As soon as we entered the Royal Court Upstairs, we felt a bit un-nerved by the arrangement – we seemed to be sitting higgledly-piggledly on top of the action.
This production had started its life in a Peckham outreach location – a former cricket bat factory it transpired, which probably explains the unusual layout of the room. The working title of the play had been SW11, so I think Rachel De-lahay originally had a Battersea Estate in mind rather than a Peckham one – little matter.
The action was full of ethnic and inter-generational tensions. Very well written – where is Rachel De-lahay now (he asks, writing in 2018)?
Gosh I remember how disappointed we were by this one.
We had loved Conor McPherson’s previous work whenever we had seen it – especially but not only The Weir.
But this play, set in the early 19th century, just left both of us feeling cold.
Super cast, with several of the “usual suspects” for Irish plays, not least Bríd Brennan. Plus an early sighting of Caoilfhionn Dunne.
But for us, nothing could quite save this play.
I remember saying afterwards that it was like “Chekhov had written a ghost story” and I remember smiling when I subsequently saw one of the reviews saying just that.
The idea of it is wonderful. It is an innovative 1960’s play exploring the meaning of life through the story of a successful man who decides to become a hermit.
Also, James Saunders had a long association with Sam Walters and the Orange Tree, which was being celebrated by this revival.
The play does have flashes of brilliance, humour and insight to it, but in truth we found it fairly hard going as an evening in the theatre. There is one heck of a lot of existential angst involved.
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.
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.
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:
We quite liked this play. I recall it was an excellent production, very well acted and directed, but it had a slightly old-fashioned feel to it…
…perhaps that was the effect Nicholas Wright and Richard Eyre were after.
In truth, not really our sort of play. But it covered an interesting, almost comical, moment in history and we had the benefit of a superb cast to depict it.
So we were glad to have seen it, despite it not really being our type of play.
Janie and I are partial to a bit of Poliakoff on the stage, which is all too rare these days, so we were had been very much looking forward to this one.
Tracey Ullman has tremendous stage presence. The conceit of the play – an old primary schoolteacher wandering around London telling stories about the place – sounds great.
Yet, in truth, this play was not quite top drawer Poliakoff in our eyes. It was revisiting many of his themes and styles, but perhaps without hitting the heights that earlier works hit. Perhaps it is the familiarity that detracts from the sense of excitement.
We had a very enjoyable evening at the theatre, but concluded that Poliakoff is probably, now, doing his best work for TV rather than for stage.
Janie and I were struggling to remember all the details of this short break in Buxton with Chris and Hilary, in part to take in the Buxton Festival Fringe. Strangely, no photos.
I think we intended to walk but I don’t think we walked much, if at all. Perhaps the weather failed to smile on us.
Janie remembers speaking quite a lot with Todd at Nat’s Kitchen, before we stayed and also while we were there – he was helpful and full of advice. Perhaps I’ll be able to expand this entry when we do some archaeology on Janie’s diary.
I’m pretty sure there were one or two things that Hil and Chris were interested in seeing that we really didn’t want to do.
I have a feeling Janie and I went to see a folky-fusiony outfit in a basement bar type place one evening while Hil and Chris went to see a naff-sounding show which even they admitted afterwards had not been worth the candle.
The Importance Of Being Frank was a bit of a compromise choice which I’m pretty sure we all went to see and found funny in parts.
We also dined at the Old Hall Hotel one time – I think Hil and Chris were staying there and I think that was the first night…but our memories on this one are not great.
The only other thing I remember is the backdrop of the trip supposedly being an opportunity for the workmen to finish off snagging Noddyland (Janie had moved in a few weeks previously).
We returned to find only a couple of items from the list done; the rest of the time they had no doubt spent, as they had spent most of the preceding weeks, giving priority to the next big job. It took tears to invoke enough shame and sympathy to get them back in to finish off in the following few days.
This was a really entertaining and thought-provoking play by the very promising playwright Penelope Skinner. I think this was our first sight of one of hers; Linda at the Royal Court a few years later – click here or below – confirmed our suspicions that she is a special talent.
The Village Bike had a very fine cast for an upstairs production, not least Dominic Rowan and Romola Garai, both excellent. Indeed the whole cast was excellent, as was the set, directing, the lot.
A rare visit to the theatre on my own and on a Wednesday. No point trying to get Janie to a Georgian comedy; she doesn’t do classics and she doesn’t do farcical comedy of any kind.
But for reasons of my own – I still have some distantly related ideas for a comedy play on a jotter – I very much wanted to see this show, which had but a short run at the Barbican before going on to the Holland Festival.
As it happens, I had been invited that day to Lambeth Palace for lunch by the Church Commissioners (as Ian Theodoreson’s guest), so it seemed a suitable day for me to take the rest of the day off and therefore be free to spend the early part of a midweek evening at the theatre.
While suitable in practical terms, it was perhaps not quite such a suitable cultural switch from a dignified Lambeth Palace lunch under the auspices of Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to a bawdy Georgian comedy under the auspices of Deborah Warner, the radical stage director. Neither the irony nor the culture shock of the switch seemed to affect me unduly on the day.
The Lambeth Palace lunch was delightful, btw. I met several interesting new people (this was the only occasion I met Rowan Williams) as well as getting a chance to chat with Ian T and the people I know in that Church of England circle. I was particularly impressed with the dignified informality and grandeur with a tasteful lack of ostentation to the whole Lambeth Palace event.
Afterwards I had plenty of time to do some reading at the Barbican Centre over a coffee or two in the afternoon before seeing the play.
Here is an explanatory vid with Deborah Warner talking about her production of the School For Scandal:
It had some super people in the cast and I thought some of the modernising ideas were quite interesting. But on the whole I thought it was a pretty standard production of a Georgian play with a few nods to modern touches.
Of course it isn’t easy to refresh ideas that have been around for centuries and get their relevance across to modern audiences…
…perhaps the two halves of my unusual day had more in common than I thought about at the time.
