We pushed the boat out to see this one. Friday night at the National Theatre – we both had busy Friday schedules well into the afternoon.
Was it worth it, I hear you cry.
So dull, we walked at half time
Seemingly not.
I have a feeling this was the occasion when we bumped into my friends from Lambton Place, Bryan Rostron & Sunny, with their pal Paul Foot. You don’t mess with investigative journalists like Bryan and Paul – we confessed to the fact that we were going to sneak away after the drinks interval.
We wanted to like this play/production. We are partial to John Osborne, although well aware of the fact that his good is very very good, but not all of his drama is of the highest quality. This one felt like a history lesson in a rather dull (to us) aspect of history.
I also felt badly about walking out on Timothy West. He had, after all, sat through hours of dull stuff with me in it on more than one occasion without walking out at half time:
Returning to Luther, it was, of course, a fine cast and a fine production. Rufus Sewell in the title role. Richard Griffiths, Timothy West, and Maxine Peake in supporting roles, Peter Gill directing with a young Josie Rourke assisting.
Here’s a link to the Theatricalia entry for this one.
But oh boy did we find this dull. What did the critics – possibly better equipped for dull than me and Janie, have to say?
Nicholas de Jongh heaped praise on the production while stating that Luther was “quite the wrong choice of Osborne”:
Luther de Jongh Standard 8 Oct 2001 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Michael Billington disagreed – loving it especially for its reclamation of potentially lost Osborne:
Luther Billington Guardian 8 Oct 2001 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Charles Spencer, on the other hand, described it as a long hard slog:
Luther Spencer Telegraph 8 Oct 2001 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
A rare example of a split jury in which we sided with Spencer rather than Billington. “Long hard slog” sums it up rather well from my recollection.
