Free Outgoing by Anupama Chandrasekhar, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 23 November 2007

We thought this might be a good one. That’s why we made the rare decision to book the Royal Court for a Friday evening.

We were not disappointed.

The story is simple enough; a young Indian girl in Mumbai has been videoed by her boyfriend having sex with him and the video inadvertently goes viral, ruining the youngsters lives; in particular hers and those of her family.

Lots of big modern issues in there. We found the play intriguing and disturbing. The production was very well done.

The Royal Court stub on this one is excellent, with several good reviews reproduced in full – here.

Charles Spencer’s in the Telegraph is not one of those reproduced, but is still a very good review, here.

Philip Fisher also gave it a rave review in the British Theatre Guide – here.

It is a fairly short piece but no harm in that. I seem to recall it got a gig downstairs a year or so later, deservedly so.

Everyman by Anon, RSC, The Other Place, 21 April 1997

Very good, surprisingly moving…

…was Janie’s and my verdict on this late-medieval morality play.

Our friend, Michael Billington, was not so sure:

Billington Guardian EverymanBillington Guardian Everyman 16 Nov 1996, Sat The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Unusually, Charles Spencer was more in tune with our thinking on this one:

Spencer Telegraph EverymanSpencer Telegraph Everyman 18 Nov 1996, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

It was sort-of a Complicite thing. Here is the Theatricalia entry on it.

Nicholas De Jongh in The Standard didn’t much like it either.

De Jongh Standard EverymanDe Jongh Standard Everyman 15 Nov 1996, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

But we did like it – so there!

Easter by August Strindberg, The Pit, 25 February 1995

We went on a bit of a Strindberg fest that February – this the second of two Strinds in one month. The first was The Dance of Death at The Almeida:

My log says that we thought Easter “excellent” wheras I rated The Dance Of Death “superb”. Not sure whether one of those big adjectives trumps the other. We clearly very much enjoyed both plays/productions.

Katie Mitchell directed Easter and the cast was excellent. A young Lucy Whybrow picked up an Ian Charleson Award for her role as Eleanora in this production. Adrian Rawlins played Elis, Susan Brown played the mother and Philip Locke played the sinister Lindkvist.

Here is the Theatricalia entry for this production.

A wonderful preview of this one and The Dance of Death by Paul Taylor survives in The Independent on-line – click here.

Taylor does mention this production in the review I posted for The Dance Of Death. Nothing else that I can find on-line from 1995.

It was excellent – take our words for it.

Or if you don’t like our word, try this Michael Billington clipping:

Billington On EasterBillington On Easter Sat, Jan 28, 1995 – 26 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Or try Kate Kellaway:

Kate Kellaway On EasterKate Kellaway On Easter Sun, Jan 29, 1995 – 75 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Janie and I Go On Our First Proper Date, The Street Of Crocodiles, Cottesloe Theatre, 29 August 1992

This is the third and final part of my 25th anniversary Ogblog trilogy on “how Janie and I got it together”. In case you missed the first two parts and are interested in reading them, here are links to the first two episodes:

So, the ossobuco supper gave me the perfect opportunity to phone Janie to thank her for her hospitality and ask her out.

As luck would have it, I was sitting on a pair of hot tickets, The Street Of Crocodiles at the Cottesloe Theatre. It was my habit back then to book up quite a few such productions a long way in advance, with Bobbie Scully in mind for first dips, but with an unwritten agreement with Bobbie that she couldn’t commit that far in advance and that I might need to find someone else to join me…

…anyway, I had these tickets for 29 August and they seemed an ideal way to reciprocate.

Janie seemed keen on the idea, so the date was set.

I also offered to cook Janie a pre-theatre meal, after first checking that she liked Chinese food.

I can’t remember exactly which dishes I went for, but I’ll guess I plugged for bankable favourites that were reasonably easy to prepare and which needed relatively little clearing up afterwards:

  • cha chieng lettuce wrap – probably using veal mince or a mix of veal and pork mince;
  • chicken and cashew nuts with yellow bean sauce;
  • I thought the second main dish was steak slices with onions, mushrooms and black bean sauce, but Janie reckons the second dish was prawns with ginger and spring onions and now I think she is right;
  • pak choi with oyster sauce;
  • steamed basmati rice.

No TripAdvisor review for the meal, but on reminding Janie about it just now, she has described it as “amazing”, so there you go.

But far more amazing than my meal was The Street Of Crocodiles. It really was a stunningly good show.

The play is based on the stories of Bruno Schulz, which (from what we can gather) were weird enough when written, but when given the Complicite treatment, they become a sensory overload of words, music and movement.

Here is a link to Complicite’s page on their production.

Here is a link to the Theatricalia page for this production.

I can’t find online reviews from 1992, but here is Ian Shuttleworth’s review from the 1999 London revival, in which he cross-references the 1992 production.

Here are some Newspaper.com clippings – Guardian & Observer – onl;y ones available at time of clipping:

Some Reviews & Critical Stuff On Street Of Crocodiles, 29 August 1992

 

An Almost Unbelievably Good Show – This Is The 1992 Programme Cover

This 2005 Guardian profile on Simon McBurney also references Michael Billington’s thoughts on the 1992 production, which were not entirely complimentary, as it happens…Billi-o, we thought you were our friend?

This Curtain Up review from the production’s run at the Lincoln Centre in 1998 is very explanatory and also suitably gushing.

Anyway, back to me and Janie.

Janie had driven to my place and insisted on also driving to the National Theatre – the latter habit being one she rarely deviates from 25 years later.

The evening seemed to have gone splendidly well. Janie was very complimentary about my cooking and seemed very taken with the show.

When we got back to my place, I asked Janie if she wanted to come back upstairs to my flat.

She said no.

I asked her if she was absolutely sure.

Janie said that she was absolutely sure and drove off.

So that was that – although on this occasion I sensed that “no” meant “not this time” and that there would be plenty of other times.