Yet for some reason this piece simply did not press our buttons. Perhaps Janie and I had seen this subject matter covered with more power elsewhere. Perhaps the characters came across as rather stiff and cold to us, rather than the bottled-up emotion that (I suspect) was supposed to be portrayed.
It is a short piece and is (as more or less always at the Orange Tree) thoughtfully designed and produced in the round. So don’t necessarily take our word for it.
It has been said that his majesty and I bear some slight resemblance… https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Feisal_I_of_Iraq.jpg
Oh dear.
It sounded like a good idea when we booked it. Such an interesting period of Middle-Eastern history. Howard Brenton, who did such an interesting job on Ai Weiwei, taking on an interesting character in T. E. Lawrence. Timely, as it is the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot Agreement this year…
The problem is, that period was also a period when English theatre was in its dull Edwardian through 1920s drawing room drama doldrums. Howard Brenton seems to think it a good idea to parody the very worst of that period’s drama for this play. Director John Dove takes the idea further with a staid, static style to the piece. There are some good actors in this play but frankly we couldn’t care less what happened to any of the characters, which doesn’t give the cast much room for manoevre.
Neither Janie nor I could tell you too much detail about the first half; we both slept through much of it. It was a deathly dull hour, even when sleep spares you much of it. It would have been a deathly dull two hours, but we agreed to cut our losses and leave at the interval. So we can’t tell you anything about the second half. I am reliably informed by Grant (someone I know from the gym who did suffer the whole thing) that it gets no better in the second half.
Congratulations to all of you critics for managing to stay awake sufficiently to review the piece, or alternatively for covering up your lack of wakefulness deftly in your columns.
I did wake up for the bit where Lawrence shows off the thawb, bisht and igal, the garments of a bedouin leader, gifted to him by Prince (later King) Faisal. I liked that bit. Firstly, I am said by some to resemble Faisal (see picture above); I certainly resemble him far more than the actor who plays him in this play.
Secondly I have a fine collection of natty thawbs, bestowed upon me by one of Janie’s wealthy Saudi clients. Indeed I do much of my writing at the flat wearing a thawb; especially in the summer when it is a very sensible way to dress when writing.
But I digress. The play is deathly dull. Did I mention that before? Is irritating when people waste your time simply repeating stuff they have said before? Or is it a quirky, whimsical touch, that could maintain your interest and tickle your sense of humour for a couple of hours.
On a positive note, the programme is a really interesting read. We highly recommend it. The programme is well worth the trip to Swiss Cottage and its £3.50 cover price. Just don’t waste your time and money on this turkey of a play.
We thought this was a good play and production, a rare hit in our view during the Anthony Clark era. Perhaps the fact that it was a West Yorkshire Playhouse import helped.
Topical then, topical at the time of writing this Ogblog piece (December 2016), the play is the story of a Ukrainian migrant worker and the exploitative gangmasters he comes up against.
Another of those plays and productions that shocked us and got us thinking all weekend. Friday evening again too, making it quite hard work after a week’s work but never mind. Janie and I had taken sustenance at Harry Morgans early evening before the play, as was our wont when going to the Hampstead in those days.
This was special. We liked the sound of it. We hadn’t heard of anyone to do with it. As it happens, John Simm was well known, but for TV and therefore not to us.
Paul Miller has gone on to be the head honcho at the Orange Tree Theatre, where he is working wonders now (as I write in the mid teenies).
No doubt we ate at Don Fernando’s afterwards – we pretty much always did, although I seem to recall trying an alternative place (Italian I think) that proved less satisfactory on one of those five autumn 1998 visits to Richmond.
Interesting (weird) evening. Programme missing – only insert sheet.
Actually the programme might turn out to be a play text which might turn up somewhere on my bookshelves.
I wouldn’t mind reading these plays again. This was Caryl Churchill in impenetrable mood.
Gabrielle Blunt, Jacqueline Defferary, Karina Fernandez, Bernard Gallagher, Valerie Lilley, Mary Macleod and Jason Watkins, directed by Max Stafford-Clark.
Then on to Old Park Lane Nobu for dinner. That place was the latest “in place to dine” back then, so we were keen to try it. Who’d have thought that, 25 years later, the signature black cod in miso dish would be something we can obtain from our local (Japanese) fishmonger and serve at home?
That was a lot of sensory stimulation for one evening – Caryl Churchill followed by Nobu. My guess is that Janie was very keen to try the place but could only get a late evening booking, so it sort of made sense to go after theatre.
To add to the excitement, we did it all again (in terms of theatre followed by dinner out) the very next day:
We thought this was a very good production. José Rivera was not a well known writer back then, pre Motorcycle Diaries, but we chose this on the back of interesting sounding subject matter and the quality of stuff we were getting at The Orange Tree, which was on a bit of a roll at that time.
From the bowels of my memory, I recalled it as sort of magical realism…
…so I was delighted to see that Michael Billington used that term in the first sentence of his review. At one point Billington suggests that the production was as if Tennessee Williams had been done over by Pedro Almodovar. No wonder we really liked it.
I rated this two-hander with Tim Pigott-Smith & Victoria Hamilton as superb at the time, so it must have been quite special.
I cannot find much about it on the web, but this page from the James Saunders website helps, with a good description of the piece and some nice quotes from the notices. If anything ever happens to that site, I have scraped the page to here.
So this turned out to be James Saunders’ last play and I think the only one of his that was premiered in the new Orange Tree Theatre by Sam Walters (several of the earlier ones had premiered above the pub).
It must have been this play that made me seek out James Saunders’ work subsequently, but in truth his earlier work, especially the absurdist pieces, were far less to my taste than this gripping, psychological two-hander.
Michael Billington reviewed it and really liked it. I say that with some surprise, as for some reason the James Saunders’ website doesn’t have a quote from Billington.
