Inside Bitch, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 2 March 2019

We were intrigued to see this piece, conceived and performed by women who have been to prison – a Clean Break production alongside the Royal Court.

Our previous experience of a Clean Break and Royal Court production, Pests, blew us away when we saw it five years ago:

In truth, Inside Bitch is not quite such a visceral, blow the audience away piece. It is a thoughtfully and entertainingly devised workshop-style piece in which women who have actually been to prison go through a post-modern process on stage of trying to devise a women in prison drama based on reality rather than the sensationalism normally seen in films and TV dramas on that topic.

The show is just over an hour long. Some bits worked better than others for us but for sure we found the piece entertaining throughout. That, despite the fact that many of the references to film and especially to TV drama on the topic were wasted on me and Janie because we simply don’t watch/have never seen that stuff. But we could imagine.

Here’s a link to the Royal Court resource on Inside Bitch.

While here is a link to a short vid about the piece.

The place was packed with the cast and crew’s nearest and dearest the night we went, which was preview Saturday, so the tumultuous reception was to be expected but was nevertheless deserved.

We’re ahead of the formal reviews, but once they’ve been writ, this search term should find them.

A very imaginative playtext/programme, btw – ironically priced at “a lady” and well worth it for a subsequent skim or three.

Not a conventional play, but a very entertaining and thought-provoking hour of theatre. We enjoyed it and would recommend it.

The Cane by Mark Ravenhill, Royal Court Theatre, 8 December 2018

We have a split jury on this one. Janie really didn’t get on with it at all, whereas I found it an interesting, albeit flawed piece.

Janie and I saw the third preview, so it is possible the production will change a little before press night…but  I doubt if it will change much.

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

Cast Picture From The Royal Court Press Release

The Alun Armstrong character is a deputy headmaster, a teacher of 45 years standing, who is due to retire. Maggie Steed is his wife and Nicola Walker is their estranged daughter.

I don’t think it is a spoiler to explain that the central aspect of the controversy in which the central character is embroiled is his use of the cane, until corporal punishment was prohibited in the mid 1980s…

…or is it? The play’s title is The Cane, so it must simply be about that topic. Certainly the cane is a central artifact to the plot…

…yet much of the story doesn’t really add up. Would modern school children really riot against a teacher, days before his retirement, simply because he used to administer the cane 30+ years ago? Surely there must be more to it than that?

Similarly, much of the family’s back story doesn’t exactly add up or reconcile between their memories either. Axe marks on the wall are a visible example throughout the piece.

Janie saw these conundrums (or do I mean conundra?) as signs of weakness in the plot, but I thought the cane was a metaphor for the use of violence as a disciplinary measure generally. I thought the play was a metaphor for power struggles and violence within institutions like schools, within families, between teachers and pupils, between husbands, wives and children.

Still, it was hard to sympathize with any of the characters. In particular, the Maggie Steed character seemed at once pathetically weak and yet hell-bent on making forceful, irreversible decisions in an attempt to assert some element of power. I think Maggie Steed’s voice was failing on our night, which hopefully is a passing issue, but her floundering gestures didn’t really work for either of us. Perhaps she can control and channel those a bit more convincingly between preview and press night.

Janie didn’t find Alun Armstrong’s character sinister enough either, whereas I thought his manner of suppressed violence disguised by a kindly veneer was sufficiently creepy or sinister for me. Vincent Price without the ham.

Similarly, for me, the Nicola Walker character was sinister. We couldn’t get to the bottom of her motivation, even by the end of the play, but I think that air of mystery was the writer’s intention. At first you wondered how this person could be the daughter of those parents – by the end I thought I could see the echoes – a different style of controlling behaviour and a different style of violence – but still those characteristics to the fore.

Personally, I liked the debate about education within the play. In the absence of physical discipline through corporal punishment, how do teachers maintain control. (Answer, in my view, mostly by teaching well.)

There was a fascinating speech from Nicola Walker’s character about discipline the modern way in academy schools – a form of, “eyes front at all times, no talking in the corridors between lessons”. I could imagine that being effective as discipline…but I’m not sure I’d have been any more comfortable in that sort of disciplinary environment than I was/would have been in the old-fashioned “threat of corporal punishment” environment.

Whether that debate would seem as interesting or insightful to those mixed up in the education system (either as parents, teachers or pupils) today I have no idea, but it seemed relevant and interesting to me, sitting (as I do) on the outside of education for several decades.

Before the play we got chatting with a woman in the drinks queue who turned out to be Gaynor ChurchwardMinnie Driver’s mum. It would have been interesting to have learnt after the show what she thought about the play; her life experience of schooling being rather unusual and very different from either of ours. But we didn’t stick around to chat with anyone – we dashed off for a shawarma supper and a reasonably early night.

I agree with Janie to some extent that the piece might benefit from a little more naturalism and direct tackling of the issues/story, but I still found the production a worthwhile and enjoyable evening in the theatre, in the hands of some expert theatrical operators.

Once the production has been through press night and formally reviewed, you should find the reviews here. Janie and I will then find out which of us is “right”. 😉 

Adler & Gibb by Tim Crouch, Royal Court Theatre, 21 June 2014

Strange play, this one. I recall us both really liking the idea of it and the style of it…

…I even recall that we enjoyed the evening…

…yet afterwards we sensed that there was less substance to the piece than we had imagined…

…a bit like the modern/conceptual art world in many ways, so perhaps the play depicts its subject cunningly well.

Here is a link to the Royal Court’s resource on this production.

Below I have embedded an interview with Tim Crouch and Karl James, who explain the play rather well.

Here is a link to a search term that should find most if not all of the reviews – which were rather mixed.

The Mistress Contract by Abi Morgan, Royal Court Theatre, 8 February 2014

This is a very interesting play, based on a true story about a man and a woman in California  who agreed a formal contract for “mistress services”, at the behest of the woman.

The true life couple also taped a great deal of their conversation; a resource that was utilised for the story.

For me and Janie, it worked much better as a conversation point than it worked as a drama. These were consenting adults after all and it seems that the arrangement worked well for them; the persevered with it into their extreme dotage. Perhaps that explains why the reviews were mostly indifferent.

Still, excellent cast and well produced, as you’d expect from the Royal Court. The piece certainly got me and Janie talking afterwards. I think we went to the Four Seasons for Chinese that evening – I don’t know why that thought pops into my head nearly four years later.

Here’s the Royal Court’s resource page on the production.

Here is a link to reviews and stuff.

Below is the trailer vid:

Statement of Regret by Kwame Kwei-Armah, Cottesloe Theatre, 22 December 2007

We really loved Elmina’s Kitchen and also enjoyed Fix Up, both by Kwame Kwei-Armah when we saw them at the Cottesloe, so we thought this one would be a “must see”.

In truth, Statement of Regret was nowhere near as strong as the other plays, although it was worth the trip. This one was about a black think-tank on the brink of folding. Interesting subject matter but the play was a bit all over the place.

Even Michael Billington struggled to like it, even though he wanted to, here.

Philip Fisher in British Theatre Guide agrees – lots of interesting stuff but not a coherent play, here.

Still, Ricky in NYC really enjoyed it, here, and who are we to disagree?

That Face, Polly Stenham, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 19 May 2007

This turned out to be one of the hottest tickets in town for a while.  We didn’t realise it when we booked it.  We see a lot of productions upstairs and often enjoy plays there by young/as yet unknown playwrights.

Indeed, we normally see them early in a run, but nephew Paul had arranged to stay and said he’d like to go to the theatre with us, so we chose this play as “youthfully suitable” and so booked for a few weeks into the run.  Thus, by the time Paul came down to stay, he knew we’d got him a surprisingly hot ticket.

That Face – for Royal Court stub including several reviews click here – really is a super play and this was an excellent production.

Polly Stenham is a very talented young writer, although we now have the hindsight to wish that she had moved on from this “chamber play about dysfunctional families and damaged youngsters” genre – her subsequent plays so far (several years on) have all been echoes of similar. Still, this one subsequently transferred to the West End making Polly, at 21 by then, the youngest West End debutant since…maybe ever.  Michael Billington gushed – click here.

The whole cast was brilliant, but Lindsay Duncan stole the show, as you might expect.

Nephew Paul was very taken by the whole thing.  We had to explain that we don’t always pick quite such winners, especially when we go for the smaller stages and unknown writers.

 

Kindertransport by Diane Samuels, Hampstead Theatre, 27 April 2007

This was a revival of a play from the 1990s which we hadn’t seen and which we fancied seeing.

The subject matter is a bit gruelling and the somewhat sentimental treatment could seem mawkish, but actually we found this a good play and a well-balanced production.

Reviews (and some comparisons with earlier and subsequent productions) can be found through this search term – click here.

One of our better Friday evenings at the Hampstead Theatre back then.

Sweet Dreams by Diane Esguerra, Sphinx Theatre Company, Chelsea Place Theatre, 27 October 1999

In truth we remember little about this one. I was taking some time off – mostly to “supervise” the fraught business of Gavin renovating my flat. Janie was trying to work half days and take a bit of time off too. We saw several plays and exhibitions that week.

We had discovered the Chelsea Place Theatre a few months earlier when we saw Home Body/Kabul…

Here is a short review of Sweet Dreams from The Independent:

Sweet Dreams, Halliburton, IndependentSweet Dreams, Halliburton, Independent 20 Oct 1999, Wed The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Demons & Dybbuks by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Method & Madness At The Young Vic, 18 September 1999

The log reminds me that we ran into Rob Pay, Susan Pay & Jay Jaffe at that show. In those days, Rob & Susan lived very near to my place, but my place was a building site that autumn and I was staying with Janie in Ealing at that time.

As for the play, I recall that Mike Alfred’s Method & Madness project was a bit Complicité-like, without quite the oomph (and certainly not the longevity) of Complicité.

The piece was basically adaptations (by Mike Alfreds) of a few Isaac Basevis Singer short stories.

Nick Curtis in The Standard was not very impressed:

Dybbuks Standard CurtisDybbuks Standard Curtis 02 Sep 1999, Thu Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Paul Taylor was more charitable in The Independent:

Dybbuks Independent TaylorDybbuks Independent Taylor 02 Sep 1999, Thu The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

The diary suggests that it was a long/late-finishing show, so I suspect that we picked up shawarmas after this show on the way home. The diary also tells me that we went to Gary [Davison]’s birthday lunch the next day. The diary is silent on where we went but in those days Gary tended to hold that event at Lemonia in Primrose Hill.

Home Body / Kabul by Tony Kushner, Chelsea Centre Theatre, 31 July 1999

I remember this play warmly, as does Janie. Kika Markham put in a superb solo performance.

I’m not sure how we came across this production – possibly Newsnight Review on the TV, which we were following in those days, as I don’t think we even knew of the Chelsea Centre Theatre prior to this.

It was well received by Susannah Clapp in The Observer.

Home Body Kabul Clapp ObserverHome Body Kabul Clapp Observer 25 Jul 1999, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Rachel Haliburton in The Indy also liked it:

Kabul Haliburton IndyKabul Haliburton Indy 31 Jul 1999, Sat The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

It seems that the thing we saw is only part of a longer Tony Kushner epic. Declan Donnellan revived the short Kika Markham element that we saw, at The Young Vic in 2002 – here is a link to Michael Billington’s review of that.