The Ferryman by Jez Butterworth, Royal Court Theatre, 29 April 2017

This visit to the Royal Court Theatre was the third of my “three courts in one day” – click here or below to read about the other two:

Three Courts In One Day, 29 April 2017

There’s been a lot of press chat about The Ferryman, now that Jez Butterworth is seen as such a hot property playwright and with Sam Mendes returning to the theatre to direct again, now that he is a hotshot movie director. Apparently this Royal Court run sold out before the previews even started, while the West End transfer is already taking bookings.

We saw one of the last of the previews.

Here is a link to the Royal Court on-line resource on this play/production.

I don’t recall Jez Butterworth’s plays being long previously, so we were a bit daunted when we learnt that this play runs to more than three hours. Especially daunted in my case, with all that court time in my mind, legs and backside, I feared for my ability to concentrate throughout the piece and wondered if I’d be able to move at the end of the show.

As it happens, the play/production is sufficiently pacy, stylish and interesting to hold the attention almost throughout. My body didn’t let me down either…just about. Janie and I both felt that the final act was perhaps a little too long, but twixt previews and press night there might be some tweaks to put that aspect right.

The cast was superb. The design and directing top notch. Sam Mendes knows what he is doing. The Royal Court almost certainly has a big hit on its hands.

Janie remarked that this was a quintessentially Irish play (or words to that effect), which she tends to prefer in theory more than in practice. She loved The Weir, for example, but often finds Irish plays a bit samey and she usually struggles to understand the accents at times.

This play reminded me of Brian Friel’s hit Dancing at Lughnasa, except that The Ferryman is set in rural Northern Ireland (County Armagh) in the early 1980’s rather than Friel’s play from County Donegal in the 1930’s.

Indeed, the thing that distinguishes The Ferryman from most traditional Irish rural plays is that The Troubles are right at the heart of the story, rather than on the periphery. The older generation talk of friends and family caught up in the 1916 Easter Rising and listen to Maggie Thatcher on the radio talking about the 1981 hunger strikes, while the younger ones talk of attending Bobby Sands funeral.

If this all sounds a bit “tell rather than show”, then I am doing the play/production an injustice. It is very show. There’s singing, dancing, several species of livestock and spirits, both of the supernatural kind and indeed a great deal of Bushmills drinking. Yes, everything you’d expect from a good rural Irish play.

Why The Ferryman? Well, towards the end of the play one of the oldsters, Uncle Pat, quotes Virgil (The Aeneid Book Six, since you asked), in which Aeneas learns that Charon The Ferryman is not permitted to carry the unburied, lost souls across the River Styx until they have roamed the shores for a thousand years.

What relevance does that tale from The Aeneid have to the play? Well I’d probably spoil the play by trying to link those tales and might not hit the spot with my attempt. Suffice it to say that the West End transfer has used the strap line:

“You can’t bury the past”.

A very Ogblog strap line, for a play/production that is very much worth seeing.

The image is another link to that Royal Court resource

Hangmen by Martin McDonagh, Royal Court Theatre, 10 October 2015

We were really looking forward to this. While we were unsure about McDonagh’s earlier work, such as The Cripple of Inishman, we absolutely loved The Pillowman and had been hoping to see another new play by him.

We certainly were not disappointed by this play/production. It had us gripped from the start. It is a shocking, at times hilariously funny black comedy about the last hangmen in the UK. The mixture of cunning plot twists and traditional comedic devices works brilliantly. Great cast, great production, what’s not to like?

The Royal Court stub – here – covers more or less all you need to know, including links to the myriad of rave reviews this production justifiably received. 

The production earned a major west end transfer, deservedly.

 

Absurdia: A Resounding Tinkle and Gladly Otherwise by N.F. Simpson, The Crimson Hotel by Michael Frayn, Donmar Warehouse, 18 August 2007

I’m not sure we were quite in the mood for a triple-bill of British Absurdist comedies. I’m not sure we’d have been in the mood for these plays even if we had been in a more appropriate mood.

Billed as being a precursor to Pythonesque comedy, the only python-like thing in the 1960s N.F. Simpson material was talk about a neighbours snake. His plays were certainly more English whimsy than European absurdism.

The Michael Frayn was a modern piece, but lesser Frayn in my view.

Great cast; it would probably seem worthwhile watching Peter Capaldi paint the ceiling. Douglas Hodge directed this production – he seems to have a good eye and ear for this sort of stuff. It’s just not really our sort of stuff.

The critics weren’t too sure either:

Antony And Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, RSC Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, 31 October 1992

This was the second of the two previews Janie and I went to see on our first long weekend away together in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

It seems that Janie decided to “give Shakespeare a go” with me (we have done a few in our time) but in truth she has never got on with Shakespeare. I have got on with Shakespeare but didn’t get on so well with this play and/or this production.

It is a very long play and in truth I don’t think one of Shakespeare’s best. My log records:

We didn’t go great guns on this one.

Good cast: Richard Johnson (Antony), John Nettles (Caesar) and Clare Higgins (Cleopatra).

There is a single fixed camera video of the production apparently, click here for details, including lots of details about exactly who played whom and stuff and where you might find the odd review.

This production probably helped to put Janie off The Bard, but fortunately did not seem to put her off me, despite the fact that (as I recall) the back-aching and thirst-inducing length of the play did little for our moods, especially mine.

Here is the Theatricalia entry for this production.

Below is Michael Coveney’s Observer review:

Changeling, Antony & Cleopatra, Michael CoveneyChangeling, Antony & Cleopatra, Michael Coveney Sun, Nov 8, 1992 – 57 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Below is Michael Billington’s Guardian review:

Changeling, Antony & Cleopatra Michael BillingtonChangeling, Antony & Cleopatra Michael Billington Mon, Nov 9, 1992 – 30 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com