Or You Could Kiss Me by Neil Bartlett, Cottesloe Theatre, 2 October 2010

Having missed out on War Horse (didn’t fancy it even after the rave reviews) we thought the subject matter of this one might interest us more and is very much up Neil Bartlett’s street.

This interview with Neil Bartlett explains his side of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUSz1vWF_5Q

To some extent it worked; the story across the decades was engaging. But the puppets didn’t really work for us. While we can recognise the incredible skill involved, it seemed, to us, to detract from the drama.

This search term should find resources and reviews aplenty for any deep divers who might want to search on from here.

This link takes you to a short film that shows some of the major puppet scenes, to give you an idea.

Antigone by Sophocles, The Old Vic, 28 October 1999

For some reason, stuff at The Old Vic rarely works for us and this production of Antigone was no exception. It had been bigged-up in the media on the back of a big name cast, headed up by Tara Fitzgerald alongside Jonathan Hyde, Anna Calder-Marshall, Zubin Varla and several others, under the skilled direction of (and adaption by) Declan Donnellan.

Here is the Theatricalia entry for that production.

Janie and I didn’t think that Tara Fitzgerald suited that part, or indeed possibly the stage, but what do we know?

Nicholas de Jongh in the Standard gave it a blob:

Antigone Standard Old Vic Antigone Standard Old Vic 12 Oct 1999, Tue Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

On the other hand, Paul Taylor in The Independent liked it a lot:

Antigone Taylor IndependentAntigone Taylor Independent 12 Oct 1999, Tue The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Our friend, Michael Billington, in the Guardian, absolutely loved it:

Antigone Billington Guardian 1 of 2Antigone Billington Guardian 1 of 2 14 Oct 1999, Thu The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com Antigone Billington Guardian 2 of 2Antigone Billington Guardian 2 of 2 14 Oct 1999, Thu The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

More often than not, if the critics are divided, we side with Billington (Guardian) over Spencer (Telegraph), but Charles Spencer panned this production (perhaps more vociferously than our view). I’ll let him have the last word:

Antigone Spencer TelegraphAntigone Spencer Telegraph 13 Oct 1999, Wed The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com