A Brief List Of Everyone Who Died by Jacob Marx Rice, Finborough Theatre, 20 May 2023

Janie loved this piece. In truth, I found it a little mawkish.

The short scenes only occasionally allowed enough space for the emotional impact to flourish.

Lights out theatre?

To be fair, the piece did “exactly what it says on the tin”, in terms of cataloguing the deaths that enter the orbit of one character, Graciela, throughout her life.

Being The Finborough, of course it was all very well acted and extremely well produced, within the limitations of one of the most pint-sized theatres above a pub anywhere.

Let us not forget that The Finborough won “Pub Theatre of the Year 2022” despite there not being an actual pub below then or indeed now.

All the cast were very good, but Vivia Font stood out in the lead role, morphing from tantrum-ready nipper to accepting oldster via all the stages of life in between.

Here is a link to the rubric about the play/production. If that link ever goes awry, try this link instead.

Reasonably well received, this piece. Click here for reviews.

There was a Q&A with the playwright and cast afterwards, but we didn’t stay for it, hungry for a Persian meal that we would not be able to procure after the Q&A.

On exit, we ran into one of my real tennis friends, Tony Joyce, and his good lady. I thought this was quite a coincidence, especially as they are not regular Finborough-istas – indeed they were trying the place for the first time. Tony agreed, not least because, as he said:

…we two couples made up nearly a quarter of the audience.

Slight exaggeration that – I think the place has room for 40 or so people each performance, but still.

Not Quite Jerusalem by Paul Kember, Finborough Theatre, 13 March 2020

Read all about it on the Finborough site by clicking this image.

Janie and I really enjoyed this evening at the Finborough. We do like that place; it consistently puts on good stuff in a small space. Not Quite Jerusalem is no exception; indeed one of the best things we’ve seen at the Finborough and one of the best things we’ve seen this year.

I was looking out for this Finborough slot late in 2019, when I met the director, Peter Kavanagh at Gaslight.

Peter told me that he was scheduled to do a Finborough 40th anniversary production in March 2020 but he didn’t yet know what the play would be.

When I discovered that he had chosen Not Quite Jerusalem I was intrigued to see it. I vaguely remembered that this play came out around the time that I ended up trying to sort out some kibbutz sh*t back in my BBYO days; 1980.

Anyway, Janie seemed keen on the Not Quite Jerusalem scenario so I booked for us both to see it. She’s now very glad she’s seen it, as am I.

It is a funny play but the themes of youthful hopelessness and closed-mindedness in England seem as relevant today as they probably did 40 years ago.

Here is a link to some reviews of the original 1980 production.

There’s an interesting interview by Judi Herman of Jewish Renaissance with Peter Kavanagh about the play and in particular this production of the play – click here.

This production is well cast, with each of the characters playing their role well. Joe McArdle, as the chavvy Yorkshire lad, shows his versatility as an actor; he was the “big reveal detective” in Gaslight – a very different role. Russell Bentley and Alisa Joy both did well as the sabra Israelis; prickly and softening believably and with credible accents too. Ryan Whittle, Miranda Braun and Ronnie York were all suitably irritating as the bright drifter, the damaged female and the uber-chavvy lad from Harlow, respectively.

I had been looking forward to discussing the Harlow chav with John White – he of Harlow- the next day, but our meet up with John and Mandy was cancelled for Covid-19 reasons.

But I digress.

Not Quite Jerusalem is not a great play, but there are lots of interesting elements in it and it hangs together very well as a story. Peter Kavanagh’s production is a thoroughly entertaining evening in the theatre.

The reviews have mostly been very good – deservedly – click here.

Highly recommended.