Tag: Jo Combes

The Women of Troy by Euripides & This Cookie May Contain Nuts by Tracey Hitchen, Orange Tree Theatre, 9 June 2001

This was an unusual double-bill of short plays at the Orange Tree, both women-oriented, I think directed by some young women on an apprenticeship scheme.

We rather enjoyed it.

The Women Of Troy is hardly a bundle of laughs. But the second play was an interesting take on modern web-based technologies, quite prescient I should think from the turn of the century if we were to see it again today.

I can only find one local review, which rated the evening pretty highly:

Troy Cookies Troy Cookies 15 Jun 2001 Barnes, Mortlake and Sheen Times (London, London, England) Newspapers.com

We’ll have gone to Don Fernando’s after that three hour epic and had a pretty late night.

We went to David Highton’s 50th the next day. Gosh we were troopers back then.

The Captain’s Tiger by Athol Fugard, Orange Tree Theatre, 21 October 2000

Not top drawer Fugard, this, but Janie and I are/were partial to Athol Fugard’s work and partial to The Orange Tree. This was to be the premier of a new Fugard play at one of our favourite places. What could there be not to like? We weren’t disappointed.

The cast: Peter Gale, Ben Warwick, Chad Shepherd and Leah Muller were all excellent. Auriol Smith directed this one well.

I think we went to see this just after press night.

Nicholas de Jongh liked it:

Tiger de Jongh Standard Tiger de Jongh Standard 23 Oct 2000 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Dominic Cavendish found Fugard’s “self rite of passage” theme a bit smug, yet still he really liked it:

Tiger Cavendish Telegraph Tiger Cavendish Telegraph 24 Oct 2000 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Unusually, The Guardian didn’t cover this one. How are Janie and I supposed to know what to think about this sort of play unless our friend, Michael Billington, tells us?

Seriously, we pretty much agreed with the above two reviews. It felt a little self-indulgent but we could forgive Athol Fugard some self-indulgence as he has entertained us so much and did so again in this piece.

No doubt we ate at Don Fernando and no doubt the waiters asked after The Duchess, as was their wont back then when Janie and I went to Richmond without her.