Roger Michell – Ian Louis Harris

Birthday by Joe Penhall, Royal Court Theatre, 14 July 2012

After all the excitement of the previous evening at the Orange Tree in Richmond:

Mottled Lines by Archie W Maddocks, Orange Tree Theatre, 13 July 2012

…this evening at the theatre seemed remarkably sedate and incident free.

We are fans of Joe Penhall’s writing – in particular we thought Blue/Orange was a cracking good play. This one, with a stellar cast at the Royal Court, sounded intriguing.

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

The conceit of the play is the idea that there is a new procedure that enables the man, rather than the woman, to carry a baby through pregnancy and birth.

Below you can see the trailer:

The idea does have lots of room for comedy, but in truth we found it rather obvious comedy and thought the piece was a little underwhelming.

It was well received by the audience our night, not least my friend John from the gym who was sitting near us.

It got reasonable/mixed reviews – click here for a link that finds them.

Rope by Patrick Hamilton, Almeida Theatre, 19 December 2009

We weren’t as keen on this one as we had hoped to be, given the synopsis and the fact that the Almeida was going through a purple patch at that time.

I’m not sure that Patrick Hamilton works for us on the stage – indeed we have recently at the time of writing (May 2017) passed up an opportunity to see one of his in the forthcoming Hampstead Theatre run.

We’re becoming an increasingly picky pair these days. We tend to avoid booking much in that pre-Christmas period also, now, given the nightmare journeys that often ensue at that time of year.

Anyway, here is the Almeida on-line resource about the play and production, which includes information, review links, photos and even a vid from the rehearsals.

It was of course an excellent production and very well acted. I think it was the play that didn’t quite do it for us. Janie and I like 1920’s and 1930’s styles generally, but strangely we don’t tend to like plays/the theatrical style of that era.

The reviews – mostly very good but not great – are mostly linked from the Almeida resource – here’s that link again.

For some reason British Theatre Guide doesn’t usually make it to those links – Philip Fisher makes good points in this review, not least that the play is quite long compared with the much vaunted Hitchcock film version.

Skimming the reviews reminds me how very well acted and produced the piece was, it just wasn’t really our type of piece.

Still, we’re both glad we caught this production; I have little doubt that this production is as good as it gets for Rope.

The Female Of The Species by Joanna Murray-Smith, Vaudeville Theatre, 12 July 2008

We don’t much go for West End productions, but this one does read like a Cottesloe, Royal Court or Hampstead type production, despite landing in the West End straight from its original Australian production.

The play is a comedy, loosely based on a real incident in which Germaine Greer was breifly kidnapped by a deranged “fan”.

Thank you, Official London Theatre, for all the details about the production – click here.

Janie and I saw this on the Saturday of the Lord’s test, with Lord’s tickets in our hand for the Sunday and with me having been at Lord’s on the Friday, enjoying a long weekend…

…Eileen Atkins, Anna Maxwell Martin, directed by Roger Michell…what could possibly go wrong?

Not a lot, really. It was funny, yet also quite forgettable. Only by skimming the above OLT synopsis and the reviews that follow does it start to come back to me. A bit like the test match really, seems like I was having that sort of weekend:

Michael Billington in the Guardian damns it with faint praise as only he can;
Rhoda Koenig similarly in the Independent, pointing out the Germaine Greer hates the piece (perhaps a plus?);
Ian Shuttleworth in the FT uses the phrases “Ben Elton with brains” and “a marvellous confection”;
Charles Spencer in the Telegraph absolutely loved it and imagined that couples seeing it together would be debating the feminist issues therein at length…wrong in our case.

Still, it was worth seeing and for sure a notch or three above the usual West End comedies.

The Homecoming by Harold Pinter, RNT Lyttelton Theatre, 5 April 1997

We celebrated our homecoming from the Middle East with a visit to the theatre to see this wonderful production of, coincidentally, Pinter’s The Homecoming.

What a cast. Lindsay Duncan, Michael Sheen, Eddie Marsan, Keith Allen & David Bradley. Roger Michell directed it.

Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry.

Janie and I were both really taken with the play and the production.

Paul Taylor in the Independent really didn’t like it: