Tag: Salma Hoque

Bodies by Vivienne Franzmann, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 5 August 2017

This was a highly-charged-emotional play about surrogacy.

We chose it primarily because we had been so impressed previously by Vivienne Franzmann’s writing, when we saw Pests at the same venue in 2014. That was a high-octane play too.

Productions upstairs at The Royal Court are top quality these days and this was no exception. All of the performers put in excellent performances and the set, while simple, was clever and engaging.

The Royal Court resource on this play/production can be found here.

The reviews on the whole were (deservedly) very good,

Susannah Clapp in The Observer is not quite so sure, describing the play and production as “over deliberate”.

Sarah Hemming in the FT goes for four stars, but shares my doubts about some of the fussiness in the potting.

But it was an incredibly powerful, mood-affecting piece. So much so that Janie suggested, after getting uber-strident over shawarmas at home after the show, that perhaps we should skip these very morally-upsetting subjects at the theatre for a while.

Drawing The Line by Howard Brenton, Hampstead Theatre, 27 December 2013

When we saw Jacquie and Hils Briegal for Christmas, we discovered that we were all going to see this play on the same night as couple of days later, along with Brother-in-law/Uncle Bernard Jacobs.

Typically, Jacquie said that Janie and I should join the family at her place for some supper after the show which we did.

Frankly, the play was rather dull. It’s funny how Howard Brenton tends to either get it very right or very wrong for me. this one missed the mark.

Fascinating subject, the partition of India, but what an old-fashioned “tell don’t show” history play it was.

Click here for a link to the Hampstead resource on this production.

Below is a video trailer with cast interviews:

Below is an interview with Howard Brenton about it:

The show got mostly good reviews – click here for a search term that finds them – so Janie and I form a minority view in that regard.

I think we were the least impressed among the family too.

What the family readily agreed, though, was that Jacquie’s supper spread and the family natter was the highlight of the evening. Bernard was in especially good form that night. Sadly, he passed away just before new year 2018 – more or less exactly four years after this splendid gathering, which I’m sure he enjoyed, as did we.