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Very good indeed…
…was our judgment on this one.
Lynn Gardner in The Guardian wrote well of it:
Snake Gardner Guardian 23 Mar 1999, Tue The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Nicholas de Jongh did not get it in The Standard:
Snake Standard de Jongh 22 Mar 1999, Mon Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Quite a short play, this was, so we were able to eat at Harry Morgan after the show.
By gosh, we seemed to be specialising in previews of Nazi stuff that month, having been to see Speer at the Almeida a couple of weeks earlier:
My log comment for Good was less complimentary than that for Speer:
Didn’t quite do the business for us.
Great cast, with Charles Dance, Emelia Fox, Ian Gelder, John Ramm and several other stalwarts under the direction of Michael Grandage.
It might not have done the business for us, but it sure did for Nicholas de Jongh in The Standard:
Good Standard de Jongh 24 Mar 1999, Wed Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Charles Spencer in The Telegraph shared our sentiments:
Good Spencer Telegraph 25 Mar 1999, Thu The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Anthony Holden in teh Observer also seemed equivocal in his praise:
Goood Holden Observer 28 Mar 1999, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
We ate at Zafferano after Good. Zaffs was very good indeed.
I wrote but one word in my log for this one:
Excellent
It was creepy, though.
The play is set some decades after the war, with Albert Speer somewhat rehabilitated as someone ancillary to the Nazi atrocity machine, despite his Nuremberg conviction. This play was about the unravelling of that more favourable image. David Edgar also wrote a play on this subject which was produced the following year, but this Esther Vilar one was the only one of the two we saw.
Here’s the Theatricalia entry for that production.
Excellent performances from Klaus Maria Brandauer and Sven Eric Bechtolf.
We saw a preview. Subsequently, mixed reviews abounded (mostly good) for this production. Here’s Nicholas de Jongh in The Standard:
Speer Standard de Jongh 10 Mar 1999, Wed Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Michael Billington, on the other hand, found the debate “rigged”.
Speer, Guardian Billington 10 Mar 1999, Wed The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Charles Spencer in the Telegraph was impressed:
Speer Spencer Telegraph 11 Mar 1999, Thu The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
My records show that we ate at Granita after this play, as was our habit on occasion when visiting the Almeida back then.
Oh dear! I wrote the following in my log:
It was so bad we walked out at half time.
In those days, that meant REALLY bad.
Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry.
Nicholas de Jongh liked it:
Forest de Jongh Standard 29 Jan 1999, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Our friend, Michael Billington in The Guardian, also liked it:
Forest Billington Guardian 30 Jan 1999, Sat The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Susannah Clapp in the Observer was a little more equivocal:
Forest Clapp Observer 31 Jan 1999, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
While Robert Butler in The Sunday Indy didn’t really like it, finding it TV cosy in the way that probably put us right off:
Forest Butler Independent 31 Jan 1999, Sun The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
I logged that this play/production was:
One of the best things I have seen at The Questors.
Praise indeed.
Here is a link to The Questors archive page for this play/production.
We went with The Duchess, as was always the case at The Questors. She was a member and got a certain number of guest passes “thrown in” with her membership. She was determined to take advantage of those.
Janie’s diary informs me that she collected oxtail that earlier day and that we all went to Mama Amalfi for dinner after the show.
The log is unusually silent about this event. Especially unusual, as I was regularly recording my thoughts, even if just solo word, at that time.
I suspect this means that we didn’t think much of the piece/production but didn’t want to rubbish it.
Our diaries are also silent on what we did afterwards, other than a note in Janie’s diary to expect the show to end no earlier than 10pm. I suspect we picked up shawarmas on our way home.
Here is the Theatricalia entry for this play/production.
Nicholas de Jongh in The Standard was quite vocal in not liking the play:
Guiding Star de Jongh Standard 12 Nov 1998, Thu Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
John Gross was similarly unimpressed in the Sunday Telegraph.
Guiding Gross Sunday Telegraph 15 Nov 1998, Sun Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
With the Royal Court in exile, we missed the original “Upstairs” version of this at the Ambassadors. With all the stuff we had been dealing with in 1998, this one almost passed us by completely when it transferred “downstairs” to The Duke of York’s. So when the Duke of York’s production returned to that Royal Court “home in exile”, at the start of 1999, to kick off a major tour, we booked early and were there at the outset.
Excellent play and production
I wrote.
That was to say the least. It was truly memorable and awe-inspiring drama. No wonder many critics had fawned over it when it first came out in 1997.
Here’s John Gross in The Sunday Telegraph:
Weir Gross Sunday Telegraph 13 Jul 1997, Sun Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Nicholas de Jongh thought that the Royal Court overdid Irish drama, but still liked this one:
Weir de Jongh Standard 11 Jul 1997, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Charles Spencer thought it superb:
Weir Telegraph Spencer 14 Jul 1997, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
We saw a great cast and crew – most if not all the originals – Kieran Ahern, Brendan Coyle, Dermot Crowley, Michelle Fairley and Jim Norton acting, Ian Rickson directing. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for the production we saw. It was a privilege to have seen that production.
The end of a weird quarter, during which we only went to the theatre five times, all of those visits being in Richmond.
Anyway, we both rather liked this play/production, rating it:
A good one.
Very much an off-Broadway play, Lips Together, Teeth Apart worked really well in the round at The Orange Tree.
Nick Curtis was quite taken with it in The Standard:
Lips Curtis Standard 17 Nov 1998, Tue Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
No doubt we ate at Don Fernando’s afterwards – we pretty much always did, although I seem to recall trying an alternative place (Italian I think) that proved less satisfactory on one of those five autumn 1998 visits to Richmond.
Very good.
That was our verdict. We like Shelagh Stephenson’s plays and this was a stellar cast including Samantha Bond, Julie Legrand, Alison Steadman and Julia Sawalha, directed by Terry Johnson.
Here is the Theatricalia entry for the production.
Our Richmond preview came just after it previewed at several other places. The Cambridge Evening News reviewed it thusly:
Memory Singer Cambridge 27 Oct 1998, Tue Cambridge Evening News (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England) Newspapers.com
It transferred to the West End with considerable success, if I remember correctly.
Our Richmond-fest continued with this Canadian (or should I say Quebecois?) play. My log was pretty clear on our take:
Dreadful, we almost missed it due to bad weather and road condition, but still left at half time.
Nick Curtis in The Standard was kinder than that, although still awarded it a blob:
Tremblay Curtis Standard 28 Oct 1998, Wed Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
The local Chronicles spoke highly of it:
Tremblay Starr Chronicles 05 Nov 1998, Thu The Feltham Chronicle (Hounslow, London, England) Newspapers.com
No doubt Janie and I enjoyed our Don Fernando dinner afterwards, despite the play.
