Mnemonic by Simon McBurney, Théâtre De Complicité, Riverside Studios, 18 December 1999

Janie and I have tended to have a soft spot for anything Complicité, not least because our first proper date was Théâtre De Complicité’s Street Of Crocodiles:

Janie and I Go On Our First Proper Date, The Street Of Crocodiles, Cottesloe Theatre, 29 August 1992

But Mnemonic didn’t need our soft spot – it was excellent in its own right.

Superb

…I said in my log and meant it.

Strangely, writing 25 years later, this piece has recently been revived (or rather, reimagined) by Complicité in London at the National.

This original production was at the more utilitarian Riverside Studios, a venue we have always liked.

Excellent cast, including Simon McBurney himself, the wonderful Katrin Cartlidge (who died tragically young) and Richard Katz, who had previously worked wonders with my material in NewsRevue – for example the Woody Allen role in Mama Mia Farrow:

Mama Mia Farrow, NewsRevue Lyric, 18 August 1992

…but I digress.

Here is the Theatricalia entry for this play/production.

Anyway, Mnemonic really was superb and we were lucky to have seen the original production of it.

Nick Curtis wrote it up at length in The Standard:

Mnemonic Curtis Standard 03 Dec 1999, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

The local rag loved it:

Mnemonic Tear Hammersmith 24 Dec 1999, Fri Hammersmith and Shepherds Bush Gazette (Hammersmith, London, England) Newspapers.com

I think a lot of the usual suspects ignored it until it transferred to the National a couple of year’s later…and then was reimagined more than 20 years after that.

But we saw the original production…at The Riverside…have I mentioned that before?