suddenlossofdignity.com by Zawe Ashton, James Graham, Joel Horwood, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Michelle Terry, Bush Theatre, 8 August 2009

I don’t remember a great deal about this one, so perhaps it wasn’t the hilarious romp the Bush production resource suggests that it must have been.

Interesting list of young playwrights collaborated on the piece, though; James Graham in particular having shot to playwright stardom relatively quickly since.

I don’t remember hating it – but I do recall that curates egg feeling about it. “Sounded better as an idea than it turned out to be as a play” was probably Daisy’s verdict.

 

 

The Man Who Had All the Luck by Arthur Miller, Donmar Warehouse, 1 March 2008

We are both very keen on Arthur Miller and thought we would probably enjoy one of his rarely performed early works.

We went to the second preview of this production, so possibly didn’t get it at its absolute best.

While we enjoyed the play and production, with some of its parable qualities reminding us of great Miller plays, I would suggest that the play is not a great Miller play and the production was not one of the Donmar’s greatest productions. The acting was superb, as we pretty much expect at the Donmar, the cast mostly unfamiliar folk to us.

Here is a link to the excellent Donmar downloadable “Study Guide” resource for this production.

The critics were somewhat divided in their opinions, even individually in some cases:

There’s a good Wikipedia piece about the play – here – which mentions the Donmar revival and others besides. It also provides a bit more analysis about the play.

We’re very fussy when it comes to the Donmar these days, as we find that Covent Garden location so awkward, but on balance we certainly felt that this was a worthwhile trip.