Tag: Shelley King

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.

The Man Of Mode by George Etherege, Olivier Theatre, 19 April 2007

A rare visit to the theatre on a Thursday on my own. Janie hates Restoration comedy but I had (and at the time of writing, more than 10 years later, still have) an idea for a very thorough updating of one of those Restoration plays, so I very much wanted to see this modern production of a Restoration classic.

I thought it was very well done. Rory Kinnear was exceptional, as was most of the cast, including Alleyn’s alumna Nancy Carroll.

This was before Nick Hytner found his way off my Christmas card list by forgetting where his loyal audience comes from and becoming far too much of a jobsworth cum corporate lick-spittle when running the National. So hats off to him in this regard – Hytner can direct.

I rated this production very good indeed at the time, but it was not the sort of modernisation of a Restoration play which I have in mind…

…which is a good thing…

…if I ever get around to implementing my own cunning plan. But I digress.

Click here for a link to a search term that finds the reviews, which were mostly good but not great.

Below is the trailer, which is really quite snazzy without giving away much about the show. It has a fair smattering of Nancy Carroll, which might please my fellow Alleyn’s alums…or indeed anyone who watches the vid: