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:
We saw this one as part of an extraordinary whistle-stop long weekend which took in three plays at Stratford (this the first 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 looked after most of the rest of the trip, including The Old Black Lion in Hay and Le Manoir.
Janie and I binged on The RSC/ The Barbican at the start of 1994 – this is the first of a hat trick of productions we saw there within the space of a few weeks.
We thought this one was very good. I tend to like Michael Hastings’s plays and what a line up for us to see. Emerging names such as Toby Stephens, Jasper Britton & Monica Dolan alongside established stars such as Gemma Jones, Philip Voss & John Carlisle, directed by Steven Pimlott.
The play is basically about Nazi sympathisers in the UK during the war. It was chilling although it did have its moments of humour, as is Michael hastings’s wont.
