Travel, Theatre, Music, Cricket, Tennis, Writing, Life
This was our first theatre visit after returning from Vietnam in February.
A really good one too.
Here is a link to the Royal Court stub for this piece.
We rate David Eldridge highly as a playwright. Here was a superb cast and Dominic Cooke himself directing.
We really enjoyed this play and production.
The critics on the whole loved this piece – click here for a search term that finds the reviews.
Below is a link to the trailer:
I don’t think we’d been to the theatre on Boxing Day before…nor have we (to date) since.
But the timing worked for us and we thought, “why not?” We are very keen on Mike Leigh’s work generally. Also we wanted to make amends for the involuntary hoo-ha, in front of Mike Leigh’s very eyes, last time we attended one of his plays – a few months ago – especially as he had been so nice about it:
But unfortunately, we didn’t think all that much of Grief.
It had a fine cast including several of Mike Leigh’s regular stars, headed up by Lesley Manville.
The play had been developed in ensemble – the Mike Leigh method if you will. But, to us, it seemed rather dated and lacked sparkle this time.
It got somewhat mixed reviews – click here for a search term that finds them.
Below is a sort of review vid about the play/production:
I noted that this was a very good production and I’m sure that was true. Richard Eyre in charge of an infeasibly good cast in that intimate little Cottesloe Theatre.
Here is the Theatricalia entry for the production with so many top notch theatrical names on the list…
…David Burke, Michael Bryant, Jeremy Northam, Graham Crowden, Sarah Winman, Stella Gonet, Selina Cadell, Suzanne Burden, Wendy Nottingham… it was difficult to work out which names from the cast list to leave out from this highlights version of the list.
In truth I don’t think Granville-Barker is really for me. I find his plays stylised and very Edwardian – which is, after all, what they are.
This one is at least replete with interesting moral dilemmas but in truth it’s not Ibsen.
But I do recall really enjoying this particular evening in the theatre and I suspect that this is the best Granville-Barker experience I have ever had and ever will.
Below is Michael Billington’s Guardian review:
Billington on Voysey Thu, Jun 29, 1989 – 24 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
Below is Kate Kellaway’s Observer review:
Kellaway on Voysey Sun, Jul 2, 1989 – 41 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
I don’t recall exactly what Bobbie thought of it but I think she, like me, was much taken with the production. I also don’t recall what we did (i.e. where we ate) afterwards. Bobbie might just remember.
