Tag: Sunita Hinduja

Privacy by James Graham, Donmar Warehouse, 24 May 2014

This was a fascinating piece.

It is an uber-modern play about privacy, data and all that. Some members of the audience, perhaps foolishly, left their mobile phones on and acquiesced to a request to submit a selfie – only to discover that geeks can find out a heck of a lot about you just from the simple combination of that submission and other stuff we readily transmit and is there to be found.

To some extent the piece was born of the Edward Snowden/Wikileaks saga, but in truth this play is an entertainment about the issues for ordinary people more than the geopolitical aspects or the Snowden case itself. We did subsequently see a super play that really was about a Snowden-type case, Mike Bartlett’s Wild at the Hampstead, which was cracking:

Wild by Mike Bartlett, Hampstead Theatre, 17 June 2016

If this now sounds like a geeks night out without drama, I’m giving you the wrong idea. It was a powerful story and piece of drama to boot – a strong cast and superb production qualities as we might expect from the Donmar.

Click here for the excellent Donmar “Behind The Scenes” material for this play/production.

Here is a link to a search term that finds reviews and other useful resources about the play/production.

The first time we came across James Graham – This House, we weren’t so keen. But this one was sufficiently different and engaging to convert us to Graham’s writing…

…just as well, because Ink really was smashing:

Ink by James Graham, Almeida Theatre, 17 June 2017

Inadmissible Evidence by John Osborne, Donmar Warehouse, 29 October 2011

I recall looking forward to this play/production a great deal, but not enjoying it as much as we had hoped.

Douglas Hodge was terrific in the lead; indeed all of the supporting cast did well too.

I think it is just a bit of a mess of a play. John Osborne works best for me when his angry, ranting lead has more context than their own small world. The Entertainer and this play lack that context for me, becoming almost lengthy monologue rants.

This production got rave reviews – click here for a search term that finds them – so our disappointment was a minority view.

I also recall us finding the audience a bit irritating the night we went. I think Douglas Hodge and Karen Gillan had attracted a bit of a TV-star-sycophant crowd, which has a tendency to deflate our mood at the theatre.

In truth we were reaching the end of our road with the Donmar by then. For a long while it felt like a slice of fringe in the heart of Covent Garden, but it was starting to feel more like an exclusive, corporate club for West End theatre in a small house.

Here is a link to the excellent “Study Guide” pack which the Donmar has now made downloadable.

They made a movie of this play back in the 1960s, soon after it was first seen on the stage – below is a vid with a clip of that. Nicol Williamson – there is an abbreviated first name to conjure with – John Osborne considered him to be “the greatest actor since Marlon Brando”, apparently…a tough act for even Douglas Hodge to follow, I guess: