(no subject)
Today is grey and I feel rubbish :-/ OH WELL. Four day weekend on the way even if Easter is never precisely restful (speaking of which omg must buy Easter Eggs for parents!)
Anyway before I become any later with this (and bearing in mind I realised recently I missed a LOT of theatre reviews earlier this year) I thought maybe I'd take this 5 minute tea, painkillers & sanity break as a chance to talk about the very wonderful play I saw last week :D
The Recruiting Officer @ Donmar Warehouse
I would have been incredibly surprised if this play had been less than fantastic because that cast? Mackenzie Crook, Kathryn Drysdale, Mark Gatiss, Tobias Menzies and Rachael Stirling!
♥
And that's before you get on to the fact that actually 1) the WHOLE cast was brilliant not just the names I recognised AND the musicians were all part of the acting cast as well and so they were acting, singing and playing.
And it's a very funny play. Obviously Mark Gatiss was having the time of his life as an incredible foppish recruiting officer and Mackenzie Crook does do second in command so very very well (plus his fortune telling German was unbelievably silly too) and Tobias Menzies has a perpetual glint in his eye like he is having the BEST time.
All of that said the point at which I first completely lost it in giggles was actually all down to the utterly gorgeous and wonderful Rachel Stirling as she put on an incredibly posh/ridiculous accent and talked about "the ear" with Nancy Carroll as her straight woman.
It's got a fairly silly plot of course- never announce that you won't fall in love and/or won't marry because that automatically means it will happen by the end of the play! But everyone was enjoying themselves and there was cross dressing and duels and mistaken identity and I'm basically convinced that that ending was a going to go the way of a threesome with Aimee Ffion Edwards as the third)
Well I say the ending. The actual ending wasn't a surprising gut punch because I'd been warned several times but, all the same, it was a very effective emotional coda to this fun and silly piece. Very Blackadder Goes Forth.
I can't really fault any of the production. The set was covered in candles which did distract me occasionally as I worried whether they were going to get knocked.
The absolte BEST bit however wasn't deliberate. At one point Rachel Stirling hits her suitor over the head with her fan and she got him with such a good shot that she actually snapped the fan sending a piece of it flying across the stage...
She almost held it together until she had to wave the fan at him at which point of course it flopped and she just corpsed. Kathryn Drysdale & Mark Gatiss were both obviously amused and Nicholas Burns was manfully strugging to keep a straight face and it was BEAUTIFUL ♥
There may be tickets available still, the Donmar seems to be releasing a few each week so it's worth keeping an eye out for. Now I just need to book to see She Stoops to Conquer and I'll have completed the League of Gentlemen trilogy *g*
Anyway before I become any later with this (and bearing in mind I realised recently I missed a LOT of theatre reviews earlier this year) I thought maybe I'd take this 5 minute tea, painkillers & sanity break as a chance to talk about the very wonderful play I saw last week :D
The Recruiting Officer @ Donmar Warehouse
I would have been incredibly surprised if this play had been less than fantastic because that cast? Mackenzie Crook, Kathryn Drysdale, Mark Gatiss, Tobias Menzies and Rachael Stirling!
♥
And that's before you get on to the fact that actually 1) the WHOLE cast was brilliant not just the names I recognised AND the musicians were all part of the acting cast as well and so they were acting, singing and playing.
And it's a very funny play. Obviously Mark Gatiss was having the time of his life as an incredible foppish recruiting officer and Mackenzie Crook does do second in command so very very well (plus his fortune telling German was unbelievably silly too) and Tobias Menzies has a perpetual glint in his eye like he is having the BEST time.
All of that said the point at which I first completely lost it in giggles was actually all down to the utterly gorgeous and wonderful Rachel Stirling as she put on an incredibly posh/ridiculous accent and talked about "the ear" with Nancy Carroll as her straight woman.
It's got a fairly silly plot of course- never announce that you won't fall in love and/or won't marry because that automatically means it will happen by the end of the play! But everyone was enjoying themselves and there was cross dressing and duels and mistaken identity and I'm basically convinced that that ending was a going to go the way of a threesome with Aimee Ffion Edwards as the third)
Well I say the ending. The actual ending wasn't a surprising gut punch because I'd been warned several times but, all the same, it was a very effective emotional coda to this fun and silly piece. Very Blackadder Goes Forth.
I can't really fault any of the production. The set was covered in candles which did distract me occasionally as I worried whether they were going to get knocked.
The absolte BEST bit however wasn't deliberate. At one point Rachel Stirling hits her suitor over the head with her fan and she got him with such a good shot that she actually snapped the fan sending a piece of it flying across the stage...
She almost held it together until she had to wave the fan at him at which point of course it flopped and she just corpsed. Kathryn Drysdale & Mark Gatiss were both obviously amused and Nicholas Burns was manfully strugging to keep a straight face and it was BEAUTIFUL ♥
There may be tickets available still, the Donmar seems to be releasing a few each week so it's worth keeping an eye out for. Now I just need to book to see She Stoops to Conquer and I'll have completed the League of Gentlemen trilogy *g*