This was a great production of great play. Paul Scofield as the big man, Vanessa Redgrave as the long-suffering wife, Eileen Atkins, Michael Bryant, a great supporting cast, Richard Eyre directing, what was not to like?
Janie doesn’t tend to like “classics” but tends to makes an exception for Ibsen. This production was no exception to her exception.
As is often the case, the Lyttleton did the play no favours, too big and set back for intimacy yet not quite big enough or shaped right to be the big stage. But when the only criticism one can muster is that, the fact is that this was a great night at the theatre and I am so glad we saw this production.
What an amazing piece of theatre this was. The late great Mike Nichols, better known as a director of course, acted brilliantly, with Miranda Richardson and David de Keyser, all wonderful.
David Hare, better known as a playwright but also a talented director, did a grand job with the piece.
Wallace Shawn, perhaps better known as an actor than as a playwright, although also a very talented playwright, wrote it. Not his best known; indeed possibly not his best piece, but, an excellent play.
Despite all that role rotation, it came off superbly well for us.
Janie and I recognised the unmistakable back of Wallace Shawn’s head just in front of us that night. A few years later, we chatted with Wallace Shawn at the Almeida when he turned up to see Miranda Richardson in Aunt Dan and Lemon; he waxed lyrical about how wonderful he thinks she is, seemed genuinely self-effacing about his writing and genuinely delighted that we had been inspired to seek out his plays by seeing this piece and of course My Dinner With Andre, one of my favourite films ever.
That was the record in the log and that is faint praise. A superb cast including Alan Howard, Bernard Cribbins and Anne-Marie Duff . Richard Eyre directing. What’s not to like?
Some rare long intervals between visits to theatre and concert hall that summer, all down to the dawning of my business Z/Yen, which took up ludicrous amounts of time including weekends.
In theory this National theatre production should have been amazing. Alan Howard, Frances de la Tour, Sheila Gish, a young as yet little known Jude Law…
…but my log reads, “not bad. Not the greatest either”. That means we didn’t like it all that much.
Yes, yes, yes! We thought this was a really, really good night at the theatre.
I’d long been a Pinter fan. Janie wasn’t really familiar with his work, but Janie made the running for this night at the Almeida, booking us the front row seats we craved for that place (still do) and jotting down all the details. 90 minutes without an interval. Seats A7 & A8.
This play/production was our first sighting of Pinter together.
I think we ran into Ivan Shakespeare again that night; volunteering for the Almeida selling programmes.
Michael Billington’s review was on the front page of the Guradian – how often does that happen? Along with a luvvie-fest piece (I’m glad we weren’t there that night and a continuation on Page 18.
Also in the Guardian, an Anna Massey interview about Moonlight. Anna Massey went on to become one of Janie’s regular clients, but Janie didn’t yet know her when we saw Moonlight.
I went to see this play with Bobbie Scully. I remember it very well; both of us were very taken with it. It did prove to be a big hit, transferring and being produced again many times.
This original production really was a cracker. I think it pretty much made Jane Horrocks’s name; I don’t think she was all that well known before – perhaps she was known on the TV. Pete Postlethwaite and Alison Steadman were terrific.
I’m not sure what we did for food, but we tended to go to The Archduke or possibly RSJs after the show in those days.
No on-line reviews from those days, so you’ll just have to take my word for it – it was a cracking show. I rated the evening very good in my log, that’s for sure. Several reviews on-line for subsequent versions refer to the 1992 production – click here for the search term that brings those up.
Better yet, below is Michael Billigton’s Guardian review:
All my notes say is that I went with Bobbie Scully and that we thought it was very good.
I remember thinking Ken Stott was superb – I don’t think I had seen him before. It might have been my first encounter with the excellent Alex Jennings. Des Barrit was also a standout performer, as usual. But in truth the whole cast was good and you can see many names on the list who went on to do bigger and bolder things.
There are no on-line reviews to be found – until now – my one right here – yay!
I’m not sure what Bobbie and I did about eating afterwards, but in those days we would sometimes eat at the RNT itself – we might well have done that – or sometimes we’d go to The Archduke or somewhere of that ilk nearby.
I wrote in my log and I remember this production as such too. In 1992 I was still going to this sort of production with Bobbie as long as she was available, which most often she was, despite her protests that mebooking stuff so far ahead meant she couldn’t/wouldn’t guarantee her availability.
Bobbie was there for this one.
I’m pretty sure I had seen Bobbie the night before as well. The diary simply says “clubbing” which, as I recall it, meant a West End evening with Bobbie and several of her law reporter friends.
I remember the evening of Friday 13 March 1992 clearly, because I almost lost my life earlier that day on the M11, driving out to see Schering, when a lorry shed its load of timber on the two-lane motorway ahead of me and I had nowhere to go (other than into a central reservation barrier to the right or into the vehicles to my left) so I slowed down as much as I could through the timber and then vehicularly limped to the hard shoulder to have my broken car and shaken me rescued.
I must have bored everyone shitless with my Friday 13th story that previous evening and for sure the events of the day and evening of 13th were small beer compared with the drama that unfolded at The Lyttelton on the Saturday Night.
Two visits to the Olivier Theatre with Bobbie in 48 hours. Just fancy. Must have been an availability thing and both of us wanting to see both plays.
In my log I wrote,
Good, but not as good as I had hoped it would be.
I seem to recall finding the play a bit wordy, a bit worthy and also some of the legal aspects a little unconvincing. I think the feedback from Bobbie’s legal entourage was similar on that last point when we ended up comparing notes.
Billington on Borkman Sat, Jul 13, 1996 – 30 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
