Mark Henderson – Ian Louis Harris

Race by David Mamet, Hampstead Theatre, 31 May 2013

Not David Mamet’s best play, but even modest Mamet on the subject of Race provides plenty tension and interesting drama. We needed to suspend belief a little too much on this one – as is the way with lesser Mamet.

Click here for Hampstead Theatre’s resource on this play/production.

Below is a backstage vid for this production:

The critics were less forgiving than we were for this short play – click here for a link to a search term that finds the reviews.

Still, excellent cast, well directed by Terry Johnson. It was an enjoyable evening at the theatre.

The Last Of The Haussmans by Stephen Beresford, Lyttelton Theatre, 9 July 2012

This play was good fun, as I recall it and well received by most critics.

But it was not, in truth, a great play, nor an ideal outlet for the immense talent on show, both cast and creatives.

Still, we had a fun evening at the theatre and the National had somewhat of a hit on its hands.

Here is a link to a search term that finds reviews and stuff – click here.

Below is a trailer:

Below is an interview with the playwright:

Below is a vid with cast and author interviews:

Detroit by Lisa D’Amour, Cottesloe Theatre, 12 May 2012

I remember we were really looking forward to this play/production.

Transfers from the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in the US are usually top notch, as are Cottesloe productions.

In many ways this was top notch; a well written, well-acted, well-directed piece about suburban America. It just didn’t really light up.

Perhaps we had been spoilt too recently by Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park – another mid-west suburban play…

Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris, Royal Court Theatre, 4 September 2010

…or the harder-hitting Neil LaBute’s we’d been enjoying the last few years.

We enjoyed our evening but had been (perhaps unfairly) half-expecting to be wowed, which we were not.

Mixed reviews from the critics – click here for a link.

Below is the RNT trailer – not very revealing…

…this Steppenwolf vid explains more:

Reasons To Be Pretty by Neil LaBute, Almeida Theatre, 17 December 2011

We are very keen on Neil LaBute plays and the Almeida has (or had) made a bit of a specialism in them over the years.

While not quite his razor-sharp best, we thought this was a very good play and production.

Here is a link to the Almeida resource on this play/production.

The acting was excellent – all four performances top notch.

It was very well received by the critics on the whole – click here for a link through to the reviews.

Below is the trailer for the production we saw:

I remember us both really dreading the shlep to the Almeida just before Christmas and then both being so glad that we went.

We subsequently (four/five years later) saw a companion piece for it at the Hampstead, Reasons To Be Happy…

Reasons To Be Happy by Neil Labute, Hampstead Theatre, 8 April 2016

…which we didn’t think was anything like as good.

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

We were very keen on the idea of this one and booked a preview.

We are glad we did; the play was enjoyable, agonising and thought-provoking in equal measure.

Partly about the domestic and interpersonal aspects of ageing, the play also takes on questions of government policy around ageing, including social care and the potential for robots to provide same.

A summary of cast and some interesting links on Wikipedia – here.

I make it sound a bit “everything but the kitchen sink” on the topic, because in a way it was, but in a good way. The themes do more or less come together into a coherent whole and there is an element of comedic romp about the play which allows room for some forgiveness.

It was pretty well received on the whole – a rummage through the reviews and materials yielded by this search term should satisfy your curiosity if you remain curious.

Excellent cast, well directed, well produced…

…what do you expect from the Cottesloe?

Gethsemane by David Hare, Cottesloe Theatre, 8 November 2008

This one felt like a hot ticket when we booked it months before and also seemed well suited to my mind set just 48 hours after my Gresham Lecture on Commercial Ethics.

But this play was about the arguably thornier topic of political ethics and political pragmatism.

What a posse of cast and creatives for this one – click here for the Official London Theatre information stub.

I recall being most impressed by the performances and the production. Also, the play did its job of getting me and Janie talking about its big issues for the rest of the weekend. Yet this didn’t feel like premier league David Hare to me; I felt there was something lacking in the play.

Michael Billington in the Guardian heaped it with praise – here;
Kate Bassett in the Independent puts her finger on the flaws in the nevertheless fascinating play – click here;
The Standard was not impressed by the play – click here;
Sarah Hemming in the FT clearly liked it a lot, comparing it favourably with The Vertical Hour as drama (whereas I would say that The Vertical Hour worked better for me as drama) – click here to read what she wrote;
to save us all time, Mark Espiner in the Guardian pulled out the best quotes from all the reviews, so that people who hadn’t seen the production could pick, mix and wax lyrical about it – click here.

It was that sort of play/production – influential people were supposed to talk about it but not all that many people got to see it. Janie and I saw a preview, so had every right to wax lyrical from an informed perspective and from the outset.

What good news for everyone that Janie and I tend to keep our counsel to ourselves on such matters.

Well worth seeing.

Never So Good by Howard Brenton, Lyttelton Theatre, 22 March 2008

Janie and I both carry fond memories of this play/production, although it was a long play and is the sort of play that we sometimes dislike.

Howard Brenton has a tendency either to pull off this type of history/personality play with aplomb (as he did with this one and the Ai Wei Wei one) or leave us stone cold, as he did with his play about drawing lines across India at the time of Independence.

Jeremy Irons isn’t my favourite; he’s always sort-of Jeremy Irons. But Jeremy Irons is sort-of Harold Macmillan, so that aspect worked.

One element of the play that I recall really working for me was the notion of the young Harold, played by Pip Carter, moving the narrative on, even in the later years when Harold was becoming an old duffer.

There’s a decent Wikipedia entry for this play – here – which also provides the links to the main theatre reviews (saving me the trouble), which were very favourable on the whole.

Having said that, Wikipedia’s critics list is short and perhaps selective:

Philip Fisher in British Theatre Guide was less sure;
but then again, Sarah Hemming in the FT loved it.

Official London Theatre kindly archived its synopsis and list of cast and creatives, saving me a lot of typing. Thanks for nothing, RNT, which, with all its funding, provides far less past production archive than most half-decent fringe theatres.

Suddenly Last Summer by Tennessee Williams, Comedy Theatre, 10 April 1999

We do like our Tennessee Williams, do Janie and I. This is a rarely performed play and I have always been fascinated by it.

Indeed, we must have been very keen to see this one, as we booked for the first Saturday of the West End run. We tend to avoid the West End these days.

We loved it. I wrote in my log:

Superb. One of the best so far this year.

Sheila Gish was predictably excellent, but we were also much taken with a young Rachel Weisz; I think this was the first time we saw her. There was more to the cast than those two – see tags in this piece – the Theatricalia entry unusually lacks them.

We were wowed; not much else that we can say.

Nicholas de Jongh in The Standard was also wowed