(no subject)
Having been internetless for a couple of days if I'd had ANY sense I'd have written up some of the MANY theatre reviews I'm behind on... obviously I didn't. Mostly I was either out or sulking :-P
Anyway here are the (short-ish) three April reviews I've missed to start with.
Duchess of Malfi @ Old Vic
So Eve Best is fabulous and I could watch her in almost anything but I have to admit that something about this production didn't quite hang together.
The set was fabulous, balconies and railings and dark corners and candles plus some wonderful costumes. And there were some genuinely (to me) chilling moments- the Duchess' death but even more the silencing of her childrens' cries.
Eve was wonderful and I thought she and Tom Bateman, as Antonio, had real chemistry and I very much wanted them to get a happy ending whilst accepting it was clearly never going to happen. Harry Lloyd was pleasingly insane- I enjoyed seeing him play something other than the unnatural stillness that has been a feature of a lot of his roles. As someone who didn't know the play I was a bit WTF at the whole werewolf thing but I believed he believed it? Finbar Lynch as the Cardinal was incredibly creepy and threatening, properly frightening.
BUT I didn't like the guy playing Bosola. Mostly the character just struck me as this awful man who kept doing terrible TERRIBLE things and then afterwards being all "woe is me I was ordered to do this awful thing" which... I think maybe he was supposed to read as conflicted but he just seemed cowardly and, given the ending, REALLY stupid.
So good but not great? I fear the Old Vic is still not generally endearing itself to me.
And then the final part of my League of Gentleman Trio with Steve Pemberton's offering.
She Stoops to Conquer @ National Theatre (Olivier)
Slight change from the Duchess *g* This is a VERY silly play but it was great fun. I have to say I'm slightly getting frustrated with this thing where actor's seemingly corpsing or speaking to the audience as if it was off the cuff when clearly scripted is starting to get to me- we had captioning so it was INCREDIBLY obvious that various lines ("don't encourage him" weren't off the cuff at all. Still I have to admit to enjoying it and laughing a lot *g*
Again the set was fantastic but then when is it not in the Olivier <3
Harry Hadden-Paton & John Heffernan seemed to be having a wonderful time as the young "heroes" and I liked Harry's switches between awkward & ladies' man (and I maybe spent half the play thinking I STOOD NEXT TO HIM ON SUNDAY because this was the week after the Oliviers :-P) Katherine Kelly was fun, Cush Jumbo was brilliant, Steve Pemberton was pelasingly vague but OH Sophie Thompson ♥ I know she was about a million miles over the top but when sher was switching between her own accent and the one she thought was town polish... best moment of the whole play <3
Fun but I'd been spoiled by seeing The Recruiting Office recently and that was better.
And finally a free ticket which is always a win! This was my first visit to the Arcola and I'd happily go again. It was fairly easy to get to and they let you have actual glasses in the theatre (easily pleased) plus I very much enjoyed just looking at the building and spotting original features. Wasn't remotely full though.
Conquest of the South Pole @ Arcola Theatre
Hmmm... I think all the central performances were well done and it was well staged using limited props and scenery (well I say scenery- more a washing line or a table etc.) I guess if I had a quibble with anything major it was the audience!
This is a play about a group of characters who are mainly unemployed and at various stages of depression/hopelessness/numbness and it's a wonderful mix of "normal" conversation and very stagey narrated passages plus there's a fair amount of humour, often black humour, built in BUT there was a girl to my left who KEPT laughing really loudly at... well everything funny plus anything awkward and any sort of tension release and it started making me really tense & annoyed especially when she was laughing at a passage which was clearly narrating the complete breakdown of a character and ended in his suicide- I sort of wondered if she even realised that.
Which wasn't the play or cast's fault.
I liked the general plot- recreating the conquest of the south pole in an attic- and the relationship of the characters. I liked that they were facing the same/similar problems but reacted differently to them and though it isn't really a new idea the whole concept of recreating a success just so they could experience other than failure was a good one.
There was a pair of minor characters in one scene and even with them I cared what happened to them (and was actually glad one of them started by telling us she'd dumped the guy at some stage after this scene).
O. T. Fagbenle was the lead and he's one of those people who's in a lot of things (Marple, Doctor Who, Grownups etc.) but who I'll keep a more conscious eye out for in the future! otherwise I always like Sam Crane (though I know not everyone does *G*) and Emma Cunniffe is someone I've vaguely noted as good in the past.
Also I saw the Avengers but I'm still a bit at the AAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL THE FEELINGS stage <3
Anyway here are the (short-ish) three April reviews I've missed to start with.
Duchess of Malfi @ Old Vic
So Eve Best is fabulous and I could watch her in almost anything but I have to admit that something about this production didn't quite hang together.
The set was fabulous, balconies and railings and dark corners and candles plus some wonderful costumes. And there were some genuinely (to me) chilling moments- the Duchess' death but even more the silencing of her childrens' cries.
Eve was wonderful and I thought she and Tom Bateman, as Antonio, had real chemistry and I very much wanted them to get a happy ending whilst accepting it was clearly never going to happen. Harry Lloyd was pleasingly insane- I enjoyed seeing him play something other than the unnatural stillness that has been a feature of a lot of his roles. As someone who didn't know the play I was a bit WTF at the whole werewolf thing but I believed he believed it? Finbar Lynch as the Cardinal was incredibly creepy and threatening, properly frightening.
BUT I didn't like the guy playing Bosola. Mostly the character just struck me as this awful man who kept doing terrible TERRIBLE things and then afterwards being all "woe is me I was ordered to do this awful thing" which... I think maybe he was supposed to read as conflicted but he just seemed cowardly and, given the ending, REALLY stupid.
So good but not great? I fear the Old Vic is still not generally endearing itself to me.
And then the final part of my League of Gentleman Trio with Steve Pemberton's offering.
She Stoops to Conquer @ National Theatre (Olivier)
Slight change from the Duchess *g* This is a VERY silly play but it was great fun. I have to say I'm slightly getting frustrated with this thing where actor's seemingly corpsing or speaking to the audience as if it was off the cuff when clearly scripted is starting to get to me- we had captioning so it was INCREDIBLY obvious that various lines ("don't encourage him" weren't off the cuff at all. Still I have to admit to enjoying it and laughing a lot *g*
Again the set was fantastic but then when is it not in the Olivier <3
Harry Hadden-Paton & John Heffernan seemed to be having a wonderful time as the young "heroes" and I liked Harry's switches between awkward & ladies' man (and I maybe spent half the play thinking I STOOD NEXT TO HIM ON SUNDAY because this was the week after the Oliviers :-P) Katherine Kelly was fun, Cush Jumbo was brilliant, Steve Pemberton was pelasingly vague but OH Sophie Thompson ♥ I know she was about a million miles over the top but when sher was switching between her own accent and the one she thought was town polish... best moment of the whole play <3
Fun but I'd been spoiled by seeing The Recruiting Office recently and that was better.
And finally a free ticket which is always a win! This was my first visit to the Arcola and I'd happily go again. It was fairly easy to get to and they let you have actual glasses in the theatre (easily pleased) plus I very much enjoyed just looking at the building and spotting original features. Wasn't remotely full though.
Conquest of the South Pole @ Arcola Theatre
Hmmm... I think all the central performances were well done and it was well staged using limited props and scenery (well I say scenery- more a washing line or a table etc.) I guess if I had a quibble with anything major it was the audience!
This is a play about a group of characters who are mainly unemployed and at various stages of depression/hopelessness/numbness and it's a wonderful mix of "normal" conversation and very stagey narrated passages plus there's a fair amount of humour, often black humour, built in BUT there was a girl to my left who KEPT laughing really loudly at... well everything funny plus anything awkward and any sort of tension release and it started making me really tense & annoyed especially when she was laughing at a passage which was clearly narrating the complete breakdown of a character and ended in his suicide- I sort of wondered if she even realised that.
Which wasn't the play or cast's fault.
I liked the general plot- recreating the conquest of the south pole in an attic- and the relationship of the characters. I liked that they were facing the same/similar problems but reacted differently to them and though it isn't really a new idea the whole concept of recreating a success just so they could experience other than failure was a good one.
There was a pair of minor characters in one scene and even with them I cared what happened to them (and was actually glad one of them started by telling us she'd dumped the guy at some stage after this scene).
O. T. Fagbenle was the lead and he's one of those people who's in a lot of things (Marple, Doctor Who, Grownups etc.) but who I'll keep a more conscious eye out for in the future! otherwise I always like Sam Crane (though I know not everyone does *G*) and Emma Cunniffe is someone I've vaguely noted as good in the past.
Also I saw the Avengers but I'm still a bit at the AAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL THE FEELINGS stage <3