(no subject)
*stares out of window at rain*
Well the weather held out for most of the summer holidays and actually if this means we have a few more visitors at the museum this week it'll be very welcome! Still it's depressing to come back to work after the Bank Holiday to rain and distinctly autumnal temperatures.
It was a BRILLIANT Bank Holiday though, even with the large amount of time spent sitting in traffic on the M25.
(this might be quite a long post...)
It started on Friday evening with the Gillian Anderson and A Streetcar Named Desire which I've never actually seen. I might have said on our way in that I'd only seen one Tennessee Williams play on stage before but it turns out when I said one I meant three one of which I also saw at the Young Vic /o\ this weekend generally I had problems remembering perfectly obvious things. Of which more anon *g*
A Streetcar Named Desire @ Young Vic
The set the Young Vic have created for this is so simple, Stella & Stanley's apartment sits in the middle of the theatre and slowly revolves throughout the play, speeding up and slowing down and occasionally switching direction as the play twists and turns and Blanches mental state deteriorates.
I wondered if the spinning would be distracting but it really wasn't and the fact that it was open on every side left all of the action open to our eyes from every angle. The only place to hide on that stage was in the bath with the shower curtain drawn which made even more sense of Blanche's frequent retreats for long hot baths.
And of course it meant that Gillian Anderson was on stage, and visible, for almost all of the play. It's well over 3 hours long and that's hard work for anyone but it certainly didn't show and it absolutely didn't feel like 3 hours!
Gillian's Blanche was brittle- passionate and determined and stubborn but almost visibly on the edge of breaking from very early on. You could see the way she attacked in order to defend her weak spots and how she deluded herself and hid in her pretenses and "magic" and it was heartbreaking to see how she fell apart and how inevitable it all seemed especially opposite Vanessa Kirby's Stella who so clearly knew and understood herself even if we pitied her for staying with Stanley she was sure of herself in a way that Blanche just wasn't.
I would say, if I had a criticism, that I didn't necessarily think the chemistry between Vanessa Kirby & Ben Foster sparked quite enough but then there were sparks flying everywhere else so it's only a minor quibble.
Every scene between Stanley and Blanche you could feel her throwing herself against this brick wall and trying to get round him or break him or bend him but with the inevitable knowledge that he was far more likely to break her than vice versa.
The rest of the cast were very able back up as well- Corey Johnson's Mitch was sweet and reliable and measured and I loved Clare Burt as Eunice with her own problems but so sympathetic and willing to help Stella, I really believed them as friends (well, neighbours and supporters at least).
I've seen some reviews say that Ben Foster wasn't quite dark enough, didn't have quite enough of an edge (presumably they mean "isn't Marlon Brando") and I can sort of see that but I'm not sure it was necessary. When everything finally goes to pieces he was frightening enough as a physical presence and yet it was believable that Stella would keep going back to him.
Mostly though Gillian Anderson was just incredible, very smart but very broken and with just enough wit and humour in amongst the bite and lies and fragileness to make us really want things to some how turn out alright even when you knew they wouldn't. And the final scenes made me feel absolutely sick as I think they probably should.
If you can get to the NT Live screening I would highly recommend it though I'll be interested to see how they film it with the spinning set!
Then it was home to bed because it was LATE and we had to get up on Saturday to drive to Chichester for Guys and Dolls! (I say we seiyaharris, my friend N and I went to both). N very kindly agreed to drive (I'm doing the same drive later in the year for Gypsy) only of course it was Bank Holiday weekend and although we were hoping Saturday morning wouldn't be TOO bad it was an idle hope.
The journey should take 1h45 in normal traffic but it actually took 3h30... the M25 is in fact just as evil as Good Omens describes /o\ and then of course we arrived later than planned so finding a parking space was a NIGHTMARE. Hilariously after driving round and round in endless circles we actually ended up parked right next to the path to the theatres but it was all a bit stressful.
Worth it though!
Guys & Dolls @ Chichester Festival Theatre
Where to even start? I LOVE Guys & Dolls as a show and when they announced Jamie Parker as Sky Masterson there was no way I wasn't going but the whole production was full of people I love- the fabulous Clare Foster as Sarah, Peter Polycarpou as Nathan and Sophie Thompson as Miss Adelaide and that's before you even get onto the fact that Carlos Acosta did the choreography!
I will admit, now I've been and it was all good, that I was a little concerned over Jamie as Sky. He's such a fundamentally nice guy I wondered if he could pull of Sky but I genuinely think he did. I mean admittedly he can't dance bless him but they'd staged the production so he never really needed to and actually it really worked having him as a still place in the middle of some of the dance numbers, it made him seem very unbothered by all these people around him which is very Sky (given he's a person who appears to need to make ridiculous and huge bets to keep himself interested in life a certain disinterest in everything else but Sarah makes sense!)
And he can sing, he can absolutely sing and if anything his voice has got stronger and fuller since I heard him last and when he started his lines in I'll Know ♥ I loved that whole duet, they sang it beautifully and acted it perfectly as if slowly but surely they were drawn together.
I also LOVED Luck Be a Lady. The choreography of the whole Crap Game number was absolutely brilliant, the dancers are all fantastic and you can see Carlos Acosta's style, and then Jamie standing centre stage and singing with them all frozen at first worked really well for me.
I mean I still have a slight sadness that he didn't suddenly produce an unexpected ability to dnace but that was never very likely.
Meanwhile Clare Foster had one slight vocal wobble right at the start and then was absolutely flawless from then on. Her Sarah was so wonderful prim and proper and then when she let her hair down it was the perfect contrast and the Havana scene was full of so much joy- she dances fake!drunk very well and just kept smiling and copying the other dancer until it turned into the fight. I loved how she seemed to bubble over with joy until she slammed the doors shut and I loved even more that she spent most of Sit Down Your Rockin' the Boat at the back with her head in her hands and smiling in bemusement.
I honestly just loved her, she's without a doubt the best Sarah I've seen <3
Sophie Thompson and Peter Polycarpou are, if I'm honest, a little older than I'd expect Adelaide and Nathan to be but because their ages match the only time it's at all weird is in the Hot Box when she's obviously so much older than the other girls but they did those numbers with a lot of fun and she was just brilliant at Adelaide's Lament and Sue Me and Marry the Man Today and basically every song she had. She is brilliant at acting all the way through the song without actually sacrificing the melody (iyswim) and if anyone can match her toe-to-toe in the duets in would be Peter Polycarpou.
(in the interval, discussing previous production, I managed to completely forget who played Nathan opposite Jane Krakowski in the Grandage production... given it was Douglas Hodge I don't think I'm ever living that down)
The rest of the supporting cast were good too. Nic Greenshields was a wonderfully menacing Big Jule, very large and very still and very frightening which was why Sky's casual punch knocking him out worked so beautifully. And I also loved Ian Hughes' Benny Southstreet and Harry Morrison's Nicely Nicely.
Incidentally I think having seen Clive Rowe as Nicely Nicely I've been spoiled forever for Sit Down Your Rocking the Boat but it was lively and well choreographed and funny and when Melanie La Barrie joined in as General Cartwright it was absolutely magnificent because I did NOT expect the voice that came out of her *g*
The production makes good use of relatively simple staging, tables pop up and retract back into the stage (and turn into piping when they're down in the sewers) and other than that there was the bar in Havana, a newspaper stand/shoe shine stall and the mission and that was it really which kept the focus on the actual show which was nice.
I really really hope it transfers or that some of you get to see it in Chichester although you should just not tell me if you don't like Jamie in it and you should DEFINITELY not tell me if you don't like Clare :-P
I have to admit I was surprised by just how old the average age of the audience was, I mean I know it was a matinee and outside London but... yeah. Also a very badly behaved audience sadly with phones going off and a lot of chatter but that kind of is my experience of 1) older and 2) regional audiences as snobby as that sounds :-P
After a break for pizza and discussion we set off home and thankfully the journey went much more to plan, just about 2hrs door to door this time.
Once back at my house seiyaharris and I watched Doctor Who so as to avoid spoilers. I'm mostly not talking about/reading about Who online these days because it makes me too angry/upset and I don't really follow current fandom trends. I liked the episode though, with a few quibbles, though I think maybe it didn't need to be that long. I'm interested to see where we go from here and that is all I shall say (oh and I loved having Jenny, Vastra and Strax back obv)
*takes a deep breath*
On Sunday after two services (to make up for not being at church for two weeks) which were weirdly identical which they aren't usually (same hymns, same readings, same sermon even...) I came home and debated the wisdom of dragging myself out of my cosy house to the cinema and eventually, spurred on by twitter, I convinced myself.
And yes, I very much enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy although I rather suspect I'd have liked it even more if I hadn't seen every joke and/or particularly good bit in gif format already *rolls eyes* lesson learned, go in week 1! I didn't like it as much as Avengers and I did spend a lot of time just wanting to know more about Nebula and Gamora but it was fun and interesting and I'd definitely watch a sequel.
Watching the trailers before hand did distract me into a train of thought re: the last non-SFF film I saw at the cinema... I still haven't quite worked out the answer to that!
I then spent the rest of the evening catching up on which, on a related point, I was entranced and horrified by in all the best ways despite having also seen most of the big bits in gif format.
The on Monday I had lunch with a group of friends including FINALLY getting to meet the 8 month old twins of my other friend N (the two N's literally have the same name, it's very unhelpful). The boys were very good and entirely unphased by being passed around the group. I got to practice my one-handed eating and got lots of smile and a few grumbles- I think we cruelly planned lunch at nap time.
Not a bad way to spend a Bank Holiday all told!
Well the weather held out for most of the summer holidays and actually if this means we have a few more visitors at the museum this week it'll be very welcome! Still it's depressing to come back to work after the Bank Holiday to rain and distinctly autumnal temperatures.
It was a BRILLIANT Bank Holiday though, even with the large amount of time spent sitting in traffic on the M25.
(this might be quite a long post...)
It started on Friday evening with the Gillian Anderson and A Streetcar Named Desire which I've never actually seen. I might have said on our way in that I'd only seen one Tennessee Williams play on stage before but it turns out when I said one I meant three one of which I also saw at the Young Vic /o\ this weekend generally I had problems remembering perfectly obvious things. Of which more anon *g*
A Streetcar Named Desire @ Young Vic
The set the Young Vic have created for this is so simple, Stella & Stanley's apartment sits in the middle of the theatre and slowly revolves throughout the play, speeding up and slowing down and occasionally switching direction as the play twists and turns and Blanches mental state deteriorates.
I wondered if the spinning would be distracting but it really wasn't and the fact that it was open on every side left all of the action open to our eyes from every angle. The only place to hide on that stage was in the bath with the shower curtain drawn which made even more sense of Blanche's frequent retreats for long hot baths.
And of course it meant that Gillian Anderson was on stage, and visible, for almost all of the play. It's well over 3 hours long and that's hard work for anyone but it certainly didn't show and it absolutely didn't feel like 3 hours!
Gillian's Blanche was brittle- passionate and determined and stubborn but almost visibly on the edge of breaking from very early on. You could see the way she attacked in order to defend her weak spots and how she deluded herself and hid in her pretenses and "magic" and it was heartbreaking to see how she fell apart and how inevitable it all seemed especially opposite Vanessa Kirby's Stella who so clearly knew and understood herself even if we pitied her for staying with Stanley she was sure of herself in a way that Blanche just wasn't.
I would say, if I had a criticism, that I didn't necessarily think the chemistry between Vanessa Kirby & Ben Foster sparked quite enough but then there were sparks flying everywhere else so it's only a minor quibble.
Every scene between Stanley and Blanche you could feel her throwing herself against this brick wall and trying to get round him or break him or bend him but with the inevitable knowledge that he was far more likely to break her than vice versa.
The rest of the cast were very able back up as well- Corey Johnson's Mitch was sweet and reliable and measured and I loved Clare Burt as Eunice with her own problems but so sympathetic and willing to help Stella, I really believed them as friends (well, neighbours and supporters at least).
I've seen some reviews say that Ben Foster wasn't quite dark enough, didn't have quite enough of an edge (presumably they mean "isn't Marlon Brando") and I can sort of see that but I'm not sure it was necessary. When everything finally goes to pieces he was frightening enough as a physical presence and yet it was believable that Stella would keep going back to him.
Mostly though Gillian Anderson was just incredible, very smart but very broken and with just enough wit and humour in amongst the bite and lies and fragileness to make us really want things to some how turn out alright even when you knew they wouldn't. And the final scenes made me feel absolutely sick as I think they probably should.
If you can get to the NT Live screening I would highly recommend it though I'll be interested to see how they film it with the spinning set!
Then it was home to bed because it was LATE and we had to get up on Saturday to drive to Chichester for Guys and Dolls! (I say we seiyaharris, my friend N and I went to both). N very kindly agreed to drive (I'm doing the same drive later in the year for Gypsy) only of course it was Bank Holiday weekend and although we were hoping Saturday morning wouldn't be TOO bad it was an idle hope.
The journey should take 1h45 in normal traffic but it actually took 3h30... the M25 is in fact just as evil as Good Omens describes /o\ and then of course we arrived later than planned so finding a parking space was a NIGHTMARE. Hilariously after driving round and round in endless circles we actually ended up parked right next to the path to the theatres but it was all a bit stressful.
Worth it though!
Guys & Dolls @ Chichester Festival Theatre
Where to even start? I LOVE Guys & Dolls as a show and when they announced Jamie Parker as Sky Masterson there was no way I wasn't going but the whole production was full of people I love- the fabulous Clare Foster as Sarah, Peter Polycarpou as Nathan and Sophie Thompson as Miss Adelaide and that's before you even get onto the fact that Carlos Acosta did the choreography!
I will admit, now I've been and it was all good, that I was a little concerned over Jamie as Sky. He's such a fundamentally nice guy I wondered if he could pull of Sky but I genuinely think he did. I mean admittedly he can't dance bless him but they'd staged the production so he never really needed to and actually it really worked having him as a still place in the middle of some of the dance numbers, it made him seem very unbothered by all these people around him which is very Sky (given he's a person who appears to need to make ridiculous and huge bets to keep himself interested in life a certain disinterest in everything else but Sarah makes sense!)
And he can sing, he can absolutely sing and if anything his voice has got stronger and fuller since I heard him last and when he started his lines in I'll Know ♥ I loved that whole duet, they sang it beautifully and acted it perfectly as if slowly but surely they were drawn together.
I also LOVED Luck Be a Lady. The choreography of the whole Crap Game number was absolutely brilliant, the dancers are all fantastic and you can see Carlos Acosta's style, and then Jamie standing centre stage and singing with them all frozen at first worked really well for me.
I mean I still have a slight sadness that he didn't suddenly produce an unexpected ability to dnace but that was never very likely.
Meanwhile Clare Foster had one slight vocal wobble right at the start and then was absolutely flawless from then on. Her Sarah was so wonderful prim and proper and then when she let her hair down it was the perfect contrast and the Havana scene was full of so much joy- she dances fake!drunk very well and just kept smiling and copying the other dancer until it turned into the fight. I loved how she seemed to bubble over with joy until she slammed the doors shut and I loved even more that she spent most of Sit Down Your Rockin' the Boat at the back with her head in her hands and smiling in bemusement.
I honestly just loved her, she's without a doubt the best Sarah I've seen <3
Sophie Thompson and Peter Polycarpou are, if I'm honest, a little older than I'd expect Adelaide and Nathan to be but because their ages match the only time it's at all weird is in the Hot Box when she's obviously so much older than the other girls but they did those numbers with a lot of fun and she was just brilliant at Adelaide's Lament and Sue Me and Marry the Man Today and basically every song she had. She is brilliant at acting all the way through the song without actually sacrificing the melody (iyswim) and if anyone can match her toe-to-toe in the duets in would be Peter Polycarpou.
(in the interval, discussing previous production, I managed to completely forget who played Nathan opposite Jane Krakowski in the Grandage production... given it was Douglas Hodge I don't think I'm ever living that down)
The rest of the supporting cast were good too. Nic Greenshields was a wonderfully menacing Big Jule, very large and very still and very frightening which was why Sky's casual punch knocking him out worked so beautifully. And I also loved Ian Hughes' Benny Southstreet and Harry Morrison's Nicely Nicely.
Incidentally I think having seen Clive Rowe as Nicely Nicely I've been spoiled forever for Sit Down Your Rocking the Boat but it was lively and well choreographed and funny and when Melanie La Barrie joined in as General Cartwright it was absolutely magnificent because I did NOT expect the voice that came out of her *g*
The production makes good use of relatively simple staging, tables pop up and retract back into the stage (and turn into piping when they're down in the sewers) and other than that there was the bar in Havana, a newspaper stand/shoe shine stall and the mission and that was it really which kept the focus on the actual show which was nice.
I really really hope it transfers or that some of you get to see it in Chichester although you should just not tell me if you don't like Jamie in it and you should DEFINITELY not tell me if you don't like Clare :-P
I have to admit I was surprised by just how old the average age of the audience was, I mean I know it was a matinee and outside London but... yeah. Also a very badly behaved audience sadly with phones going off and a lot of chatter but that kind of is my experience of 1) older and 2) regional audiences as snobby as that sounds :-P
After a break for pizza and discussion we set off home and thankfully the journey went much more to plan, just about 2hrs door to door this time.
Once back at my house seiyaharris and I watched Doctor Who so as to avoid spoilers. I'm mostly not talking about/reading about Who online these days because it makes me too angry/upset and I don't really follow current fandom trends. I liked the episode though, with a few quibbles, though I think maybe it didn't need to be that long. I'm interested to see where we go from here and that is all I shall say (oh and I loved having Jenny, Vastra and Strax back obv)
*takes a deep breath*
On Sunday after two services (to make up for not being at church for two weeks) which were weirdly identical which they aren't usually (same hymns, same readings, same sermon even...) I came home and debated the wisdom of dragging myself out of my cosy house to the cinema and eventually, spurred on by twitter, I convinced myself.
And yes, I very much enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy although I rather suspect I'd have liked it even more if I hadn't seen every joke and/or particularly good bit in gif format already *rolls eyes* lesson learned, go in week 1! I didn't like it as much as Avengers and I did spend a lot of time just wanting to know more about Nebula and Gamora but it was fun and interesting and I'd definitely watch a sequel.
Watching the trailers before hand did distract me into a train of thought re: the last non-SFF film I saw at the cinema... I still haven't quite worked out the answer to that!
I then spent the rest of the evening catching up on which, on a related point, I was entranced and horrified by in all the best ways despite having also seen most of the big bits in gif format.
The on Monday I had lunch with a group of friends including FINALLY getting to meet the 8 month old twins of my other friend N (the two N's literally have the same name, it's very unhelpful). The boys were very good and entirely unphased by being passed around the group. I got to practice my one-handed eating and got lots of smile and a few grumbles- I think we cruelly planned lunch at nap time.
Not a bad way to spend a Bank Holiday all told!