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This was a fun play with enough drama in it to keep us thoughtfully entertained.
Tracy-Ann Oberman (formerly of our NewsRevue parish – or at least the SportsRevue version is always superb value, as is Michael Attenborough, having a go in an even smaller house than the Almeida for once.
Click here for a link to the Hampstead resource on this play/production.
No formal reviews downstairs in those days, but this search term should find whatever there is out there on this production.
A quintessentially Hampstead Theatre piece…
…and in many ways that was the problem with it.
Here is a link to the Hampstead resource for this play/production.
Well acted, directed and produced – of course. But a rather predictable, tame piece. Maureen Lipman and Tracy-Ann Oberman for sure could handle something more challenging – probably all the cast could have done – we certainly would have preferred more challenge.
Here is a link to a search term for the reviews – mostly luke-warm but one or two very good reviews.
This one didn’t really work for us, despite the good reviews it mostly received.
It was one of those plays/productions that we thought we ought to have really liked, but didn’t much. We like Chekhov. We like Tracy-Ann Oberman (formerly of NewsRevue in our world, Eastenders in most other people’s). It was a superb-looking cast. Lindsay Posner is a terrific director.
The idea of transferring the Three Sisters to the large home of a relatively wealthy Jewish family in austere post-war Liverpool seemed to be up our street. But Hope Street is not our street; not three hours of it anyhow:
Hampstead Theatre stubs don’t go back this far…yet…but Liverpool Everyman one’s do – so there – click here for cast and crew details.
We no doubt ate at Harry Morgan’s before seeing this production, which would at least have got our bellies into the right mode for the three hour “Chekhov meets Wesker Fest” that followed.
Mark Keagan tried out a sports-oriented version of NewsRevue. I think the show was good but the idea did not really take off.
I seem to recall that we first encountered Tracy Ann Oberman through this sports instantiation of NewsRevue or am I mistaken?
Was SportsRevue performed at the Canal Cafe or at the Willesden place?
Mark (and others) should remember these details.
(As I know that Mark has long-since moved on from North Acton, I need not redact the address below).
Mark Keagan 6 September 1994
30 Perry Avenue
Acton
London
W3 6YQ
Dear Mark
SPORTS SHOW
I enclose songs for your sports show. If you need tapes of any of these, do let me know and I’ll get them to you pdq.
See you soon.
Yours sincerely
Ian Harris
encs
Janie is not partial to Shakespeare, but this production directed by Adrian Noble with Derek Jacobi as Macbeth and Cheryl Campbell as Lady Macbeth was quite special and we both thought it very good.
Theatricalia sets out the deal here.
I now learn that one of the three witches was Tracy-Ann Oberman, who went on (shortly after this production I think), to perform in NewsRevue/SportsRevue. Not our first sighting of her, that was in The Changeling at Stratford:
Returning to The Scottish Play, though, this is one of two productions Janie and I have seen; the other being the Tony Sher/Harriet Walter production to be Ogblogged “in the fullness”.
A couple of contemporaneous reviews survive on-line:
Here is Michael Billington’s review:
Billington On Macbeth Sat, Dec 18, 1993 – 26 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Here’s the Michael Coveney clipping:
Coveney On Macbeth Sun, Dec 19, 1993 – 58 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Not brilliantly well received, then.
Here is the Theatricalia entry for this production.
This was the first of two plays Janie and I went to see on our first long weekend away together in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
I had seen The Changeling before, at the RNT in 1988, thought highly of it as a Jacobean revenge tragedy and thought Janie might like it. I didn’t yet realise that she was not so keen on classics/old plays. I’m not sure she realised it yet either.
My log reports:
Not quite to Janie’s taste – I rather liked it.
It was a superb production. Looking through the cast and creatives list you can see why. Cheryl Campell as Beatrice-Joanna, Malcolm Storry as De Flores, Michael Attenborough directing. Also a stellar list of youngsters who would break through in their own right later; Sophie Okeonedo, Barnaby Kay, Dominic Cooke (assisting Attenborough). Even Tracy-Ann Oberman (prior to her NewsRevue & SportsRevue days) puts in an appearance as an inmate of the asylum.
The Swan is an ideal venue for this type of play, much better than the Lyttleton. Very high production quality both times though – hard for me to rank one production above the other.
There’s a picture from The Swan production in a Guardian Gallery – click here and scroll down – but no on-line reviews of course.
Below is Michael Coveney’s Observer review:
Changeling, Antony & Cleopatra, Michael Coveney Sun, Nov 8, 1992 – 57 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Below is Michael Billington’s Guardian review:
