Tag: Johan Engels

Electra by Sophocles, Adapted By Frank McGuinness, Richmond Theatre, 9 October 1997

Blooming heck we were culture-vulturing that autumn. This was our third theatre visit in a week – on a Thursday evening, ahead of going to a food and wine fair the next day.

Worth it though. As I put it in my log:

Electric – excellent production. Worth moving ass on a Thursday for.

Fine cast and crew – captured on Theatricalia here.

Nick Curtis wrote very highly of it in the Standard, reviewing it at Chichester. (We saw it at Richmond, on its way from the West Country to the Donmar.)

Electra Curtis StandardElectra Curtis Standard 23 Sep 1997, Tue Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Whereas Paul Taylor, while rating it, compared it less favourably with the Shaw/Warner version a decade or more earlier:

Electra Taylor IndyElectra Taylor Indy 24 Sep 1997, Wed The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Suzanna Andler by Marguerite Duras, Richmond Theatre, 28 August 1997

No holds barred it seems for my contemporaneous verdict on this one:

Interminable – I can’t imagine how we ever got round to returning for the second half – but we did.

To add to the interminable nature of the evening, it seems we had Pauline, The Dowager Duchess of Castlebar (Janie’s mum) with us that evening. We went to Don Fernando’s (25 years on, now late lamented) for a meal after the show.

Julie Christie will have been the draw for this show, but clearly she and the cast were not enough to rescue the thing. Here is the Theatricalia entry for it. Super cast, actually, when you see the names Robert Hickson, Aden Gillett and Julie Legrand alongside that of Christie.

Here’s what the Leatherhead Advertiser said of it when it transferred on to Guildford:

04 Sep 1997, Thu Leatherhead Advertiser (Leatherhead, Surrey, England) Newspapers.com

Nicholas de Jongh had said similar stuff when it was at The Minerva:

Andler de Jongh StandardAndler de Jongh Standard 23 Jul 1997, Wed Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

John Voss in The Sunday Telegraph had also described it in similar terms:

Andler Voss Sunday TelegraphAndler Voss Sunday Telegraph 27 Jul 1997, Sun Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Not the most successful evening we’ve ever had at the theatre…or at Don Fernando’s…or even with Pauline.

The Seagull by Anton Chekhov, Barbican Theatre, 14 September 1991

Stellar cast for this RSC production of the great Chekhov play. Alfred Burke, Simon Russell Beale, Amanda Root, John Carlisle, Susan Fleetwood, Roger Allam…to name but a few. In the capable hands of Terry Hands.

The Theatricalia entry for this one can be found here.

Bobbie and I both enjoyed this production a lot.

I hadn’t realised that this production was Terry Hands’s swansong for the RSC, but Nicholas de Jongh made much of that fact while praising the production in The Guardian:

De Jongh on SeagullDe Jongh on Seagull Sat, Jul 13, 1991 – 21 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

A Dream Of People by Michael Hastings, The Pit, 18 August 1990

I’ve long been partial to a bit of Michael Hastings; I think he is under-rated as a playwright and novelist. So I no doubt chose this one on the back of its authorship.

It’s quite an odd play; sort-of about the welfare state ideal in the hands of a quirky civil service idealogue. Typical Hastings in its untypicality.

Bobbie and I both liked it.

I was reminded of this piece, without remembering exactly which piece I was being reminded of, when Janie and I saw Really Old, Like 45 at The Cottesloe some 20 years later:

Really Old, Like Forty Five by Tamsin Oglesby, Cottesloe Theatre, 30 January 2010

Peter McEnery played the lead and Janet Suzman directed the piece. The Theatricalia entry for the production can be found here. Not yet ever revived (he says in January 2021), I imagine a re-read would quickly determine whether it is now due for a revival or explain why it has not yet been revived.

Michael Billington in The Guardian clearly liked it while peppering his piece with a bit of Billingtonian faint praise.

Billington on HastingsBillington on Hastings Sat, Aug 4, 1990 – 19 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Michael Coveney in The Observer was also fascinated but not entirely convinced:

Coveney on Piano & HastingsCoveney on Piano & Hastings Sun, Aug 12, 1990 – 50 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com