Little Revolution by Alecky Blythe, Almeida Theatre, 30 August 2014

We so wanted to really like this one…

…and we sort-of did like it, but still felt a little let down by the piece. It could…we felt should…have been so gripping and exciting.

We loved Alecky Blythe’s verbatim piece a few years earlier, The Girlriend Experience – click here or below…

The Girlfriend Experience, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 20 September 2008

…so we thought a verbatim piece about the 2011 riots, complete with “community chorus”, would be a special evening of theatre.

Here is a link to the Almeida stub on the piece.

It all felt very different on arrival at the theatre, with the space transformed for this piece and entrances to the space where audiences normally fear to tread.

But the piece itself never really took off into the stratosphere as perhaps it should.

We heard a lot from the good-hearted middle class people who felt conflicted by the riots and/or tried to help those who got into difficulties during the chaos. We heard less from the rioters themselves.

To be fair on Alecky Blythe, she took the orthodox view on the play and stuck only to the verbatim material she could gather at the time, so I suppose that would be weighted towards those slightly safer situations…

…not least because people are not normally full of conversation while rioting…

…I imagine; not ever having been in the heart of a riot personally.

The reviews were a bit mixed – as Janie and I predicted when we saw the preview – click here for a search term that finds the reviews.

Below is the trailer:

The Village Bike by Penelope Skinner, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 25 June 2011

We really enjoyed this play and production upstairs at the Royal Court.

Here is the Royal Court resource on this play/production.

This was a really entertaining and thought-provoking play by the very promising playwright Penelope Skinner. I think this was our first sight of one of hers; Linda at the Royal Court a few years later – click here or below – confirmed our suspicions that she is a special talent.

Linda by Penelope Skinner, Royal Court Theatre, 28 November 2015

The Village Bike had a very fine cast for an upstairs production, not least Dominic Rowan and Romola Garai, both excellent. Indeed the whole cast was excellent, as was the set, directing, the lot.

Most but not all of the reviews rated it excellent – here is a search term that finds reviews and the other resources you might want.

The Girlfriend Experience, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 20 September 2008

We really liked this play. It was funny and interesting.

It’s one of those verbatim theatre jobbies. Alecky Blythe went round talking to prostitutes at “the parlour” and pulled together a play about them based on their own accounts.

Intriguingly, the cast listened to recordings as they delivered their lines, to add a particular type of authenticity to the verbatim method.

It worked for us, anyhow.

Perhaps the Royal Court are starting to put up archives going back this far, but for now this one is merely a stub – click here.

OfficialLondonTheatre.co.uk has more – click here.