’ lustrous set take the prize.

Dr Faustus, Young Vic, London, 2002
The Jude Law show took over the Young Vic back in 2002 for a production of this rather difficult play.  Director David Lan didn’t make things easier for himself by casting only seven people for a play which requires Faustus to confront seven deadly sins and nobody who could really pass themselves off as a convincing Helen of Troy for a play which has “was this the face that launched a thousand ships” as its most famous line.  His production in the round dealt with these minor issues (through Kate Flatt’s inventive choreography and the use of a mirror, respectively) and many more with aplomb and presented Jude Law as a superb dramatic actor, as well as a movie star.


This list is, needless to say, subjective and very much skewed towards London which is unfair given the really rather good work going on in the regions.  I’m not the only one to put together a similar list, and the others are listed below (if you have one, I’d be delighted to link to it – just drop me an email):

  • The Sunday Times reckons that The Norman Conquests was the third best theatrical event of the decade.  Other than that (and God of Carnage and Stovepipe), it’s a pretty solid list
  • The Village Voice – NY focused, unsurprisingly
  • The Guardian heart Punchdrunk, the National, the Globe and, for some reason, verbatim theatre

* Henry VIII doesn’t count because it’s rubbish and has loads of stage direction and isn’t consecutive with the rest of them and nobody really thinks Shakespeare wrote much of it. Mostly because it’s rubbish.

** Geddit?


Review – The Priory, Royal Court

In london, review, theatre on November 21, 2009 at 10:35 pm

The Priory really is a rather old fashioned play. Cast of seven, same setting throughout, lots of people walking on and off for slightly incongruous reasons so that appropriate plot-driving conversations can take place, dramatic tension, character development, the whole lot. After all this site specific intensity and metatheatrical tomfoolery and clinical interwar nihilistic eroticism and stylised corporate villianry and that bloody cart, a good old fashioned play about people and stuff is quite a breath of fresh air.

The location is a converted priory, the time is New Year’s Eve and the protagonist is Kate, recently dumped, who wants to spend the evening with a group of close friends, without drugs and without drama. Needless to say, these plans make for a boring play and so the arrival of the excitable Laura, the insufferable Rebecca and the insatiable Adam move things up a gear, as do the revelations as to Kate’s real reasons for organising the evening’s celebrations.

For the most part The Priory treads superbly a thin line between comedy and tragedy. There are very funny moments and very horrible moments, funny moments you can’t believe you’re the only one laughing to and horrible moments when you can’t believe anybody else is laughing. It’s not perfect (there’s a date rape joke which feels crass rather than clever and falls very flat), but some sequences are wonderfully pitched, such as the stand off between Kate and Rebecca, where every salvo was met with a laugh or an audible gasp.

The performances are solid, with Jessica Hynes as Kate particularly strong and Rupert Penry-Jones superbly, although somewhat predictably, cast as charming and unreliable.

The Priory runs until 9 January at the Royal Court. Book here.