Tag: Anthony Clark

Next Time I’ll Sing To You by James Saunders, Orange Tree Theatre, 12 November 2011

This is the sort of play/production that we like so much more in theory than we do in practice.

Here is a link to the Orange Tree’s excellent on-line resource for this production.

The idea of it is wonderful. It is an innovative 1960’s play exploring the meaning of life through the story of a successful man who decides to become a hermit.

Also, James Saunders had a long association with Sam Walters and the Orange Tree, which was being celebrated by this revival.

The play does have flashes of brilliance, humour and insight to it, but in truth we found it fairly hard going as an evening in the theatre. There is one heck of a lot of existential angst involved.

Here is a link to a search term that finds the reviews.

I remember being quite excited by the coincidence of the koi carp on the cover of the programme…

…The Price Of Fish (still available at all good book outlets, including the one you can click through here and below) was first released that very same weekend, resplendent with its dollar koi imagery:

Amongst Friends by April De Angelis, Hampstead Theatre, 29 May 2009

We were more than a little disappointed with this one.

We’d fallen out of love with the Hampstead Theatre during this Anthony Clark era, so hadn’t been going there as much. But this cast looked terrific and the play sounded interesting…promising more than it delivered.

Here is the OfficialLondonTheatre.co.uk stub on the play/production.

What a difference once the Ed Hall era started.

Anyway I’m sure we enjoyed our dinner at Harry Morgan’s before the show.

Life After Scandal by Robin Soans, Hampstead Theatre, 21 September 2007

This was a very interesting and entertaining piece of verbatim theatre. Robin Soans is good at this stuff; we’d seen Talking To Terrorists at The Royal Court. It was probably this sole factor which encouraged us to book the play.

We were pretty much out of love with the Hampstead Theatre at this time; during the Anthony Clark era. Clark himself directed this one and did a decent job of it.

It was deservedly pretty well received on the whole by the critics:

 

Taking Care of Baby, Dennis Kelly, Hampstead Theatre, 2 June 2007

Friday night at the Hampstead Theatre was our more regular habit, but the Carlos Perez concert had enticed us to the SBC the night before, so we plugged for the Saturday night for this play.

Probably just as well, because this was a truly troubling play that would not have worn well rushing to the theatre at the end of a stressful week.  It poses as a documentary drama about Donna McAuliffe, a woman convicted of murdering her infant children.  The story resembles in many ways the tragic Sally Clark case.

It was extremely well done and I am very glad we saw it.  We had enjoyed Dennis Kelly’s writing before, which was the main reason we booked it.  Hampstead was patchy to say the least in that era but the Dennis Kelly stuff was a rare exception and this one proved no exception to the exception.

Lyn Gardner spoke highly of it in the Guardian – click here.

As did Ian Shuttleworth for the FT – click here.

Philip Fisher in British Theatre Guide was less sure – click here.

Everyone agreed that Abigail Davies was marvellous.

I have the playtext for this one; unusual for the Hampstead but might well be worth a re-read, there was a lot going on in this play.

 

 

 

My Best Friend by Tamsin Oglesby, Hampstead Theatre, 11 February 2000

In truth we don’t remember much about this one. I made no notes in my log about it. I think we quite liked it, but it felt like fairly standard Hampstead Theatre fare.

The Hampstead was still in the portacabins back then, so small, chamber-style work was all the place comfortably could do. Still, we liked the place and went occasionally.

Paul Taylor in the Indy liked it:

Best Friend Taylor IndyBest Friend Taylor Indy 05 Feb 2000, Sat The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Charles Spencer in the Telegraph also liked it quite a bit:

Best Friend Spencer TelegraphBest Friend Spencer Telegraph 27 Jan 2000, Thu The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

On the other hand, Nicholas de Jongh in The Standard described it as bland:

Best Friend de Jongh StandardBest Friend de Jongh Standard 25 Jan 2000, Tue Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

We saw it on a Friday evening, so no doubt, in those days, we went to Harry Morgans in St John’s Wood for some crazy=cracing-J-food on the way to the theatre.

Mother Courage And Her Children by Bertolt Brecht, version by Hanif Kureishi, Cottesloe Theatre, 15 January 1994

Our first theatre visit of 1994 which, according to my log, we both thought was a very good production.

The Theatricalia entry for this production can be found here.

I cannot find any contemporaneous reviews on-line for this production…

…but there are some clippings, e.g. Michel Billington:

Billington On Mother CourageBillington On Mother Courage Wed, Dec 8, 1993 – 28 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

A smaller clipping also from Michael Coveney:

Coveney on Mother CourageCoveney on Mother Courage Sun, Dec 12, 1993 – 79 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Ellie Haddington played the lead role very well.

My log describes this as an “RNT Education Department Mobile Production”, so my guess is that it toured extensively beyond the Cottesloe. Good for it.