Theatre 2017: Review Thirty-two - Hedda Gabbler

Hedda Gabbler, Theatre Royal, Norwich. November 2017.

I'd missed this in London at the National Theatre and so was very happy to find out that the tour was coming to Norwich but even after all of this time I still went in 'blind' to the play as I didn't know the story at all.

I think that this was a great way to see the play as it kept me on the edge of my seat as I couldn't work out how the plot was going to play out at all.
I could sense that it wasn't going to be a happy play, and the focus of the guns at the start made me think of Chekhov's rule. This roughly states that if there is a gun shown in act one it has to be used by the end of the play...

While all of the cast were very good, none of their characters were and the slow growing air of menace and madness really drew me in and left me with shivers running up and down my spine. There were moments of levity (and sometimes I seemed to find things funny when others didn't - oops?) but this was an oppressively dark play, despite the light set!

This version was an adaptation by Patrick Marber and as I'm not familiar with the original I don't know how purists see it, I will be hunting down an earlier version to compare very soon. This is only the 2nd Ibsen play I've seen - the first Emperor and Galilean back in 2011 put me off a little but I think that I will be trying more in the future.

Theatre 2016: Review Thirty-Five

Breakfast at Tiffany's, Norwich Theatre Royal, Norwich. November 2016.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is one of my favourite films and when I found out that the play was coming to Norwich it has to be said I was happy.

Then the play opened in London to reviews that weren't great and I got a bit nervous - was this going to be one of those times where the film was better than anything else...

Sadly my fears were right, I don't quite see why the film has been turned into a play. It was very slow with lots of 'telling' not 'showing' and while I can't say I was actually bored during this play I certainly wasn't engaged with it for much of the time.

The cast were mostly likable and I am incredible impressed that they have managed to train a cat to act and I found the set to be very clever but the script was a little dull and all of it to be just "meh" which is very unusual for the things I've picked to see this year. I am pleased that I didn't go to London to see this - a half price ticket to a show I can get home from in 10 minutes made the evening seem a lot better!

The play was a hybrid of the film and Truman Capote's book and I liked some of the additions but overall I just think I'd rather watch the film - and I don't often say that!

Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-One

To Kill a Mockingbird, Theatre Royal, Norwich. September 2014.

I ran out of time to see this at the Open Air Theatre both last summer and this so I was very pleased to read it was coming to Norwich and that some colleagues were as keen as me to see it.

From the moment the actors appeared on the stage to the moment the curtain fell I was transfixed and I was living in 1930s America with the cast.

Rather than turning the book into a straight play and adding too much new dialogue to a classic story the cast read from the novel and various scenes are then acted out, I'm not familiar enough with the text to know if this was the original dialogue but for me it worked absolutely.

The big courtroom scene blew me away totally and even though I knew how it ended I was swept away totally and really couldn't believe that a anyone would have reached the verdict reached.  I loved the playing of the scene to the audience as well, making us the jury worked brilliantly.

The whole production was incredibly strong, with a very small part of me finding the young actor playing Jem to be a little weaker than the rest but apart from that the staging, the music and the who thing were just fantastic.

By the end I had a definite lump in my throat (as did my companions) and this play has jumped right up towards the tops of my favourite plays of the year.