Very good…
…was my conclusion on this one.
Janie and I were partial to a bit of Richard Nelson at that time – the RSC put on several of his works in the late 1990s.
We saw this one as part of an extraordinary whistle-stop long weekend which took in three plays at Stratford (this the third of them), a motorised hike to the Welsh Borders for lunch at The Walnut Tree before going on to Hay-On-Wye for some overnight- second-hand-book-buying on my part before stopping off for a long lunch at Raymond Blanc’s place (Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons) in Oxfordshire and then home. Friday to Monday. The other bits have been written up separately from this piece – click here or below.
I think we stayed in the Shakespeare for this trip. Janie booked it but only wrote down “Twelfth Night Room £115 per night” which I suspect in those days was a suite or certainly a superior room. I did the rest of the trip, including The Old Black Lion in Hay.
I guess the RSC was on a nostalgia-trip for its older audience at that time, with Talk Of the City at The Swan about the cloud of Nazism and this one at The Other Place set just after the Second World War.
Excellent cast, as you’d expect from the RSC. Catheryn Bradshaw, Sara Markland, Robin Weaver and Simon Scadifield to name but a few. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry.
Charles Spencer didn’t like the play, but it did pick up an Olivier award so what does he know?
Spencer Telegraph Goodnight 11 Dec 1997, Thu The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Nicholas de Jongh absolutely hated the play. But it did pick up an Olivier Award so what does he know?
de Jongh Standard Goodnight 10 Dec 1997, Wed Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Richard Edmonds in The Birmingham Post loved it:
Birmingham Post Edmonds Goodnight 12 Dec 1997, Fri The Birmingham Post (Birmingham, West Midlands, England) Newspapers.com
