Tag: Kevin Trainor

Canary by Jonathan Harvey, Hampstead Theatre, 21 May 2010

Well, by this time the Ed Hall era had started at Hampstead Theatre, but this one didn’t really work for us.

It felt to us like an “everything including the kitchen sink” gay saga. Angels in America without the sparkling wit, The Normal Heart without the heart-wrenching pathos. It spanned the decades from 1962 (a fine year IMHO) to the present day.

We really wanted to like it. We didn’t really dislike it. It just didn’t grip and/or move us.

Good troupe from the Liverpool Everyman – it was a shame really.

Here is a search term – click here – that finds you all the reviews and resources available back then.

There’s a YouTube trailer/interview with the playwright for this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=civMWwV1kRY

We no doubt went to Harry Morgans for some comfort food before the show.

Six Degrees Of Separation, John Guare, The Old Vic, 16 January 2010

Around the time that we booked this play, I was writing the chapter of The Price of Fish, coincidentally Chapter Six, that explains the “shrinking world” theory known as six degrees of separation.

In theory, this play is all about that concept. In practice, I struggled at times to link this social comedy with the theory.

Without the futile search for intellectual insight, it was a reasonably fun evening at the theatre but a rather lightweight one. A super cast for this revival, but I’m not sure this play is worthy of a revival within 20 years, even though the world has/had changed between times.

Here is a link to The Old Vic resource on the production.

Here is a link to a search term that finds plenty of reviews, mostly indifferent ones. The consensus seemed to be that the production was excellent but the play somewhat lacking. Although neither Janie nor I had seen the play first time around, we thought that assessment was right.