Tag: Susan Brown

On The Beach by Steve Waters, Bush Theatre, 25 April 2009

This play was part of a double bill of plays about climate change known together as The Contingency Plan.

We only fancied the first part; On The Beach.

The Bush was still above the pub on Shepherd’s Bush Green in those days.

It was well acted and produced, but we both found the first play a bit long, ponderous and not entirely plausible. We didn’t seek to book nor did we regret not having booked the second part.

On the whole the double-bill was reviewed jointly, so our take is only partial:

Harper Regan by Simon Stephens, Cottesloe Theatre, 19 April 2008

So there’s more to Uxbridge than the cricket ground.

Seriously, Janie and I both really liked this play. Simon Stephens is one of our favourite playwrights these days and this one worked really well in the Cottesloe for us.

The eponymous lead is a big part; Lesley Sharp is a correspondingly big part actress who was able to deliver big time on this play/production.

Very shocking in parts and also very moving.

Dying For It by Moira Buffini, Almeida Theatre, 31 March 2007

This was a very entertaining evening in the theatre, Sounds odd, but it was a very amusing play about suicide.

Click here for a link to the Almeida’s resource on this play/production.

We rate Tom Brooke very highly and he was superb in this piece – a free adaptation, by Moira Buffini, of a subversive Soviet era Nikolai Erdman book.

It was well received by the critics on thew whole – click here for reviews and stuff.

Bad Weather by Robert Holman, The Other Place, 19 June 1998

Superb…

…was our verdict on this one.

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:

A Long Weekend In Stratford-Upon-Avon & Hay-On-Wye, Including Trips To The Walnut Tree & Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons, 19 to 22 June 1998

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.

Fabulous cast for Bad Weather – Emma Handy, Paul Popplewell, Ryan Pope, Susan Brown, Barry Stanton & Susan Engel, directed by Steven Pimlott. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for this one.

Nick Curtis in The Standard liked it:

Curtis Standard WeatherCurtis Standard Weather 11 May 1998, Mon Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Our friend, Michael Billington, liked the performances more than the play:

Billington Guardian WeatherBillington Guardian Weather 09 May 1998, Sat The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Whereas Richard Edmonds in The Birmingham Post loved the piece and the performances:

Edmonds Brum Post WeatherEdmonds Brum Post Weather 09 May 1998, Sat The Birmingham Post (Birmingham, West Midlands, England) Newspapers.com

Cardiff East by Peter Gill, Cottesloe Theatre, 22 February 1997

My log is quite clear about our opinion of this piece:

It was dreadful. We walked out at half time.

But wait – look at the stellar cast. Here’s the Theatricalia entry for it. Kenneth Cranham, Karl Johnson, Elizabeth Estensen, Windsor Davis…

…and Di Botcher. Di Botcher who directed Newsrevue in 1994 and seemed so keen on my stuff. Where’s the mutual support?

Well, in truth I do think that Di Botcher can act. Her role in this miserablist piece, as far as I could tell, was mostly to stand around looking miserable. Di stood around looking miserable with aplomb.

Here’s what our friend Michael Billington had to say…and you know for sure that when he uses the phrases “important” and “not an easy evening” that misery must be part of it:

Billington On Cardiff EastBillington On Cardiff East Thu, Feb 13, 1997 – 2 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

East of Cardiff…

Michael Coveney in the Observer speaks more highly of it…

Michael Coveney on Cardiff EastMichael Coveney on Cardiff East Sun, Feb 16, 1997 – 73 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

…perhaps we should have stuck it out to the second half after all. But we were about to fly off to Lebanon & Syria just over a week later, so time was at a premium…and they really know how to play for sympathy over there.

We didn’t learn our lesson about Peter Gill’s miserablist Welsh plays, because just over 10 years later we went to see a revival of Small Change at the Donmar and got precious little out of that one either:

Small Change by Peter Gill, Donmar Warehouse, 12 April 2008

Some folk never learn, mark you.

Easter by August Strindberg, The Pit, 25 February 1995

We went on a bit of a Strindberg fest that February – this the second of two Strinds in one month. The first was The Dance of Death at The Almeida:

The Dance Of Death by August Strindberg, Almeida Theatre, 11 February 1995

My log says that we thought Easter “excellent” wheras I rated The Dance Of Death “superb”. Not sure whether one of those big adjectives trumps the other. We clearly very much enjoyed both plays/productions.

Katie Mitchell directed Easter and the cast was excellent. A young Lucy Whybrow picked up an Ian Charleson Award for her role as Eleanora in this production. Adrian Rawlins played Elis, Susan Brown played the mother and Philip Locke played the sinister Lindkvist.

Here is the Theatricalia entry for this production.

A wonderful preview of this one and The Dance of Death by Paul Taylor survives in The Independent on-line – click here.

Taylor does mention this production in the review I posted for The Dance Of Death. Nothing else that I can find on-line from 1995.

It was excellent – take our words for it.

Or if you don’t like our word, try this Michael Billington clipping:

Billington On EasterBillington On Easter Sat, Jan 28, 1995 – 26 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Or try Kate Kellaway:

Kate Kellaway On EasterKate Kellaway On Easter Sun, Jan 29, 1995 – 75 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com