Tag: Ruth Sutcliffe

The Invisible by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Bush Theatre, 4 July 2015

This was an interesting play about a legal aid lawyer and her cases. It raised a great many issues about that corner of our society.

Click here for the Bush Theatre stub, which explains the play/production well.

I have a playtext for this one; which is a good read.

It worked better as agitprop than as drama, in truth, although there were also some good dramatic moments.

Well written, well acted, well produced.

It got me and Janie talking about the issues anyway. Well worthwhile evening.

 

Tiger Country by Nina Raine, Hampstead Theatre, 12 December 2014

Talk about bad timing.

Less than a week earlier we’d seen a play about dementia (albeit a truly excellent one), while mum’s dementia was fast deteriorating:

Visitors by Barney Norris, Bush Theatre, 6 December 2014

…little did we know that we were seeing this play about NHS hospital chaos less than a fortnight before mum was to make her final, one-way trip to such a place.

In truth, although we quite enjoyed this play/production, we found it a bit fast and furious without really saying all that much. We’d felt similarly about the police one, Wildefire, at the same venue a few weeks before:

Wildefire by Roy Williams, Hampstead Theatre, 7 November 2014

As with Wildefire, there was some great acting, some wonderful lines and some super vignettes in there. Indira Varma was excellent, as usual; in fact the whole cast was good.

Perhaps it was just a bit too near the bone for me – not just in the mum aspect but also because I was doing so much work with NHS Foundation Trusts at that time. Definitely worth seeing, but no wow factor for either of us.

Below is a “behind the scenes” video:

Below is the actual trailer for the production:

Here is a link to the reviews – the critics pretty-much universally loved the piece.