We loved Complicité, (or Théâtre de Complicité as it was then known) back then. This joint production with West Yorkshire Playhouse at the Young Vic was perhaps not their best work.
It is based on a J M Coetzee novel which is basically a sequel to Robinson Crusoe.
We found it impenetrable.
It seems we weren’t alone with that feeling. Michael Billington reviewed it thusly:
I lost all record of this one, other than the diary notes. If I recall correctly, the programmes weren’t yet available as we saw a preview of this ill-fated play/production at The Richmond Theatre.
Janie made the arrangements and it seems we took The Duchess with us. So if the play was as tedious as the reviews and poor audiences suggest, we had quite an evening. No wonder I blotted it out of my mind.
Here is the Theatricalia entry, which on this occasion is my sole canonical source of “who was in it” type information – thanks for that.
Michael Billington in The Guardian (a friendly critic, not known for his damning reviews), describes the piece as a “piffling bio-play”.
With the cast including F. Murray Abraham, Matthew Marsh and Gemma Jones, there should have been some salvation in the performances, but it clearly wasn’t a good play/production.
I suspect that The Duchess was not impressed and that it was our fault that the theatrical part of the evening did not meet her high expectations. I’m guessing we ate at Don Fernando’s in Richmond, as we hadn’t booked anything and that’s where we would go without a booking.
My log and indeed my memory is unequivocal about this one:
Quite outstanding. One of the very, very best.
A rare visit to the theatre midweek, I’m guessing that our impending trip to Thailand & Vietnam restricted our choices of dates for this one. Such was our desire to see it, we booked a midweek evening to be sure of seeing the production.
Both Antony Sher and Deborah Warner were superb in their roles, as indeed was the whole supporting cast.
In truth, Stanley Spencer’s art is not really my bag, but his story is strange and peculiarly touching, certainly as told in this excellent play by Pam Gems.
Strangely, I cannot find a Guardian review for this one, but Michael Simons previewed it:
Janie had never seen this play before and The Orange Tree was on a bit of a roll with us, so we decided to give this a go.
Given the scale of the piece, I thought we’d try sitting upstairs rather than downstairs for once. It was just for once, because we didn’t find upstairs very comfortable – less leg room and peering down didn’t please us.
In truth. the Orange Tree was probably biting off a bit more than it could chew attempting such a large-scale piece in the round, but Sam Walters obcviously wanted to have a go.
We enjoyed the production. I think Janie got more out of it than I did because she hadn’t seen the play before and didn’t have a big production with which to compare it.
This evening – a rare visit to The Cottesloe on a Tuesday evening – was the first time I saw Ken Campbell perform.
I was really smitten with this piece – I found it very funny. I think I got more out of it than Janie did, but she was fascinated enough to want to see more of his work after that.
One of the things that attracted us to the piece, apart from the weirdness of the blurb, which promised us – I paraphrase from various book blurbs available:
“Cathar heretics, a mysterious female French book thief and a Vietnamese violinist who does pig impressions”.
It would be difficult to say no to that, especially as we had booked to go to Vietnam a couple of months later.
Janie and I saw an early preview of the show; it didn’t get reviewed until October but we saw a preview in January.
I liked this more than Janie did. I thought it was a very good production and I have long had an affection for the play.
Janie sees this as an example of Tom Stoppard being “a bit too clever for his own good”, a view I can understand but with which I don’t agree. Let’s just say that Janie does not remember this fondly.
…in my log and I do remember this play/production well.
I hadn’t especially been looking forward to it. I do like generally Potter’s work but I wasn’t sure about his take on this subject. Janie having the hots for Joseph Fiennes pretty much sealed the deal for us to book it.
Daisy hadn’t much enjoyed doing the driving in those first couple of days; driving in and out of Izmir is not much fun and was traffic heavy almost all the time.
But when we set off from Izmir in the direction of Pergamon, we hit open road quite quickly…
…so Daisy took the opportunity to hit that road quickly – 90 to 100 kmph…
…until the speed cops flagged us down, about 5 minutes outside Izmir.
Although Janie was doing the driving, I thought best that I act as spokesperson for our team.
The police officer pointed at the speed sign, which read “70 km”. He tried to say “seventy kilometres an hour” in English.
Ah, I said, kilometres…not miles…
“Ingiliz”, said the officer to his mates, as if to confirm his theory. “Kilometres” he said to me, pointedly.
I thought we might get away with it, but he then promptly wrote out the above ticket and pointed to where I needed to go to settle the bill.
140,000.
That’s harsh. 140,000 just for speeding.
Then it dawned on me that there were 82,000 Turkish Lira to the £.
The fine was £1.70
I might have paid £1.70 for the beautiful certificate we were given as a souvenir.
Asclepon – the medical centre at PergamonPergamon TownThe Acropolis
After the stunning sights of Pergamon, we drove on to Çanakkale, keen to get there before dark.
We just about made it, although once we got to the town, we struggled to find one of the recommended hotels open. But we did find one that looked just fine; the Grand Anzac.
I recall we also managed to find a good meal in that charming coastal town.
This was a West End transfer from the Chichester Festival, which had been so well received that even we set aside our West-End show scepticism to see it in Theatreland.
We weren’t disappointed. This was a very good production of a very good play. It is basically about the denazification investigation of the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler.
Michael Pennington & Daniel Massey played the lead roles, investigating officer major Arnold & Furtwängler respectively. Harold Pinter added yet more gravitas by directing it.
Billington on Foe Sat, Mar 9, 1996 – 28 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Coveney on Foe Sun, Mar 17, 1996 – 71 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
