Tag: Royal Court Theatre Upstairs

Wanderlust by Nick Payne, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 25 September 2010

I’m pretty sure this is the first Nick Payne play we saw. I remember little about it, other than the fact that the play was pretty full on about sex and that, despite its unsubtleties, we came away with the impression that we wanted to see more of this writer, which indeed we did.

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

The usual praise for the Royal Court’s production qualities whether upstairs or downstairs. Super cast too.

Here is a search term that will find you the reviews and stuff if you want a deeper dive.

Spur Of The Moment by Anya Reiss, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 3 August 2010

A rare visit to the theatre on a Tuesday evening.

We were invited, as friends of the Royal Court, to a pre theatre reception and a chance to see this play by a young writer coming through the young writers’ programme.

In truth, we don’t need much encouragement to support the young writers; we go to a lot of the young writers stuff upstairs anyway.

But it was nice to be asked.

We enjoyed the drinks. Got tapped up by the development people just a little and then enjoyed the play.

Not the most sophisticated play ever to come out of the programme, but the piece has some real punch and is most impressive when you consider that Anya Reiss was only 17 when she wrote the play.

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

The critics were almost universal in their praise for Anya Reiss – here is a link to a search on relevant reviews and stuff.

Ingredient X by Nick Grosso, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 12 June 2010

I’d had the bath surgeon re-enamelling my bath at the flat the previous day – without drama and very successfully – perhaps he uses ingredient X?

Anyway, this Royal Court play/production had a superb cast. including Lesley Sharpe and Indira Varma.

Very pacey play – almost to the point of being all over the place. Some very funny lines. Despite its flaws, I think we rather enjoyed it, although I seem to recall enjoying the first half more than the second half of the play. The bants started to grate after a while.

Here is the Royal Court Information on the play.

It is about addictions of all kinds, from drink & drugs to television.

Here’s a link to the reviews and stuff – it wasn’t very well received, this one.

Cock by Mike Bartlett, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 14 November 2009

So we saw a young Ben Whishaw as far back as 2009 in this thing – who knew?

Mike Bartlett has also gone on to bigger and bolder pieces than this since.

I seem to recall that it was a fairly slight piece about someone who is confused about his sexuality; I think the modern term is “fluid”.

The Royal Court link is very slight for an archive of this age – click here.

As usual, high quality production and performances upstairs at the Royal; Court – we love that place.

The Author by Tim Crouch, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 26 September 2009

I only vaguely recall this one. Experimental theatre, with the cast sitting among us as the audience.

The Royal Court has only left scant details up – click here for those.

Tim Crouch himself is a little more forthcoming on his site – here.

Here are some rehearsal and preview extracts from the Royal Court:

Tim took this play to Edinburgh the following year – here is a two minute extract:

Post modern in a “theatre about theatre” way. An attempt to shake up the complacency of audience members like us.

It seems to have worked better on critics than it did on us:

Tusk Tusk by Polly Stenham, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 28 March 2009

We enjoyed but were a bit disappointed by this one.

We had absolutely loved That Face, Polly Stenham’s first play, so had eagerly awaited this one for two years.

Tusk Tusk was another play about a dysfunctional family with an addled mother (absentee mother this time) and several wild kids as the result.

It felt a bit like more of the same to us, which was a shame because we (perhaps unreasonably) expected more from Polly Stenham on the back of her stunningly good first play.

Still, some excellent performances from the youngsters (this must have been the first time we saw the excellent Bel Powley, for example) and the usual Royal Court quality of production, even when the play is being done upstairs.

We saw the Saturday preview before press night.

I have found some super Pete Jones Productions photos online – presumably from opening night – click here.

Faces In The Crowd by Leo Butler, Royal Court Upstairs, 25 October 2008

This was a very memorable, very intimate play.

The set was effectively a small studio apartment which we, the tiny audience, was observing from above. You really almost felt you were in the apartment with the couple. And the couple were discussing very intimate stuff.

Official London Theatre maintains a basic resource on this production – click here.

Janie and I took Charlie (Lavender) with us to this one, which I think she enjoyed very much. We’re struggling to remember what we did for grub on this occasion; we think we possibly ate at the Royal Court itself.

Definitely more plus than minus for us.

The Girlfriend Experience, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 20 September 2008

We really liked this play. It was funny and interesting.

It’s one of those verbatim theatre jobbies. Alecky Blythe went round talking to prostitutes at “the parlour” and pulled together a play about them based on their own accounts.

Intriguingly, the cast listened to recordings as they delivered their lines, to add a particular type of authenticity to the verbatim method.

It worked for us, anyhow.

Perhaps the Royal Court are starting to put up archives going back this far, but for now this one is merely a stub – click here.

OfficialLondonTheatre.co.uk has more – click here.

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.

Kebab by Gianina Cărbunariu, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 20 October 2007

I recall this being a very powerful play/production – archived in all its detail by the Royal Court here. This resource includes plenty of reviews, from the play’s original outing in Dublin and also from the Royal Court.

With Rhinoceros on downstairs at the same time, I suppose this was Romanian month at the Royal Court.

I remember we left feeling uncomfortable; sexual exploitation is that sort of subject on the stage – you feel a little complicit in the exploitation even though you know you’ve been watching a play. In this play that exploitation is as raw as a symbolic uncooked kebab.

Lots of good reviews shown in the Royal Court link above, but Michael Billington in the Guardian absolutely hated it – see here. He felt he’d seen it all before. So did Charles Spencer in the Telegraph – see here.

It certainly wasn’t a fun play, but it was very well acted – we were more with the good reviews than the haters.

My diary is silent on what we had for dinner after the play, but it might easily, ironically, have been some form of kebabs, as we would often as not go to Ranoush or Mohsen after the Royal Court. But perhaps we went to May’s for Chinese food on this occasion, even if that choice was a change of tack after seeing the play.