In truth, I remember little about this one. An Irish “returning home” drama. I made no notes in the log about it, which suggests it did little for us but didn’t totally displease us either.
Nicholas de Jongh gave it the dreaded Standard blob:
Janie and I were both very taken with this piece; both the conceit of it and the way the cast and director had turned it into an excellent short piece of drama.
Rachel Halliburton in The Standard gave it a very good review and summarises the story well:
I suspect it was the surrealism that seduced us to the Tate Modern that day, but, as usual, once there, we ended up looking at more than one exhibition. On this occasion, I recall that Janie and I delighted in both.
This Laura Cumming review from The Observer is the only full-scale review I can find for the exhibition that, from what I can gather, most critics described as the blockbuster exhibition of 2001:
Frankly, we remember little about this one. A gentle comedy, is the description. We might have been gently getting over the terminal dullness of our preceding evening’s visit to The National to see Luther.
Here’s a clip from The Gazette & Herald from August, when it opened in Scarborough:
We pushed the boat out to see this one. Friday night at the National Theatre – we both had busy Friday schedules well into the afternoon.
Was it worth it, I hear you cry.
So dull, we walked at half time
Seemingly not.
I have a feeling this was the occasion when we bumped into my friends from Lambton Place, Bryan Rostron & Sunny, with their pal Paul Foot. You don’t mess with investigative journalists like Bryan and Paul – we confessed to the fact that we were going to sneak away after the drinks interval.
We wanted to like this play/production. We are partial to John Osborne, although well aware of the fact that his good is very very good, but not all of his drama is of the highest quality. This one felt like a history lesson in a rather dull (to us) aspect of history.
I also felt badly about walking out on Timothy West. He had, after all, sat through hours of dull stuff with me in it on more than one occasion without walking out at half time:
Returning to Luther, it was, of course, a fine cast and a fine production. Rufus Sewell in the title role. Richard Griffiths, Timothy West, and Maxine Peake in supporting roles, Peter Gill directing with a young Josie Rourke assisting.
Excellent they were too, both in 2024 and in 2001.
In 2001 we saw/heard:
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber – Battalia
Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer – Concerto No 2 in B flat major
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi – Concerto in B minor for four violins, cello and strings Op 3 No 10 (RV580)
Carlo Farina – Capriccio Stravagante
Johann Sebastian Bach – Brandenburg Concerto No 3 in G Major BWV 1048
Johann Sebastian Bach – Brandenburg Concerto No 5 in D Major BWV 1050
Here is the andante from the Wassenaer:
I cannot find a recording of Koopman’s lot doing the Farina, as it were, but this Irish interpretation is rather jolly:
The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under Ton Koopman did most of their recording of this type of stuff in the late 1980s. Here’s an example of their Brandenburg Concerto performances:
Our single word verdict sums up how we felt about this production.
Top notch cast: Penelope Wilton, David Calder, and Matthew Marsh; ably supported by Alibe Parsons, Christian Dixon, Brid Brennan, Edward Hughes, Michael Hadley, Anna Maxwell Martin, and Peter Guinness. Directed by Marianne Elliott. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for this one.
Charles Spencer, while admitting that this is not his sort of play, spoke very highly of the production:
Midden de Jongh Standard 19 Oct 2001 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Midden Gross S Telegraph 28 Oct 2001 Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
