Tag: Michael Jenn

Collaborators by John Hodge, Cottesloe Theatre, 7 January 2012

I think I liked this play more than Janie did.

It was a fictionalised…somewhat fantasised account of encounters (which did occur to some extent in real life) between the writer Mikhail Bulgakov and Joseph Stalin.

We were blessed with Alex Jennings as Bulgakov and Simon Russell Beale as Stalin, with Nicholas Hytner in the director’s chair.

In truth, I don’t think it was a great play. It was a very good idea for a play with some very good scenes within it, but as a whole it didn’t quite work for me as an entire play.

But there was enough really good stuff going on to please me plenty, on  balance. Whereas I think Janie found it a little drawn out and confused/confusing.

The reviewers were more with me (on the plus side) than with Janie (on the “a bit muddled) side – click here for a search term that finds the reviews.

Below is a link to the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=972WDOQNMS0

…and the following vid is an interview with John Hodge, the playwright:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjNmXug2D4k

Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Barbican Theatre, 19 February 1994

Janie is not partial to Shakespeare, but this production directed by Adrian Noble with Derek Jacobi as Macbeth and Cheryl Campbell as Lady Macbeth was quite special and we both thought it very good.

Theatricalia sets out the deal here.

I now learn that one of the three witches was Tracy-Ann Oberman, who went on (shortly after this production I think), to perform in NewsRevue/SportsRevue. Not our first sighting of her, that was in The Changeling at Stratford:

The Changeling by Thomas Middleton & William Rowley, RSC Swan Theatre, 29 October 1992

Returning to The Scottish Play, though, this is one of two productions Janie and I have seen; the other being the Tony Sher/Harriet Walter production to be Ogblogged “in the fullness”.

A couple of contemporaneous reviews survive on-line:

Here is Michael Billington’s review:

Billington On MacbethBillington On Macbeth Sat, Dec 18, 1993 – 26 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Here’s the Michael Coveney clipping:

Coveney On MacbethCoveney On Macbeth Sun, Dec 19, 1993 – 58 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Not brilliantly well received, then.