Tag: Carolyn Downing

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.

Carmen Disruption by Simon Stephens, Almeida Theatre, 11 April 2015

“What was that about” said Janie after the show; proof positive that her review would not be 100% positive. “I liked bits of it but it seemed all over the place at times and I’m not really sure what it was trying to say.”

Janie has a point.

Yet it was a very entertaining play/show in many ways.

Centre stage as we walked in was a dying bull, or rather a moving facsimile of same. It remained pretty much centre stage throughout.

Men were dressed a women, women were dressed as men, it was sort of about an opera singer, sort of about a toy boy…

…read the reviews and figure it out for yourself if you wish.

Excellent Almeida resource including links to several full reviews – click here.

The reviews were more or less universally excellent. It certainly deserved the high praise for an extraordinary production.

We are big fans of Simon Stephens writing, so we delight in this play’s success, but I think we prefer it when his writing is a little more direct.

Still, we enjoyed our evening and had bragging rights for having seen this production early on.

Fathers And Sons by Brian Friel, after the novel by Ivan Turgenev, Donmar Warehouse, 26 July 2014

The programmes hadn’t arrived, so (most unusually for the Donmar) we got a simple black and white printed A4 foldy. Standards.

The play was very good indeed, though, as was the cast. The usual high production values for the Donmar too.

Here is a link to the wonderful Behind The Scenes material which Donmar has now put on the web for interested folk to download.

A bit slow, but then this IS a 19th century Russian story and it IS Brian Friel, whom we like very much, btw.

The critics on the whole shared our enjoyment of it – click here for a link to reviews.

In short, this was a good’n.

The Pass by John Donnelly, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 18 January 2014

I recall Janie wondering why we had booked this, when we reminded ourselves on the day about what we were going to see. A play about footballers and sex and stuff.

Here is a link to the Royal Court resource on The Pass.

Actually we both really enjoyed this play; it was full of energy, with a good mix of entertainment and issues to think about. Janie and I found lots to talk about afterwards.

Here is a link to a search term that digs out the reviews and stuff.

Here is the promo and explanatory vid:

I think we kept it simple foodwise after this one, with either sharwarmas from Ranoush or perhaps Mohsen for Iranian food.

 

 

Chimerica by Lucy Kirkwood, Almeida Theatre, 1 June 2013

Janie and I both really really liked this play/production.

In many ways not the sort of play we normally like. It was quite long and very broad in its sweep – spanning continents and decades.

But it was such a good play and so well done.

Fine cast; not least Claudia Blakley (who we think of as an Orange Tree regular), Stephen Campbell Moore (who I got to know quite well shortly afterwards at BodyWorksWest) and Benedict Wong (who we’ll forever think of as Ai Weiwei – or at least Janie will).

We liked Lucy Kirkwood’s previous play, NSFW...we loved Chimerica.

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

It subsequently transferred (pretty much intact, I believe) to the Harold Pinter that autumn.

Below is the trailer vid:

It got rave reviews, deservedly – click here for a search term that finds them.

London theatre at its very best.

The Low Road by Bruce Norris, Royal Court Theatre, 23 March 2013

Gosh, this one didn’t really work for us, although we thought it would. We like Bruce Norris’s plays and the Royal Court was serving up a stellar collection of cast and creatives.

Here is a link to the Royal Court resource for this production.

To some extent we were unlucky – we’d booked an early preview and the mechanically complicated set had encountered some technical problems. We were kept waiting 30 minutes or more for a delayed start…

…for a play that we knew was quite long anyway…

…and at that time we were more easily pleased by short, sharp (and possibly less challenging) pieces.

But the other problem I had with this piece was the rather obvious way that points about the financial crisis and subsequent political/economic responses were rather obviously rammed down our throats.

Also, the play latched onto one of my bugbears which is the misrepresentation of Adam Smith’s subtle body of work into an unkind representation of all that is coldly economic.

It all felt a bit “tell rather than show”, which detracted from the drama, which is probably why the Drama 101 text book suggests “show rather than tell”.

Below is the trailer vid…

…and below this line is a behind the scenes vid:

It was all very clever and the cast was excellent, but by half time – pushing towards 22:00 already, we decided to give the second half a miss. After all, I had the script in my hand and could pretty well work out what was likely to happen.

Decidedly mixed reviews – really divided the critics, this piece – this link will take you to a search term that finds the reviews good and bad.

Lulu by Frank Wedekind, Gate Theatre, 18 June 2010

This was a really powerful production of a fascinating but shocking play about a femme-fatale; but is she the abuser or the abused party? Janie and I were both affected by this piece and spent ages debating the play’s points afterwards.

Superb production in our little local gem The Gate. What luxury it is to be able to pop round the corner and see a cast and production of this quality.

Here is a link to The Gate’s resource on this play/production.

Here is a search term that finds you other resources and reviews.

Here is the YouTube trailer for the production:

I think we picked up some Turkish food from Manzara (late lamented by the time of writing in 2017) afterwards and stayed at the flat.

The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy, Adapted by Nancy Harris, Gate Theatre, 5 November 2009

A rare visit to the theatre on my own. I was keen to see this thing and Janie was struggling to find the time for it, so I just went midweek – on the opening night. Hardly a shlep, is it, from the flat to The Gate?

It was very good indeed. More or less a one man show for the excellent Hilton McRae.

The Gate, being a tiny theatre with hardly any money, obviously has a much better online presence than the big boys, so the on-line resource on this play/production covers many of the bases for me – here.

…as was I. A rare miss for Daisy and I could have made her suffer for it but I didn’t. I told her that she probably wouldn’t have liked it as much as I did.

To get an idea of this productions unusual style, here is a rather tasty little promo vid that the Gate put together for this production:

Dimetos by Athol Fugard, Donmar Warehouse, 21 March 2009

I’m a bit of a fan of Athol Fugard, but this one didn’t quite hit the spot the way many of his plays have done for me in the past. Daisy felt the same way.

It is a revival from 1975 – a selling point to me as I thought Fugard was writing brilliant stuff during that period.

A great line up too, with Jonathan Pryce in the lead role and Douglas Hodge having a go at directing…

…it just didn’t work for us.

As for the critics:

State of Emergency by Falk Richter, Gate Theatre, 7 November 2008

A short dystopian piece about lives in a gated community in some future or remote authoritarian place.  Here is a link to The Gate’s stub on this piece.

We have done this sort of play on a Friday evening at The Gate before (and since), because it is sometimes so convenient to see them and stay at the flat on a Friday, but heavy/dystopian drama is not my first choice of activity for a Friday night.

Anyway, beyond our temporal reasons for being unsure about it, the critics also seemed unsure:

The acting was top notch and as always we marvel at the way they manage to turn that small space above a pub into a proper space for drama. But Janie and I concurred with the reviewers about the play.

Not sure whether I cooked or whether we grabbed some Turkish food from the (now late, lamented) Manzara. As I’d delivered my Gresham lecture the night before and (it seems) gone off early on the Friday morning to see clients, I’ll guess the latter and jolly tasty it will have been too.