Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
We were bowled over by this piece/production. We thought it was brilliantly acted and gripping from start to finish. It is about two feral sisters, both damaged by abuse in different ways.
It divided the critics but it did not divide us.
Ellie Kendrick and Sinéad Matthews are both young actresses to look out for. Vivienne Franzmann is yet another super female writer emerging via the Royal Court.
Here is the rather limited Royal Court resource on this one.
Here is the trailer:
Janie and I both really like Simon Gray’s plays and we really like the Hampstead Downstairs.
So this project; taking all four of Simon Gray’s attempts to write about a quirky pair of brothers in The Vale of Health, seemed like something we should do in full.
We saw them in this sequence/timing:
We’d often see the same faces in the audience again. One gentleman who sat next to us on the last night, we’d seen at least once before. I said to him that it would be like saying goodbye to close friends when this little season ended and he said, “that’s exactly what I was thinking”.
Very intimate plays, beautifully written (it’s Simon Gray after all) and very well acted/directed.
I’m cutting and pasting this same piece for all four evenings; the above and the links below basically apply to all four.
Here is a YouTube interview and stuff:
This was a very unusual piece about the Herero people of Namibia and the tragedy that befell them at the hands of the German colonial power in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The whole title is unfeasibly long.
It is written & performed in the post-modern style of a group of young people trying to put together a performance about…
It occasionally grated but mostly it worked well; a very moving, informative and entertaining piece.
Here is a link to the Bush resource on the play/production.
It divided the critics, did this one – a search term with links to reviews is here.
Here is a YouTube with the playwright and director:
A curates egg of a play, this. Good in parts. Irritating in others. It is set in an apartment block in which a pair of Manhatten sophisticates are thrown together with a vulgar pair of Melbournites when their tower apartment block has a total blackout.
Here is the Orange Tree resource on the play – sadly lacking the cast and creatives (but they are nevertheless tagged in this Ogblog piece).
Here is a link to a search term that finds other resources on this play/production.
Below is a Vimeo of the cast talking about the play:
https://vimeo.com/84795305
I recall we enjoyed the first half of this one more than the second half. Still, we were glad to have seen it and went to Don Fernando for some Spanish grub afterwards.
I’ve written down 9.00 beside this one, so I think it was a short play that they ran twice an evening.
Looks as though we ate beforehand (Harry’s I’d suggest) and I vaguely remember us both wondering why we’d taken on a late gig on a Friday evening.
But I also recall it was a very lively play that held our attention throughout.
One of those coming of age/rite of passage plays, but very well done.
Here is a link to the Hampstead resource on this production.
Here is a link to other stuff you might find (no formal reviews downstairs of course).
Below is the explanatory vid with director Tim Carroll:
This is a very interesting play, based on a true story about a man and a woman in California who agreed a formal contract for “mistress services”, at the behest of the woman.
The true life couple also taped a great deal of their conversation; a resource that was utilised for the story.
For me and Janie, it worked much better as a conversation point than it worked as a drama. These were consenting adults after all and it seems that the arrangement worked well for them; the persevered with it into their extreme dotage. Perhaps that explains why the reviews were mostly indifferent.
Still, excellent cast and well produced, as you’d expect from the Royal Court. The piece certainly got me and Janie talking afterwards. I think we went to the Four Seasons for Chinese that evening – I don’t know why that thought pops into my head nearly four years later.
Here’s the Royal Court’s resource page on the production.
Here is a link to reviews and stuff.
Below is the trailer vid:
I recall Janie wondering why we had booked this, when we reminded ourselves on the day about what we were going to see. A play about footballers and sex and stuff.
Here is a link to the Royal Court resource on The Pass.
Actually we both really enjoyed this play; it was full of energy, with a good mix of entertainment and issues to think about. Janie and I found lots to talk about afterwards.
Here is a link to a search term that digs out the reviews and stuff.
Here is the promo and explanatory vid:
I think we kept it simple foodwise after this one, with either sharwarmas from Ranoush or perhaps Mohsen for Iranian food.
It seemed like only a week since we last went to Harry’s and then The Hampstead…
…but this one did less for us.
I seem to recall finding the whole evening a bit irritating and we really didn’t like this play.
It’s had great reviews so don’t take our word for it.
Emilia Fox doesn’t do much for us and the play seemed very laboured and obvious in places.
The Hampstead resource on the play/production can be found here.
This was an extraordinary installation/show. Not quite in the same class as The Masque Of The Red Death, another punchdrunk masterpiece, but not far off.
We went with Kim and Micky, eating a spread of Big Al goodies at the flat before ambling over to the venue. The “Temple Studios” installation was in the old Paddington sorting office; the place from whence I used to collect my parcels and “must be signed for” mail, back in the day.
This piece is about the making of a Hollywood movie and the studio that is making it. But are the scenes we see playing out scenes from the movie or real violent drama playing out in the studio?
Kim tried to amuse herself by putting the performers off, but they were all too seasoned for that. I enjoyed getting lost around the studio and examining the incredibly detailed artefacts punchdrunk had strewn around the place, before wending my way through the various performance scenes.
It was great fun.
The bar and entertainment therein was good too. At that juncture, Kim’s style of intervention was positively sought after and Kim did not disappoint.
Here is a link to punchdrunk’s explanatory on-line resource and you might enjoy the “film trailer” below.
This link will take you to plenty of reviews; mostly excellent but some reviewers didn’t get it.
Janie and I really liked this play/production. Another “Hampstead Downstairs special” in our book.
A three-hander about an uber-male astronomer whose space is invaded by an arty female.
Funny and thought-provoking. We thoroughly enjoyed it. The piece deserves a bigger audience.
Here is a link to the Hampstead’s resource on the production.
The author explains some of his thinking in the vid below.
Diary suggests we ate at Harry Morgans before the show. I think we were coming towards the end of the Harry’s pre show era at that time.