The Dysfunckshonalz by Mike Packer, Bush Theatre, 16 November 2007

This play was good fun. It is basically a comedy about a punk band that fell out in unusual circumstances reforming many years later as Mammon comes calling. It sounds a bot “so what?” and it some ways it was, but it was an entertaining evening at one of our favourite venues.

The Bush has a good stub for this production, as the best theatres now do – see here. The reviews bit doesn’t seem to be working, but there are several reviews still to be found:

It didn’t get a west end transfer, but perhaps that idea was b*llocks, never mind. The Bush was still a room above the pub in those days, which seemed a fitting venue for this piece.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Olivier Theatre, 30 June 1990

I rated this production very good and I remember it surprisingly well.

Howard Davies directed this one and gathered an excellent cast. Tom Wilkinson as John Proctor, Zoe Wanamaker as Elizabeth Proctor, Clare Holman as Abigail, plus a top notch RNT ensemble, as was the way at that time.

Here is the Theatricalia entry for this production.

Below is Nicholas de Jongh’s review from The Guardian:

de Jongh on The Cruciblede Jongh on The Crucible Sat, Jun 2, 1990 – 21 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

This production must have been very good, because it is quite a long play and I had “done my back” pretty dramatically the week before. Thus started a period when my back would tell me whether or not I was fully engaged in a theatrical production. For this one, I only recall the superb drama; I don’t recall the pain!