Tag: Philip Fisher

On The Beach by Steve Waters, Bush Theatre, 25 April 2009

This play was part of a double bill of plays about climate change known together as The Contingency Plan.

We only fancied the first part; On The Beach.

The Bush was still above the pub on Shepherd’s Bush Green in those days.

It was well acted and produced, but we both found the first play a bit long, ponderous and not entirely plausible. We didn’t seek to book nor did we regret not having booked the second part.

On the whole the double-bill was reviewed jointly, so our take is only partial:

The Fever by Wallace Shawn, Royal Court Theatre, 4 April 2009

I saw Wallace Shawn perform this piece in early 1991, at the Cottesloe, with Bobbie.

The Fever by Wallace Shawn, Cottesloe Theatre, 9 February 1991

But Janie hadn’t seen it before and Clare Higgins is a cracking good actress.

Also, in the post crash times that were late 2008/early 2009 when we booked to see this production, I thought the piece might have a different, meaningful resonance.

In many ways it did.

Yet it wasn’t quite the same thing as seeing Wallace Shawn perform it himself. How could it be?

In The Red And Brown Water by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Young Vic, 4 October 2008

Of course we hadn’t heard of Tarell Alvin McCraney when we booked this. We simply booked it because it sounded like an interesting play, which it was.

But at the time of writing this up (March 2017), Tarell Alvin McCraney is a topical name, because he wrote Moonlight, which won the best picture Oscar a few weeks ago. Go figure. Here is a link to a recent Young Vic blog piece recognising this achievement.

Official London Theatre has an excellent resource on the outline of this play/production from back then, saving me time & trouble – click here.

The Young Vic published an extensive resources document for students/teachers etc. this play/production – you can click it down – here – from this link.

Reviews were mixed:

I must say I concur with this view. I remember the production where the Young Vic was turned into a watery stage, but I couldn’t hand on heart have told you anything about it from memory, until after I flicked through the script just now.

Perhaps Janie’s memory will do better – I’ll test that a bit later but only report back if she surprises me with profound recall.

The Young Vic published a short vid showing how they made the watery stage happen – see below.

The Girlfriend Experience, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 20 September 2008

We really liked this play. It was funny and interesting.

It’s one of those verbatim theatre jobbies. Alecky Blythe went round talking to prostitutes at “the parlour” and pulled together a play about them based on their own accounts.

Intriguingly, the cast listened to recordings as they delivered their lines, to add a particular type of authenticity to the verbatim method.

It worked for us, anyhow.

Perhaps the Royal Court are starting to put up archives going back this far, but for now this one is merely a stub – click here.

OfficialLondonTheatre.co.uk has more – click here.

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis, Almeida Theatre, 29 March 2008

We had such high hopes for this one. We love the Almeida. We loved Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train by the same author at the Donmar a few years ago…

…but this one didn’t really work for either of us. The acting was good, but the play left us cold and disappointed. Perhaps we were expecting too much.

The Almeida provides a superb stub that explains the conceit of the play and sets out the cast and creatives – here.

There’s a good Wikipedia entry for this play and production too. It states that the original off-Broadway production was reasonably well received, whereas the Almeida production was almost universally well received. I’m not so sure about more-or-less universal:

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:

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.

3 Sisters On Hope Street by Diane Samuels and Tracy-Ann Oberman after Anton Chekov, Hampstead Theatre, 22 February 2008

This one didn’t really work for us, despite the good reviews it mostly received.

It was one of those plays/productions that we thought we ought to have really liked, but didn’t much. We like Chekhov. We like Tracy-Ann Oberman (formerly of NewsRevue in our world, Eastenders in most other people’s). It was a superb-looking cast. Lindsay Posner is a terrific director.

The idea of transferring the Three Sisters to the large home of a relatively wealthy Jewish family in austere post-war Liverpool seemed to be up our street. But Hope Street is not our street; not three hours of it anyhow:

Hampstead Theatre stubs don’t go back this far…yet…but Liverpool Everyman one’s do – so there – click here for cast and crew details.

We no doubt ate at Harry Morgan’s before seeing this production, which would at least have got our bellies into the right mode for the three hour “Chekhov meets Wesker Fest” that followed.

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?

Chains by Elizabeth Baker, Orange Tree Theatre, 24 November 2007

Truthfully, I recall very little about this one. No doubt Sam Walters was wandering around like an expectant father on the night we went; a production directed by his wife, Auriol Smith and starring their daughter, Octavia Walters. Although we were past the preview stage, so perhaps Sam wasn’t there that night.

Anyway, here’s the helpful Orange Tree stub about it.

Michael Billington in the Guardian, as usual with Orange Tree stuff, loved it, here.

Philip Fisher in British Theatre Guide is reasonably impressed but observes that there is a lot of dull chit chat, here.

The Standard suggests that it is interesting as social history but lumpen as drama, here.

I have a feeling that we found it a bit lumpen too. We tended to with Orange Tree pieces from that period, often observing that Sam’s reluctance to use an editing pencil on Edwardian revivals is a bit of a disadvantage. A shame really. Especially as so many of my great aunts and uncles made that trip to Australia 100 or so years ago, the subject really is of interest to me.

Still, we no doubt still enjoyed our evening and no doubt rounded it off with Spanish food at Don Fernando, as most often we do after the Orange Tree.

 

Free Outgoing by Anupama Chandrasekhar, Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 23 November 2007

We thought this might be a good one. That’s why we made the rare decision to book the Royal Court for a Friday evening.

We were not disappointed.

The story is simple enough; a young Indian girl in Mumbai has been videoed by her boyfriend having sex with him and the video inadvertently goes viral, ruining the youngsters lives; in particular hers and those of her family.

Lots of big modern issues in there. We found the play intriguing and disturbing. The production was very well done.

The Royal Court stub on this one is excellent, with several good reviews reproduced in full – here.

Charles Spencer’s in the Telegraph is not one of those reproduced, but is still a very good review, here.

Philip Fisher also gave it a rave review in the British Theatre Guide – here.

It is a fairly short piece but no harm in that. I seem to recall it got a gig downstairs a year or so later, deservedly so.