Tag: Anjana Vasan

Brace Brace by Oli Forsyth, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 26 October 2024

Janie and I were really taken with this one.

Here is a link to the Royal Court resources on this play/production. The advance description pretty much tells you all you need to know/ought to know before you see the play.

We didn’t see any reviews of the play/production before we went. Here is a link that should find most/all of the reviews.

The piece seems to have divided the critics/reviewers. The conventional press focuses on valid criticism that some elements of the plot seem unconvincing. It is hard to imagine a hijacker, who, only by dint of a passenger intervention, fails to kill hundreds of people in a plane crash, being allowed to walk free on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

But we saw through that to enjoy the dilemmas and interpersonal drama between the honeymooners whose life was ripped apart by the incident.

Oli Forsyth clearly has talent as a writer and should persevere; I’m sure there should be better yet to come from him.

But our praise is really for the production. Excellent acting, especially Anjana Vasan as the “have a go hero”, but also Phil Dunster and Craig Els. Also hats off to the production team, in particular director Daniel Raggett, who certainly helped get a quart of entertaining drama out of this pint-sized (70 minutes) play. Big ups also to Alex Payne & George Mann (fight and movement directors respectively), who managed to achieve some excellent effects in an unusually tight and three-dimensional performance setting.

Yes, there is violence in this play, but it isn’t gratuitous violence, as it is central to the story and the unfolding plot. Janie, who is even more allergic to stage violence than I am, didn’t spot the essence of the coup de théâtre at the end of the play…possibly just as well, given her reaction when I explained it to her afterwards. 😜.

Running only until 9 November 2024. It deserves a longer run or a transfer.

Summer And Smoke by Tennessee Williams, Almeida Theatre, 31 March 2018

Bloomin’ ‘eck this was good.

Janie and I both really love Tennessee Williams but neither of us are very keen to see revivals of plays if we have seen a decent production before.

So this production of Summer And Smoke, a play that neither of us had seen before, at one of our favourite places, The Almeida, sounded like the hottest of hot tickets to our taste.

So much so, it would have been understandable had our massively high expectations not been met…but we needn’t have worried – this production most certainly did the business for us.

Here is a link to the Almeida’s resource on this one.

Below is the trailer:

I’m not too sure why this play is so rarely performed, other than the fact that I think it does need some sort of imaginative staging to come alive – achieved wonderfully by Rebecca Frecknall and her team in Rebecca’s first major gig as a Director.

Frecknall is a star director in the making and Patsy Ferran is similarly a star performer breaking through just now.

We saw Patsy Ferran only a few week’s ago and were hugely impressed with her at the Royal Court in My Mum’s A Twat – click here or below:

My Mum’s A Twat by Anoushka Warden, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 13 January 2018

Below is a slightly longer vid with opening night reflections from the cast and crew:

This production has had absolutely rave reviews on the whole – click here for a link that finds most of them if the headlines on the Almeida site aren’t enough for you.

Doubtless we’ll remember this as one of the highlights of our theatre-going year.