Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
Very good indeed…
…was our judgment on this one.
Lynn Gardner in The Guardian wrote well of it:
Snake Gardner Guardian 23 Mar 1999, Tue The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Nicholas de Jongh did not get it in The Standard:
Snake Standard de Jongh 22 Mar 1999, Mon Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Quite a short play, this was, so we were able to eat at Harry Morgan after the show.
Excellent
…was my single word verdict on this one.
I have tended to find Sebastian Barry plays long and wordy, but this one worked for me and encouraged back to try more of his stuff. I suppose after four plus hours of “Iceman” the previous week, this 150 minute jobbie seemed like a short sketch.
The Theatricalia entry for this play/production can be found here. What a fine gathering of cast and creatives. Sinéad Cusack got most of the plaudits. The critics loved it.
Nicholas de Jongh in The Standard:
Sligo Standard de Jongh 17 Apr 1998, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Our friend, Michael Billington, wrote a BOGOF review of Sligo and Iceman, priasing both to the rafters:
Sligo Guardian Billington 18 Apr 1998, Sat The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Susannah Clapp did similarly in The Observer:
Sligo Observer Clapp 19 Apr 1998, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
This play/production had enjoyed rave reviews and lengthy transfers. Unusually for us, more than a year after it first came out, we decided to book it and see what it was like.
We’re not usually shrinking violets as far as “no holds barred” serious theatre is concerned, but we found this play intolerable. Perhaps our emotions were heightened by the recent shock news about Janie’s twin, Phillie, whose radical cancer surgery had taken place a couple of week’s earlier.
My logged verdict:
Ghastly – we walked out at half time.
Charles Spencer was pretty plain about the piece in The Telegraph:
Shopping Spencer Telegraph 03 Oct 1996, Thu The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Paul Taylor in The Independent, similarly:
Shopping Taylor Independent 03 Oct 1996, Thu The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Nicholas de Jongh had warned the world in The Standard but still voted it good:
Shopping de Jongh Standard 02 Oct 1996, Wed Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
We should have listened to my friend, Michael Billington:
Shopping Billington 1 of 2 03 Oct 1996, Thu The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Shopping Billington 2 of 2 03 Oct 1996, Thu The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Mercifully, after walking out early, Mr Kong gave us sanctuary more than an hour earlier than our booking.
At that time, along with Fung Shing, one of our favourite up market eateries in Chinatown, this is yet another fine place that didn’t make it into the 2020s.
Our take on this:
Interesting (weird) evening. Programme missing – only insert sheet.
Actually the programme might turn out to be a play text which might turn up somewhere on my bookshelves.
I wouldn’t mind reading these plays again. This was Caryl Churchill in impenetrable mood.
Gabrielle Blunt, Jacqueline Defferary, Karina Fernandez, Bernard Gallagher, Valerie Lilley, Mary Macleod and Jason Watkins, directed by Max Stafford-Clark.
Paul Taylor in The Independent was impressed:
Blue Heart Taylor Indy 25 Sep 1997, Thu The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Nick Curtis from The Standard reviewed it a few week’s earlier in Edinburgh, also finding it good:
Blue Heart Curtis Standard 22 Aug 1997, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
We are all agreed them – weird but good.
Then on to Old Park Lane Nobu for dinner. That place was the latest “in place to dine” back then, so we were keen to try it. Who’d have thought that, 25 years later, the signature black cod in miso dish would be something we can obtain from our local (Japanese) fishmonger and serve at home?
This was a couple of years before the Old Park Lane Nobu became infamous for Boris Becker’s broom cupboard romp and many years before Boris ended up in jail.
In 1997, Nobu had just opened to rave reviews. Here’s Fay Maschler in The Standard:
Nobu Maschler Standard 25 Feb 1997, Tue Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Helen Fielding in The Independent also waxed lyrical in amusing fashion about Nobu
Nobu Fielding Indy 09 Mar 1997, Sun The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
That was a lot of sensory stimulation for one evening – Caryl Churchill followed by Nobu. My guess is that Janie was very keen to try the place but could only get a late evening booking, so it sort of made sense to go after theatre.
To add to the excitement, we did it all again (in terms of theatre followed by dinner out) the very next day:
Here is the Theatricalia entry for this production.
This was the first of two plays Janie and I went to see on our first long weekend away together in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
I had seen The Changeling before, at the RNT in 1988, thought highly of it as a Jacobean revenge tragedy and thought Janie might like it. I didn’t yet realise that she was not so keen on classics/old plays. I’m not sure she realised it yet either.
My log reports:
Not quite to Janie’s taste – I rather liked it.
It was a superb production. Looking through the cast and creatives list you can see why. Cheryl Campell as Beatrice-Joanna, Malcolm Storry as De Flores, Michael Attenborough directing. Also a stellar list of youngsters who would break through in their own right later; Sophie Okeonedo, Barnaby Kay, Dominic Cooke (assisting Attenborough). Even Tracy-Ann Oberman (prior to her NewsRevue & SportsRevue days) puts in an appearance as an inmate of the asylum.
The Swan is an ideal venue for this type of play, much better than the Lyttleton. Very high production quality both times though – hard for me to rank one production above the other.
There’s a picture from The Swan production in a Guardian Gallery – click here and scroll down – but no on-line reviews of course.
Below is Michael Coveney’s Observer review:
Changeling, Antony & Cleopatra, Michael Coveney Sun, Nov 8, 1992 – 57 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Below is Michael Billington’s Guardian review:
