RNT – Page 4 – Ian Louis Harris

Baby Girl by Roy Williams, DNA by Dennis Kelly and The Miracle by Lin Coghlan, Cottesloe Theatre, 23 February 2008

A mixed bag evening, mostly good stuff in the mix, with three short plays all with a “yoof” theme, at the Cottesloe.

We weren’t going to miss this one. Roy Williams we liked a lot when we first came across him at the Royal Court a few years before. Ditto Dennis Kelly, whose work we’d very much enjoyed at the Hampstead. Lin Coghlan was new to us.

We weren’t overly familiar with Paul Miller’s name as director then, although we had seen his work before and now (writing in 2016) know his work well at the Orange Tree.

Apparently this production emerged from the National Theatre’s Connections programme, getting young people involved in performing, although this production was picked up by and delivered by professionals, albeit some of them very young professionals.

There is an excellent, free RNT education workpack for these plays, which includes synopses and other educational materials to accompany the pieces – click here to download.

LondonTheatre.co.uk provides a useful cast & crew list and a short synopsis of each play.

Interesting reviews:

I think we liked the first two plays a fair bit more than the last, but two out of three really ain’t bad for this sort of evening, so we were thoroughly satisfied.

Happy Now? by Lucinda Coxon, Cottesloe Theatre, 9 February 2008

Unusually, we took Phillie to the theatre with us on this occasion. It must have been a long prearranged thing; I think Tony was doing one of his long business trips in the far east, so we had Phillie to stay for the weekend and it was planned far enough in advance for us to book a good Cottesloe production for us all to see.

This was a very good play/production. Funny, thought-provoking and very well acted. Great cast; not least Stanley Townsend, Olivia Williams and Dominic Rowan. Thea Sharrock, who had impressed us so much directing at the Gate, was starting to get higher profile gigs; this being an early example of one of those.

This award-winning play and production has a comprehensive Wikipedia entry – click here, which includes links to some of the better reviews.

Phillie, bless her, unaccustomed as she was to the theatre, was a bit “west-end theatre-ish” at first, talking as if she was in her living room watching TV, until Janie gave her “the look” a couple of times. I think Phillie enjoyed that theatre trip very much.

I’m pretty sure this was the occasion that, afterwards, we went on to Zinc Bar and Grill in Heddon Street. Now gone, I believe, a couple of reviews of that Conran place survive:

Anyway, Phillie really enjoyed herself that evening – she got quite tipsy at Zinc, as was her wont by then, but the important thing was that she had a good time.

The Hothouse by Harold Pinter, Lyttelton Theatre, 28 July 2007

We really enjoyed this play and production. It is a rare example of a Pinter comedy, which he wrote during his heyday in the mid 1950s but I don’t think it got produced until a fair bit later.

Being Pinter, the line between comedy and tense psychodrama is a thin one. Indeed, plays like The Caretaker, The Birthday Party and The Dumb Waiter are sinister yet have plenty of humour in them. The Hothouse has plenty of humour yet is sinister; it is set in an anonymous government run mental institution. Say no more.

This was a superb cast and production. Stephen Moore, Finbar Lynch, Leo Bill and Lia Williams the standouts. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry. For once, the awkward depth/shape of the Lyttelton stage could be used to good effect for an institutional look.

It was pretty well received by the critics on the whole:

The Man Of Mode by George Etherege, Olivier Theatre, 19 April 2007

A rare visit to the theatre on a Thursday on my own. Janie hates Restoration comedy but I had (and at the time of writing, more than 10 years later, still have) an idea for a very thorough updating of one of those Restoration plays, so I very much wanted to see this modern production of a Restoration classic.

I thought it was very well done. Rory Kinnear was exceptional, as was most of the cast, including Alleyn’s alumna Nancy Carroll.

This was before Nick Hytner found his way off my Christmas card list by forgetting where his loyal audience comes from and becoming far too much of a jobsworth cum corporate lick-spittle when running the National. So hats off to him in this regard – Hytner can direct.

I rated this production very good indeed at the time, but it was not the sort of modernisation of a Restoration play which I have in mind…

…which is a good thing…

…if I ever get around to implementing my own cunning plan. But I digress.

Click here for a link to a search term that finds the reviews, which were mostly good but not great.

Below is the trailer, which is really quite snazzy without giving away much about the show. It has a fair smattering of Nancy Carroll, which might please my fellow Alleyn’s alums…or indeed anyone who watches the vid:

The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams, Olivier Theatre, 9 April 2007

A rare visit to the theatre on a Monday – this was Easter Monday.

Janie and I both love a bit of Tennessee Williams and we had only seen an amateur production of the Rose Tattoo before – at the Questors some 10 years earlier.

This was a top notch production at the National – no holds barred.

Zoe Wannamaker was exceptional.

Critics seemed to think the production and performances masked a less than brilliant play – I think I probably agree with that analysis – click here for a link to reviews.

Below is the trailer from the 1955 movie – very different style:

Sizwe Banzi Is Dead by Athol Fugard, John Kani, Winston Ntshona, Lyttelton Theatre, 24 March 2007

Two weeks in a row to the National Theatre (RNT) and two theatre visits out of three to see John Kani perform in one of his own plays.

This one, a revival of one of the most famous works to come out of the defiant anti-apartheid theatre in South Africa in the 1970s, in some ways pleased us less than Nothing But The Truth at the Hampstead a few weeks earlier.

Nothing But The Truth by John Kani, Hampstead Theatre, 9 February 2007

Again, we really wanted to like it. We had loved The Island when we saw the revival of that one. But Sizwe Banzi seemed an altogether lighter and more dated work. The play has some great lines and some excellent points to make, but didn’t move us as we felt it should.

Yes, we were glad to have seen it, but it was a bit like seeing a band of ageing rockers whom you wished you had seen “back in the day”. The point was back in the day.

It got pretty good reviews – click here to find them.

Below is a short excerpt of John Kani and Winston Ntshona performing the play back in the day – early 1980s I think.

The Reporter by Nicholas Wright, Cottesloe Theatre, 17 March 2007

I remember us both finding this piece about low-level BBC shenanigans interesting and enjoyable – despite a suicide forming the denouement (that is not a spoiler). I suspect, given subsequent events at the BBC, it would seem tame and much beside the point today.

I think I picked up the terms “cruel spectacles” and “waning powers”, both of which I use a fair bit, from this particular show.

Great cast, with Ben Chaplin, Paul Ritter, Bruce Alexander, Angela Thorne and Leo Bill really standing out.

Well directed by Richard Eyre and produced of course to RNT standards.

Reasonably well received by the critics – click here for a search term to find reviews.

It was worth seeing at the time for sure.

Luther by John Osborne, Olivier Theatre, 19 October 2001

We pushed the boat out to see this one. Friday night at the National Theatre – we both had busy Friday schedules well into the afternoon.

Was it worth it, I hear you cry.

So dull, we walked at half time

Seemingly not.

I have a feeling this was the occasion when we bumped into my friends from Lambton Place, Bryan Rostron & Sunny, with their pal Paul Foot. You don’t mess with investigative journalists like Bryan and Paul – we confessed to the fact that we were going to sneak away after the drinks interval.

We wanted to like this play/production. We are partial to John Osborne, although well aware of the fact that his good is very very good, but not all of his drama is of the highest quality. This one felt like a history lesson in a rather dull (to us) aspect of history.

I also felt badly about walking out on Timothy West. He had, after all, sat through hours of dull stuff with me in it on more than one occasion without walking out at half time:

Andorra, 23, 24 & 25 February 1978

Twelfth Night, Alleyn’s School, 12, 14, 15 & 16 December 1978

Returning to Luther, it was, of course, a fine cast and a fine production. Rufus Sewell in the title role. Richard Griffiths, Timothy West, and Maxine Peake in supporting roles, Peter Gill directing with a young Josie Rourke assisting.

Here’s a link to the Theatricalia entry for this one.

But oh boy did we find this dull. What did the critics – possibly better equipped for dull than me and Janie, have to say?

Nicholas de Jongh heaped praise on the production while stating that Luther was “quite the wrong choice of Osborne”:

Luther de Jongh Standard 8 Oct 2001 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Michael Billington disagreed – loving it especially for its reclamation of potentially lost Osborne:

Luther Billington Guardian 8 Oct 2001 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Charles Spencer, on the other hand, described it as a long hard slog:

Luther Spencer Telegraph 8 Oct 2001 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

A rare example of a split jury in which we sided with Spencer rather than Billington. “Long hard slog” sums it up rather well from my recollection.

Gagarin Way by Gregory Burke, Cottesloe Theatre, 28 September 2001

Janie and I must have been very keen to see this one – a rare sojourn to the South Bank on a Friday evening for us. In those days we still found it hard to finish our work on a Friday and get to a place like the National Theatre in good time. We had both strategically kept the afternoon light, appointment-wise, I can see.

I believe we saw a preview at the Cottesloe, but the production had already stormed-it at Edinburgh a few week’s earlier.

I liked it, Janie hated it.

Split jury. That said, I recall that we were both a little disappointed by this play/production. Not that I thought it was poor – I liked it – but I recall us both thinking that it didn’t quite live up to the hype.

Fine cast, direction and production, as you might expect. Billy McElhaney, Michael Moreland, Michael Nardone, and Maurice Roëves starred, John Tiffany directed. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry.

Charles Spencer gave the Edinburgh run a glowing review in the Telegraph…

Gagarin, Spencer Telegraph 10 Aug 2001 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

…as did Susannah Clapp in The Observer:

Gagarin Clapp Observer 12 Aug 2001 The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Roll the clock forward a few weeks and a few hundred miles south. Michael Billington somewhat summed up why he felt that Gagarin Way didn’t work so well just a few weeks later at The National.