…we wondered whether we’d done the right thing booking this – especially as the Royal Court rubric on the piece was vague, even by Royal Court vague rubric standards. Click here for a link to the unhelpful material.
The little videos in the Royal Court information resource on this production really do not do justice to the piece or to the production’s creators.
We’d also been impressed by Kate O’Flynn when we’d seen her perform.
This production of All Of It is only running for eight performances over the next few days, so change your plans, beg the Royal Court to find you a ticket, do anything to get to see it. It is 45 minutes of theatrical delight.
Actually, it is 42-43 minutes of theatrical delight. For the first two or three minutes we were both thinking, “oh-oh”, until we realised what was going on and how the piece was going to unfold.
Then we could relax and enjoy a virtuoso performance of a rather brilliant piece of writing.
The piece is basically a short, lyrical monologue about an ordinary woman’s life. All of it.
Just take our advice and get to see it, but you’ll have to be quick. If you miss the next few days, start nagging the Royal Court to transfer it or put it on again because this production really deserves to be seen by lots of people and should give pleasure to far more people than eight-Royal-Court-houses.
The play takes place over two decades, starting in 1997 soon after the Blair government took power. It is a chamber play about a nuclear family, the parents being firmly of the left.
We saw a preview of this play/production and were both really taken with it.
It is hard to explain why this play is so good. It’s just beautifully well written. All of the characters are flawed and yet likeable. We wanted to know what was going to happen to all of them.
The acting is top notch. Lesley Sharp has been a favourite of mine for several decades. David Morrisey is also always good value. Indeed all of the cast were fine actors and well suited to their roles.
No gimmicks – it’s simply a super production of a very interesting new play.
Meanwhile, the drama of our evening was only just beginning when the curtain call was taken. We’d agreed to go on to Jo and Sheyda’s cyber party in Tottenham – another story for another blog piece – except that we decided to change into our gear at the Royal Court.
Having checked with the staff, we ascertained that none of the loos are designated by gender any more; they are designated as “urinals and cubicals” or “cubicals only”, so we would be welcome to change in the outer area of the cubicles one.
But when Janie and I went through the “cubicals only” door together, several women in that area started hissy-fitting. How very unwoke and cis-gendered that incident was.
Still, we retired to the relatively pokey but safer space of the disabled toilet to transform ourselves into cyber-folk:
I don’t suppose we booked a play named “Anatomy Of A Suicide” expecting to go to the theatre for a jolly time. Which is just as well.
In any case, the Vicky Featherstone regime at the Royal Court specialises in miserablist theatre, as I have discussed elsewhere, so we knew what to expect.
The play is about three generations of women. As the story starts to unfold, each scene in effect depicts three scenes, one for each of those generations, being shown to the audience at the same time.
If that sounds like information and sensory overload to you, then you are spot on; that is exactly what it is. In truth, most of the time there are two active, dialogue scenes and one less active, minimal or no dialogue scene. But still, a heavy sensory load, if not overload.
Further, the play is two hours long without an interval, which is a heck of a long time for drama without a break, even in the easiest of scenarios. Which this isn’t.
Janie described the experience immediately afterwards as feeling like we’d been put through a mental ringer.
And yet it worked as a play and we were both really pleased we’d seen it.
At first, I’m sure both of us were thinking “what on earth is going on here?”, but as the play pans out, the central device becomes apparent and you do get a good sense of what is happening in each of the three generations and how the earlier generations’ events impact on the later generations and how the later generations’ events echo those of the earlier ones.
Paul Hilton is a fine actor who we’ve seen several times – he does a grand job in this play. As does Kate O’Flynn – indeed all of the cast were very good.
It must be fiendishly complicated to direct and perform – like a dramatic symphony with so many different parts which have to time and sound in harmony with each other. In fact, we were at the first preview and Katie Mitchell stood up before the show to address the audience. She warned us that the piece was so complex to perform that they might have to stop and start in places on this first performance – but apart from a couple of stutters which might have passed for deliberate, the whole thing was done with aplomb that night.
So, despite the play being a grim portrayal of depression and suicide, it was gripping and superbly unusual drama. We’ll remember this one for a long time. For people with sufficient attention span and a sense of dramatic adventure, we’d highly recommend this play/production.
Janie and I certainly both enjoyed a glass or two of white wine with our light smoked salmon and salad supper when we got home; we’d recommend that too.
A different recent supper on a different continent, but I’m sure you get the drift
A weird and dark play about an extreme capitalist. We like Dennis Kelly’s plays – they are always entertaining with dark twists and lots to think about. This one was no exception.
Writing up this play now (march 2018), in our Brexit/Trump infused society, the play seems very relevant and prescient.
The fine actor Tom Brooke seems to thrive on Dennis Kelly plays. Actually the whole cast was good. I think this was our first sighting of Ned Bennett’s work as a director (assisting Vicky Featherstone on this one) – our next sighting being the tremendous Pomona at the Orange Tree – even weirder:
We’re really keen on Simon Stephens work and had high hopes for this play – high hopes that were indeed met.
The play is basically about Simon Stephen’s home town – Stockport.
This was a revival of one of Simon Stephen’s early works – we didn’t realise that when we booked it, bit never mind.
Years later, when Janie and I went to Southport, I had terrible trouble convincing Janie that they are very different places in the North-West with vaguely similar names.
Unfamiliar names in the cast but all did a cracking job. Superb design too. Marianne Elliott is such a good director.
