All my notes say is that I went with Bobbie Scully and that we thought it was very good.
I remember thinking Ken Stott was superb – I don’t think I had seen him before. It might have been my first encounter with the excellent Alex Jennings. Des Barrit was also a standout performer, as usual. But in truth the whole cast was good and you can see many names on the list who went on to do bigger and bolder things.
There are no on-line reviews to be found – until now – my one right here – yay!
I’m not sure what Bobbie and I did about eating afterwards, but in those days we would sometimes eat at the RNT itself – we might well have done that – or sometimes we’d go to The Archduke or somewhere of that ilk nearby.
I wrote in my log and I remember this production as such too. In 1992 I was still going to this sort of production with Bobbie as long as she was available, which most often she was, despite her protests that mebooking stuff so far ahead meant she couldn’t/wouldn’t guarantee her availability.
Bobbie was there for this one.
I’m pretty sure I had seen Bobbie the night before as well. The diary simply says “clubbing” which, as I recall it, meant a West End evening with Bobbie and several of her law reporter friends.
I remember the evening of Friday 13 March 1992 clearly, because I almost lost my life earlier that day on the M11, driving out to see Schering, when a lorry shed its load of timber on the two-lane motorway ahead of me and I had nowhere to go (other than into a central reservation barrier to the right or into the vehicles to my left) so I slowed down as much as I could through the timber and then vehicularly limped to the hard shoulder to have my broken car and shaken me rescued.
I must have bored everyone shitless with my Friday 13th story that previous evening and for sure the events of the day and evening of 13th were small beer compared with the drama that unfolded at The Lyttelton on the Saturday Night.
Very good. Performed in scouse accents if I remember correctly.
I suspect that the second note had something to do with a little Bobbie annoyance at the use of scouse accents to depict Neapolitans. Ian McKellen as scouser seemed a little strange to our ears too, but of course the bloke can act. Clare Higgins as his missus, Richard Eyre directing, fine supporting cast…what’s not to like?
I have strong memories of this one. Just one word in my log:
Superb.
It was a convoluted process getting to see it, as I was really suffering with my back knack when this production opened in London (October 1990; it had spent the spring and summer at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin).
Anyway, Bobbie and I sorted out some good tickets for just before Christmas and my goodness this one was worth seeing.
Excellent cast, including Brid Brennan, Stephen Dillane and Alec McCowen. In truth I don’t know Director Patrick Mason for anything else but he can come visit again.
I remember early the next year recommending it to a Dutch software developer, Gerard Mey, who was working on a project with me in London and asked me to recommend a show. I wondered if it was too challenging for someone who does not boast English as a first language. Gerard told me how much he enjoyed it, while admitting that he found some of the language difficult, but said that his head had been full of so many interesting thoughts and ideas since seeing it. That’s a recommendation in my book!
I’ll leave it to the experts to explain in their words just how good this show was.
Michael Billington spoke very highly of it in The Guardian
I rated this production very good and I remember it surprisingly well.
Howard Davies directed this one and gathered an excellent cast. Tom Wilkinson as John Proctor, Zoe Wanamaker as Elizabeth Proctor, Clare Holman as Abigail, plus a top notch RNT ensemble, as was the way at that time.
This production must have been very good, because it is quite a long play and I had “done my back” pretty dramatically the week before. Thus started a period when my back would tell me whether or not I was fully engaged in a theatrical production. For this one, I only recall the superb drama; I don’t recall the pain!
My log suggests that we thought this production was good. I’m not a huge fan of Wesker’s plays; in fact this one sticks in my memory as probably the most interesting of all those I have seen and read.
Obviously I was better from my 48 hours of food poisoning by the Saturday. I’m pretty sure I went in to work on the Friday and then a full weekend of activities.
Now I have had written complaints from Jilly already about my handwriting, so the above page is only for artistic effect. Here is the entry for the Saturday:
Saturday 10 December: Driving lesson & Orpheus Descending With Jilly & Annalisa Party
There – that wasn’t so challenging, now, was it?
I remember really liking this play and production. What a fabulous cast.
They made a film based on that Peter Hall production with some (but not all) of the cast we saw in it. Here is the trailer for that movie – far more melodramatic looking than the stage production I remember, but still it should give you some idea:
For that particular evening, I’m sure that the original idea was that Bobbie would join me to see this play/production. But when she had to pull out for some reason, it made a great deal of sense for Jilly to act as sub, especially as we were both invited to Annalisa’s party and were given leave to be fashionably late arrivals.
In truth, I cannot remember specific details of this particular party at Annalisa’s place in Hinde Street, but her parties were always popular, always lavish in hospitality and always late nighters. At that time, just a couple of years after Annalisa had finished at Keele, I suspect it was a very Keeley crowd that night.
As the diary says, on the Sunday, I:
…went to G Jenny with Ma & Pa…
…the next day, quite probably a little tiredly and sore-headedly. But Grandma Jenny no doubt wanted to know all about my new flat and my new job, so I’ll guess that I was centre of attention that Sunday afternoon.
Bobbie and I were on a bit of a roll, theatre-wise, at the start of that year, seeing some great productions. This was certainly one of them.
Lindsay Duncan was a most memorable Maggie The Cat and Ian Charleson was superb as Brick; tragically Charleson died just a couple of years after this production. The cast also included Eric Porter, Alison Steadman, Henry Goodman…plus many other fine performers. Howard Davies directed.
The Lyttelton is not my favourite place for this sort of play, but somehow this one seemed to work in that space. I seem to recall it received superb notices and for good reason.
Michael Billington loved this production – his review clipped below:
There’s little on-line about this particular production, given its antiquity, but if you have no idea even what the piece looks/feels like, here is a clip of Paul Newman and Elisabeth Taylor from the 1950’s film version:
…while the following clip is from a subsequent National theatre production of Cat:
Anyway, the Lindsay Duncan & Ian Charleson version will live long in my memory. Bobbie’s too, I’ll guess. I’d better ask her.
…we were very keen indeed to see the companion piece for this Edward Bond revival, Saved. I’m not sure how Bobbie managed to score tickets for this, but she must have found a way. Perhaps we queued up for the release of top notch cheap seats on the day, but I do recall that, once again, we were in excellent seats near the front and utterly absorbed by being there.
I waxed lyrical about the stellar cast in the piece about The Pope’s Wedding. Same cast for Saved, but different director – Danny Boyle no less.
And when I say “stellar cast” I really do mean stellar cast: Peter Lovstrom, Adrian Dunbar, Mark Wingett, Tony Rohr, Peter-Hugo Daly, Lesley Manville, June Watson, Gary Oldman, Joanne Whalley, Gerard Horan…
To cut a long story short, we were blown away again. It is a truly shocking paly – no less shocking for knowing in advance what is coming in the ultraviolent ending.
A moment in my personal history on that visit to London; my first visit to The Royal Court Theatre.
I was blown away by this production – Bobbie and I returned in the new year to see Saved as well, which was being performed in rep along with The Pope’s Wedding. After that, I returned to The Royal Court many, many times. Most recently at the time of writing (forty years on), strangely, as a facilitator for the Royal Court rather than as an audience member. A strange but true story:
But returning to The Pope’s Wedding, I am sure I have Bobbie to thank for seeking out the opportunity to see that production. She was doing her Bar pupillage in London by then and had no doubt spotted a review and/or an advert for the production. I think we got in on some sort of special deal, which possibly involved queueing up for “on the day” tickets. What I do recall is that we saw both The Pope’s Wedding and Saved from the best seats in the house for very modest ticket prices.
The Royal Court has benefitted from this “drug pusher style sales technique” for many decades since; I got addicted to watching theatre from the best seats not any old seats. In fact, many other theatres have benefitted from The Royal Court’s foresight at snaring potential theatre addicts young.
I quite often say “what a cast” in my theatre visit write ups, but on this occasion I think that phrase deserves a shout: WHAT A CAST!
Tony Rohr, Adrian Dunbar, Mark Wingett, Peter Lovstrom, Joanne Whalley (prior to her becoming Joanne Whalley Kilmer), Gerard Horan, Lesley Manville, Peter-Hugo Daly and Gary Oldman – directed by Max Stafford Clark. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for this production.
Returning to that weekend, the diary reminds me that we went to The Mayflower (Chinese restaurant on Shaftesbury Avenue) after the theatre – one of those places that we knew would still be open at that hour. I’m guessing that we had fancied trying The Swiss Centre but were too late for that, hence we returned the next day to take lunch there.
One habit that I think we started that Pope’s Wedding & Mayflower evening, which we/I continued for several years after, was to pick up the Sunday papers on Saturday night and start reading them on the Night Bus home if in town at that late hour on a Saturday.
I remember back then thinking that this weekend was the height of sophistication which, for the 22 year old me, it probably was, at that time.
Coveney on Recruiting Sun, Mar 15, 1992 – 60 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Billington on Recruiting Sat, Mar 14, 1992 – 30 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
