Tag: Abigail Cruttenden

Drawing The Line by Howard Brenton, Hampstead Theatre, 27 December 2013

When we saw Jacquie and Hils Briegal for Christmas, we discovered that we were all going to see this play on the same night as couple of days later, along with Brother-in-law/Uncle Bernard Jacobs.

Typically, Jacquie said that Janie and I should join the family at her place for some supper after the show which we did.

Frankly, the play was rather dull. It’s funny how Howard Brenton tends to either get it very right or very wrong for me. this one missed the mark.

Fascinating subject, the partition of India, but what an old-fashioned “tell don’t show” history play it was.

Click here for a link to the Hampstead resource on this production.

Below is a video trailer with cast interviews:

Below is an interview with Howard Brenton about it:

The show got mostly good reviews – click here for a search term that finds them – so Janie and I form a minority view in that regard.

I think we were the least impressed among the family too.

What the family readily agreed, though, was that Jacquie’s supper spread and the family natter was the highlight of the evening. Bernard was in especially good form that night. Sadly, he passed away just before new year 2018 – more or less exactly four years after this splendid gathering, which I’m sure he enjoyed, as did we.

The Knot Of The Heart by David Eldridge, Almeida Theatre, 16 April 2011

This was a challenging play about addiction and the impact of those with addictions/addictive personalities on their loved ones.

Lisa Dillon was superb in the lead; it seems the lead part was pretty-much written for her. As usual at the Almeida, it was a well-chosen play, extremely well acted, directed and produced.

Islington Almeida Theatre 2011
David Eldridge was very much on our watch list as a writer; we’d seen a few of his that we really liked, not least his adaptation of Festen at the Almeida.

I must admit though, we both found this a tough watch. Perhaps it was too soon after Phillie’s passing for us to be suitably sympathetic to a character whose misery and tragedy seemed largely self-inflicted. But it was undeniably an excellent evening’s theatre.

Here is the Almeida resource on this play/production.

Below is a good trailer with quotes David Eldridge and Michael Attenborough commenting:

The play and production were (deservedly) very well received by the critics – here is a search term that finds reviews and other relevant resources.

Extremely powerful stuff.

Afterlife by Michael Frayn, Lyttelton Theatre, RNT, 7 June 2008

This one didn’t really float our boat, although it should have done. Michael Frayn, wrote it, Michael Blakemore directed it, Roger Allam was starring in it, the full forces of the RNT were behind it…

…but it didn’t work for us.

It is basically the story of the turn of the 20th century German/Jewish impresario Max Reinhardt, retold as a morality play.

We saw a preview and wondered whether the production was not quite ready when we saw it, but the reviews seemed to share our reservations:

…you get the idea. A real shame.

As is the RNT’s wont, no on-line archive resource (inverse correlation between organisation’s size/budget and its ability to do sensible things on-line blah blah), but there is an Official London Theatre stub – click here.