Tag: Teresa McElroy

The Good Person of Sichuan by Bertolt Brecht, Orange Tree Theatre, 3 February 1996

Janie had never seen this play before and The Orange Tree was on a bit of a roll with us, so we decided to give this a go.

Given the scale of the piece, I thought we’d try sitting upstairs rather than downstairs for once. It was just for once, because we didn’t find upstairs very comfortable – less leg room and peering down didn’t please us.

I had seen a cracking good production of “Good Person” with Bobbie at the National a few years earlier:

The Good Person of Sichuan by Bertolt Brecht, Olivier Theatre, 3 March 1990

In truth. the Orange Tree was probably biting off a bit more than it could chew attempting such a large-scale piece in the round, but Sam Walters obcviously wanted to have a go.

We enjoyed the production. I think Janie got more out of it than I did because she hadn’t seen the play before and didn’t have a big production with which to compare it.

No newspaper reviews to be found but I did find this interview/preview by Carol Woddis on TES. That piece is scraped to here just in case that link disappears.

The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman, Lyttelton Theatre, 24 September 1994

Some rare long intervals between visits to theatre and concert hall that summer, all down to the dawning of my business Z/Yen, which took up ludicrous amounts of time including weekends.

So this was our first arty-evening since Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass at the same venue some six week’s before.

Broken Glass by Arthur Miller, Lyttelton Theatre, 13 August 1994

The Children’s Hour is a great play – Wikipedia describes it here.

The Lyttelton production we saw was very good. Super cast including Harriet Walter and Clare Higgins. Howard Davies directed it. Theatricalia sets out the cast and crew here.

No on-line reviews for the 1994 production that we saw…

…except I now have the odd clipping:

Billington On The Children's HourBillington On The Children’s Hour Sat, Sep 24, 1994 – 30 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

…and this one from Michael Coveney:

Coveney On The Children's HourCoveney On The Children’s Hour Sun, Sep 25, 1994 – 81 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

But anyway you can take our word for it that this was a very good production.

The Belle Of The Belfast City by Christina Reid, Orange Tree Room, 5 June 1993

Of the three plays Janie and I went to see at the Orange Tree Room together, before that “above the pub” bit of the Orange Tree empire closed down, this is the only one for which I still have the “programme” – i.e. sheet of paper:

Just as well I have the sheet, because, unlike Saigon Rose – click here or below…

Saigon Rose by David Edgar, Orange Tree Room, 20 March 1993

…I cannot find any reviews on-line.

Ian Angus Wilkie of NewsRevue fame once again found his way into the cast; he must have found favour with the Orange Tree folk back then and for good reason.

I was gutted that Ian Angus Wilkie didn’t list NewsRevue in his recent relevant experience – it had only been about a year before – perhaps less ( I have a feeling he did Edinburgh or Christmas that 1992 year). How could he hold back on reporting that career highlight?

All I wrote in my log for this one was that I thought it was a very good play/production – which was the way I felt about all the things we saw in that Orange Tree Room…but in truth this was the least memorable of the three, for me.