Theatre 2017: Review Twenty-Five: Don't Call Me Shirley

Don't Call Me Shirley, The Blakeney Players, Blakeney Village Hall, Norfolk. July 2017

It was a  lovely sunny evening as we left the city for the drive to the coast for this summer treat, but the unpredictable weather did thwart our plans for a walk on the marsh before hand!

However by the time the rain started we were in the village hall waiting for the curtains to part and as ever from the very start we were giggling (by the end we were practically rolling in the aisles).

As ever you had to be there to understand why this was so funny but making the inability to remember lines a plot point was inspired and a Monty Python style hand of God delivering the lines to the cast utter genius.

The scenes with Sherlock Holmes making fun of Benedict Cumberbatch's name were very funny as was his dream of being knighted by Queen Victoria - who was channelling  Miranda Richardson's Queenie from Blackadder and using a whoopee cushion!

As I said you really had to be there.

The plot wasn't the point but the cast having fun and infecting the audience with the same happiness was as ever a joy. I'm not wishing the year away but I'm hoping that the dates for the Christmas show are announced soon!

Theatre 2017: Review Nineteen - Spamalot

Monty Python's Spamalot, Norwich Playhouse, Norwich. May 2017.

Although slightly too young to remember Monty Python from the original broadcasts I have been a fan for many years now and most Easter weekends I like to watch Life of Brian in a double bill with Jesus Christ Superstar. I do also like The Holy Grail as a film but it has to be said I think that Spamalot is better.

I was lucky enough to see Spamalot in London soon after it opened and then again on tour in Norwich a few years later but when a friend and I saw it was on in Norwich again I was certainly keen to see it once more.

This production was put on by the Threshold Theatre Company, part of the Norfolk and Norwich Operatic Society. They have a great idea behind them:

The Threshold Theatre Company was set up by NNOS to provide a training ground for less experienced actors and singers, preparing them for stepping up into the main company when they felt confident enough to do so. One of Threshold’s objectives is “to train young or inexperienced people to gain a good knowledge of all aspects of operatic and dramatic arts“.

With this in mind I wasn't sure what to expect on the night - would it be a low budget am dram show? The answer was an emphatic no - this was as professional and as polished as any touring London show and being in a small theatre was wonderfully intimate as you got to see every eyebrow quirk and facial twitch!

The singing, dancing and acting were all superb with a relatively small cast doubling and tripling to great effect, I had a grin on my face before the end of the first line and by the end a huge stitch from laughing so much.

The Threshold Co. are now high on my watch list and I can't wait to see more of what they put on. Norwich is so lucky to have great local talent as well as a theatre which books great London theatre tours - I'm now off to look at the schedules for the Playhouse and Maddermarket...

Theatre 2017: Review Fifteen - Love in Idleness

Love in Idleness, Menier Chocolate Theatre, London. April 2017.

Due to a variety of events I am later reviewing this than normal and it has been nearly two weeks since I saw this, but it doesn't seem to matter too much for as soon as I think of this I smile.

Rattigan's plays have that effect on me it would seem. At first thought they seem light and fluffy but then the depth and emotion grows on you and this play was no exception and I was so involved with this one that I went from crying with laughter to crying with sadness in one breath.

The play itself is a hybrid - Rattigan wrote the serious  Less than Kind  first but this was not produced and with input/help from the original lead actors is became the comedy Love in Idleness. For this production elements from both plays have been taken so that the comedy has more bite, emotion and politics but is also still incredibly funny. It remains very much a play of its original time however.

I do think that it is the cast that really makes this sing - the timing is impeccable and I utterly believed in the main trio's relationship. They felt like a dysfunctional family unit and the wonderful ending came together brilliantly from this build up.

I've now read both versions of the play and I feel that the hybrid that has been created does appeal to me more than either of the originals - this was feel good theatre and I loved every moment of it, so much so that I am tempted to try and see it again when it transfers to the West End.

Theatre 2017: Review Twelve - Travesties

Travesties, Apollo Theatre, London. March 2017.

After the wonderful performance of Hamlet in the afternoon there was always a danger that the second play of the day will be a let down and as Stoppard has a reputation for being 'hard'.

It started ominously when Tom Hollander shuffled into the theatre acting as an old man wearing slippers and a dressing gown. We then met all the protagonists of the drama in a crazy, frenetic scene and I was left feeling bewildered and totally at sea.

It calmed down in some ways as it became clear that the old man was the 'now' and the other scenes were his memories.  It got a bit confusing again when scenes started playing and then replaying themselves all slightly differently.

The plot of the play was full of information as the basic plot is that the old man, Henry Carr, is the British consul in Zurich in 1917 at the same time that James Joyce, Lenin and Tristan Tzara (one of the founders of Dadaism) were living there and that all of them crossed paths in the library.

In this play they all get to explain their ideas and ideologies and so much information is thrown at the audience that by the interval my head was reeling. Oh and thanks to the stage props I was also craving cucumber sandwiches!

After the interval the play continues in much the same vein, scenes played and replayed interspersed with appearances from the elderly Carr. However as the play comes to an end you realise that the replaying of scenes isn't indicating the passing of time (as I'd thought) but the unreliable memories of a man trying to write his memoirs.  So much of what he remembers is incorrect that I came out wondering if any of the facts/ideologies presented by Joyce et. al. were true and this took away some of the shine of the play - I guess that I have a lot of reading around the topic to undertake!

Mixed in with all of this confusion are jokes, songs, dances and a wonderful sub plot comprising of a farce plus a play within a play and while I came out confused and questioning I also came out smiling after having had a lot of fun at the theatre - just unsure if I can trust anything I learned during the 2 1/2 hours.

Interestingly the one bit of the play I  know to be true involved Lenin, the Russian Revolution and his return to Russia in 1917. These historical events happened exactly 100 years ago on the day we saw the play which did add some poignancy to the play, and accuracy here makes me hope that the explanations of communism etc were also correct.

The programme summed the play up as Oscar Wilde meets Monty Python and I can see this - but I'd add in a dash of Open University to account for the vast amounts of information included.

Theatre 2016: Review Thirty-Four

The Wipers Times, New Wolsley Theatre, Ipswich. November 2016

Getting to and from Ipswich proved nearly as time consuming and awkward as getting to London but the journey was totally worth it.

This new World War One play from satirists Hislop and Newman could so easily have been over played and the jokes too contemporary, or overly sentimental but the duo managed to pull off the near impossible - a comedy about World War One that was balanced.

The original Wipers Times was a newspaper written and published by soldiers serving in the Trenches and was devised as an antidote to the inaccuracies and propaganda stories published in the mainstream media - and it is this where it would have been so easy to pepper the play with modern references.

The play tells the story of the men behind the paper as well as bringing to life some of the sketches from the paper in a clever way using Vaudeville, projections and a lot of very quick costume changes. Some of the jokes were terrible but on looking at my facsimile copy of the Wipers Times I see that they were all lifted from the original. The few comments about media inaccuracies also came straight from the original!

I enjoyed this greatly but my one criticism was that I found the set / scenery to be too fussy. The scene changes were well done and incorporated more original material from the newspapers but there were just too many of them and too much furniture moved each time for my taste.

What struck me the most was how much Oh! What a Lovely War and Blackadder Goes Forth owed to the papers - the humour in both of these, seen as edgy and challenging, came straight from the Wipers Times. There were moment of poignancy and sadness, and the gas attack was breath taking (pun intended) and I found this a balanced and enjoyable play. It isn't in the same league as Journey's End but I do hope that this gets a transfer or longer run somewhere as I think that the play is much better than the previous television documentary.

Theatre 2016: Review Thirty-One

The Boys in the Band, Park Theatre, Finsbury, London. October 2016.

Perhaps not enjoying the comedy Greek play had me offending the travel gods as neither of the lines to London were running this weekend and the dreaded rail replacement bus had to be braved.

Happily the play was absolutely worth it, act one was incredibly funny, pushing on farce and then act two sees a party descend into vitriol, anger and sadness.

This isn't a happy play, and none of the characters are particularly nice but as an ensemble piece it is terrific - not a weak link in the cast and so much to love whether in the lines or the acting.

It is a period piece, and some of the lines are eye-wateringly off colour but I feel that some of the nastiest 'jokes' were unacceptable even when the play was new - this is the way that self loathing is deflected out onto other people. Some of the lines are terrible, some of the actions of the characters are terrible but there are also some stonkingly funny lines and scenes as well as some truly tender moments. A great balance.

We also came out wanting to know more about the characters, the story was complete but I wanted to spend a little more time with the characters, to reassure them that things will get better and to know more about their histories. I don't think I'd accept a party invitation from any of them however!

Theatre 2016: Review Thirty

Cambridge Greek Plays 2016, Cambridge Arts Theatre, Cambridge. October 2016.

I can't believe that three years have already gone past since the we had a really mixed experience at the 2013 Greek Play - this time without Rebecca who decided that once was enough!

This time the serious drama was Antigone and not at all a chore to watch.  The cast were uniformly superb as they performed Sophocles's play. This is the third in a trilogy but the story telling was so clear that from the start you knew exactly what was going on, and I found it an emotional watch. Even though this play is nearly 2500 years old the point couldn't be clearer and in today's political uncertain times a play reminding us that dictators who don't listen are dangerous. Is upsetting the accepted status quo the same thing as upsetting the Gods? The setting was also very clever (although one of my companions wasn't so sure), it reminded me of the wonderful Othello at the National Theatre - again something that predisposed me to like this play perhaps.

After the interval we came back in for Aristophanes's Lysistrata - the comedy.  From the outset the audience is under no misapprehension that this is being played for laughs - the surtitles even tell you so! In this play the women of Greece are fed up of the war and so go on a sex strike until peace is declared. Plenty of scope for humour, and this was really piled up during the performance and for me it just went that little bit too far. I had to spend so much time reading the surtitles that I lost a lot of the action on the stage and it was also so contemporary and politically up-to-date that I also lost the original play.  It was great fun, I laughed lots and it was wonderfully risque at times but I have no clear idea of how the original play panned out.

I'm really glad I went, and it was good to see a packed out house for such a niche production but again for me it was a game of two halves, and this time it was the serious play that was the hit.

Theatre 2016: Review Eleven

The Winter's Tale, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakesepeare's Globe, London. March 2016.

After last autumn's less than brilliant trip to see the Brannagh version of this play I approached this trip with trepidation.  Brannagh and Dench are such respected actors and they were performing Shakespeare - perhaps I didn't like the play rather than the production, perhaps it wasn't as bad a we recalled it being...

Nope - The Winter's Take is a fascinating play and I am glad that I gave it another chance.

I know that having seats this time that allowed me to see nearly everything (no seat at the Globe has 100% visibility due to the architecture) was always going to improve the experience but this production was cohesive from start to finish, the actions of all the characters hung together properly. It is still a preposterous, confused plot but acted and directed well you can at least follow the story and see how daft it is.

The house style at the Globe made the jump from court to pastoral more natural and the costumes and setting were consistent, what was tedious at the Garrick became interactive here and also elements from this start to the second half continued all the way through to the denouement making for a much more balanced and consistent production. As ever at the Globe the comedy was played up but this helped The Winter's Tale and added to production far more than playing it straight had done (well for  me anyhow).

The use of the candle light was clever here too, and it made the infamous "exit pursued by a bear" part truly creepy, the Playhouse is very dark when all of the candles are extinguished.

The play wasn't without flaws, the first half was at times a little 'shouty' and on more than one  occasion actors fell over their lines audibly but on the whole this was a great afternoon at the theatre and proved to Rebecca and I that currently no one does Shakespeare better than the Globe.  I'm glad that I have two more productions still to see from this Winter Season.

Theatre 2016: Review One

I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue: The Live Tour, Norwich Theatre Royal, January 2016.

Hurrah! 2016 is going to be as theatre-filled as the last couple of years and what a way to start.

A couple of years ago, thanks to the kindness of a friend, Mr Norfolkbookworm and I got to go to a live recording of the Radio 4 'antidote to panel games' and came away thinking that we'd never laugh as much again.  On discovering that the team were coming back and that this time it wasn't going to taped for broadcast we queued early for tickets.

On arrival we discovered that Graeme Garden was unwell and that he would be replaced by Miles Jupp - not something that upset any of us as he is very, very funny in his own right.

The evening progressed much like a radio show, it was possibly a little ruder and a little more on the edge politically than usual but by the interval our sides really hurt.  After the break it got better with audience kazoo participation and possibly one of the best "You'll have had your tea" sketches I've ever heard.  Mornington Crescent with addition of the SatNav had me nearly falling off my seat.

This was just the ticket to start the New Year, and a real antidote to any incipient January blues.  I will confess that some of us are still trading jokes from the show each time we meet.

If you don't know the joy of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue I suggest looking through the Radio 4 and 4extra schedules to look for past episodes, or visit your library and borrow the best of compilations that they are sure to have...just be sure to do it in your pants..!

Theatre 2015: Review Thirty-One

The Beaux' Strategem, Oliver Theatre, National Theatre, London. September 2015.

After the sadness of War Horse a restoration romp seemed just the thing to see next and I'm pleased to report that Rebecca and I had a great time at the final performance of this comedy.

I think it took me slightly longer to warm to the play than Rebecca in the first instance but very quickly I was swept away in the complicated, multi-stranded plot.

Aimwell and Archer have wasted all of their money in London and are thus taking to the provinces in an attempt to find rich wives who's money will support their chosen lifestyle.  Aimwell is impersonating his older, titled, brother and Archer is acting as a high class personal gentleman as they put into play their strategy - hence the play's title.

In addition to this we have a corrupt landlord involved in all sorts of crimes, imprisoned French officers and their priest and the ladies of the grand house who Archer and Aimwell have in their sights.  There is also an unhappy marriage, brought about by the need for money...

It sounds complicated and until you have grasped who is who, fortunately there is very little role doubling, it seems a little bit of a mess but quickly it is clear what a clever piece of writing this actually is.

In many ways this felt a very Shakespearean play, far more so than the other Farquhar play (The Recruiting Officer) that I have seen.  There was a lot of song, very bawdy humour, a dead pan servant, a jig at the end and a very neat (improbable) tying up of the loose ends to make the finale.  This isn't a criticism, just something I wasn't expecting from a Restoration Comedy.

The set and costumes were sumptuous in this production and the cast were very obviously having a good time - I do wonder if this was heightened as it was a last performance as there was some, hastily recovered, corpsing on occasion.
All in all this was a real mood boost play, with a few things to think about afterwards thrown in for good measure.  It has also left me with a craving for trifle.

Theatre 2015: Review Eighteen

As You Like It, Shakespeare's Globe, London. July 2015.

Unusually for Mr Norfolkbookworm and I we were at an evening performance for this and the first thing we noticed was the huge queue of people waiting for returns.  We're used to seeing long lines for those wanting to be a Groundling but never for seats.  I wonder if this production is more popular than others we've seen or if this is normal for evening performances.

For a play that has no real plot, that is just a sequence of events loosely tied together, I enjoyed this a lot.  The characters that were written humorously in the original (Touchstone, Audrey and Jaques) were not overblown and the Rosalind/Ganymede and Celia/Aliena beefed up their roles to match the humour which I found balanced the play very well. The male love interests in contrast did seem a little insipid and interchangeable - this was certainly an adaptation played to a comic and feminist slant.
I wonder if the director of the play also realised just how slight it is plot wise as the deus ex machina towards the end was certainly played up to be utterly ridiculous, which worked with the other staging decisions of the play.

The more Shakespeare plays I see the more I realise that the 'comedies' are not my favourite. There was nothing wrong with this one in terms of acting etc. but the slight plot made me long for some intrigue and seriousness.

After studying Shakespeare in depth I was also more bothered by the staging and extensive use of the Groundling area.  This would just not have happened at the time of the original Globe - the costumes were just too expensive to risk off of the stage, and although giving great opportunities for entrances and exits too much of the action is invisible from the Upper Gallery. A minor criticism as all of the actors projected well and I didn't miss a line of dialogue. I remain unsure about the bicycle and  the shopping trolley however.

A big shout out has to go to the Steward who was working the Upper Gallery, Mr Norfolkbookworm asked him an idle question about an instrument being played on the stage in the interval and although he didn't know the answer the steward (no name badge so I can't be more specific) went and found out for us and slipped the name to us during the second act.

Theatre 2015: Review Eleven

Shakespeare in Love, Noel Coward Theatre, London. April 2015.

Apologies for the radio silence - April has been an important study month with two essays to research and write.  I've broken the back of them now and so time to catch up on other areas!

Way back at the start of the month a friend and I went to London on a whim to see Shakespeare in Love. For me it was a recommended play/film for my Shakespeare's Legacy course and my friend is also studying Shakespeare currently.

This was a delightful way to spend the afternoon, the play followed the film throughout and now that I have spent a few years studying the Bard I found it a lot funnier than I recall. In fact at a couple of points my friend and I found ourselves laughing at lines that others in the audience didn't...

The set for this play was magnificent and very clever as it moved back and forth to show the different locations in which the action takes place.  Some of my favourite parts were very simple, for instance when Shakespeare is in the row boat cast members dip hands in and out of buckets of water to create the sound effects.  The use of the actors to move the scenery was very well done, and I liked the way that most of them appeared on stage throughout. It did remind me in someways of Elizabethan/Jacobean theatre as staged in the two theatres at the Globe but was still modern. It mixed the styles very well.

Sadly this play closed in the middle of April but I hear rumours that it will be going on tour and if it does then I do recommend trying to see it.  It is a fun romp that leaves you with a smile and sometimes that is just what you want from a play. This is the first film-to-play show that I've seen and I think that it worked very well, I do wonder if a lot of this is due to the fact that Tom Stoppard (renowned playwright) wrote the script to the film.

There is also an adorable dog in the play who steals the show entirely in the couple of scenes he appears in - although I'm not sure he deserved the biggest cheer at the end!

Theatre 2014 - Review Thirty

The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare's Globe, London. September 2014.

After seeing this earlier in the year and being less than impressed I was nervous about seeing this play even at my favourite venue - was it going to be another Julius Caesar and play I just don't like?

It started very well with a silent mime in the style of the old Chaplin-esque slapstick comedy of a man trying to get some washing off a line.  It really was something you had to see to understand just how funny it was, made all the better by a mobile phone ringing in the audience and the actor encompassing this into his routine.

The play itself is daft, mistaken identity taken well beyond the bounds of any plausibility but as the cast seemed to be having so much fun you could over look the daft plot and just go with it.  I think that some of my dislike of the earlier production is to do with the source material but this version was so much more fun - it didn't need added smut or nuns dressed as tarts to work.

This was a short, high energy play that made a great end to the Shakespeare season this year at the Globe.  I do have two more plays to see at the venue before the action moves inside to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse but on the whole the season has been brilliant - I enjoyed a play that I never thought I'd manage to sit through (Titus) and fell in love totally with another play (Antony and Cleopatra).

Theatre 2014: Review Twenty-Eight (cinema)

Skylight (National Theatre Live, Wyndham's Theatre, London. September 2014.

Thanks to the NT Live programme Mr Norfolkbookworm and I got the chance to see a play that were both interested in but just couldn't fit into our diaries this summer.  Instead on a Sunday when the weather was a bit 'British' we went to our local Odeon cinema and spent almost three happy hours watching a great piece of theatre.

All I really knew about this production was that Carey Mulligan made a spaghetti bolognese on stage during the course of the drama and I do find that it is a real test of if a play works or not as to whether this approach works.

In this case I found that it did, the characters and their motives were written well enough that without too much extraneous explanation you knew who they were, how they related to each other and what drove them.  There was an awful lot of humour in the roles and I found myself laughing with and at the three characters throughout the play. (The plot is well explained on Wikipedia if you are interested, but I'd try and see an Encore if you can.)

A mark of the writing is that my opinions of the characters changed repeatedly throughout the action and although I would put myself on the liberal end of the political and social spectrum I found myself swayed by both Tom and Kyra's speeches and on balance think I had a little more sympathy with the more traditional, conservative part by the end which really surprised me! The 'star' casting was spot on and made use of actors' idiosyncrasies without making about them not the role.

Some reviewers have criticised the role, or the actor, playing Tom's son Edward.  I found him totally believable as a teenager taking a gap year.  He was the right mix of gauche, cocky, over confident and underneath it all bewildered and insecure.  His actions in the last scene are also some of the sweetest I've seen (or read in a novel) for a long time.

As is so often the case I do wish that I had seen this on stage. As I didn't manage that then I wish I'd seen it at my usual NT Live venue - Cinema City - as the screening we were in had very few people in it and really did lose more of the atmosphere than I've ever found at an NT Live screening.  I'm really pleased that another venue was showing Encores as otherwise I'd have missed this one totally but the cavernous, 3/4 empty screen did change the experience.

I've found myself thinking about the play an awful lot, it was first written and staged in 1996 but society has changed so little in that time (or we've come full circle) that it doesn't seem dated. Only the set dressing and props plus the reference to Yellow Pages give it away that this revival wasn't set in 2014. I also want to commend the set, all too often if all reviewer/bloggers can write about is the stage then there were issues with the play but in this case the backdrop was magnificent and really did make me think we were in a rundown, inner city estate.

The good news for those who missed it is there will be another chance to see the play, it will be re staged on Broadway from next April...

Theatre 2014: Review Twenty-Seven

Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare's Globe, London. August 2014.

This was a postponed play, Mr Norfolkbookworm and I had booked to see this in May but due to the illness of Clive Wood the performance we hoped to see was cancelled and we had to rebook.

It was worth the wait and I am really pleased that we did manage to fit a performance in before the end of the run.  From start to finish this was full of energy, laughter and fun with characters who were totally believable.

For me Antony was a perfect mix of upright soldier who tried to do his duty and a man who had his head turned by a clever, beautiful woman who was completely his equal rather than subservient to him.

Cleopatra was wily, clever, fun, intelligent and just a little insecure and the chemistry between them sizzled throughout.  However they didn't over shadow the rest of the cast, it still was a full ensemble piece that didn't have a weak link.

I'd read the play a little while ago and found myself unsure as to whether it could be labelled as a history, tragedy or comedy and I found that this production married all three aspects whilst leaning towards comedic end of the spectrum the most. There were moments of glorious over acting, thanks to the text not hammy performances, but these were balanced by the drama given to more serious scenes.

Performing battles at sea is never going to be easy on the stage at the Globe and I was very impressed by the portrayal of Actium using just two actors, two flags and some very clever rope work.  The outcome of the battle was very clear and this almost trapeze work made a complete change in pace to the play without spoiling the flow.

Without a doubt this has leapt into my top 5 plays of the year so far and if it hadn't just finished I would urge you all to see it. Luckily it has been filmed and will hopefully be out on DVD (or in the cinema) next year.

After the show there was a special event for Friends of the Globe and we got to spend 45 minutes in the beautiful Sam Wanamaker Theatre hearing 3/4 of the cast talking about the play and answering questions from the audience.
Rightly so a lot of the conversation involved praise for the cast and production but from my studying point of view it was really interesting to hear how the actors feel about performing at The Globe.  I've read a lot of critical work on the space but to hear from the horses mouth about how different, yet rewarding, the space is pleased me.  Many of the cast made the point that it really does make Shakespeare more accessible - as I've certainly found.

This made a perfect end to the afternoon and I think that next season I may try to get to more of these events and I am pleased that Rebecca and I have tickets to the pre-performance talk for Dr Scroggy's War in October.

Theatre 2014: Review Twenty

A Bunch of Amateurs, The Watermill Theatre, Bagnor (Newbury). May 2014.

After taking Mr Norfolkbookworm's aunt to Chichester last year she told us all about another beautiful theatre near to her house - The Watermill. After almost a year we found a play we all wanted to see and a date we could all make.

We had a wonderful evening, starting in the restaurant of the theatre having a delicious meal and then moved through the building, across the stream and past the watermill wheel into a fabulous little theatre.

A Bunch of Amateurs is all about a group of village players in Stratford St John who have dwindling funds and audience and as a result are in danger of closing for good.  They hit on the bright idea of inviting a celebrity to star in a performance of King Lear in the hope that this will turn them around.

This triggers a series of comedic events starting with the arrival of a fading American action hero actor who thinks he's been picked by the RSC to play at Stratford-upon-Avon.

It sounds dreadful, cliched and predictable and certainly the last two are fair comments BUT the script, the acting and the staging mean that it is wonderful and funny as well and certainly not dreadful.  The set fitted into the theatre's own decor brilliantly and until it was used I really did think that it was part of the general fixtures and fittings.

Professionals acting as amateurs and not over doing it seems a real skill and the cast managed this wonderfully, even though this was only the 3rd or 4th performance I noticed no hesitations or stumbles and yet the cast did seem a realistic bunch of amateurs. The script itself is very funny and this adaptation has been co-written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman and is fully of points that are clearly dear to Hislop but are tempered by Newman's influence so that the play works rather than becoming a sounding board for Hislop's opinions.

This play runs until June 28th and if you can get to the venue and there are tickets I think it is brilliant and worth the effort.  I'd love to see it tour so more can have the fun we did but I think that it takes a professional cast to do it justice - too much of the irony would be lost if it wasn't and the fine line between comedy/farce and disaster could easily be crossed.

The pictures are better on the radio

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue recording, Theatre Royal Norwich. April 2014.

Radio comedy often beats that on the television hands down, there are a few exceptions but in the main I'd rather hear things on the radio than watch them - the pictures are better!

Thanks to the generosity of a friend who stood in line outside the theatre on the day the tickets went on sale Mr Norfolkbookworm and I (along with said friend and another) got the chance to attend a double recording of the next series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. 

Without a doubt I think that it was possibly the funniest thing I have ever heard.

I've attended the recording of a radio sitcom before but this straight antidote to panel games was fantastic.  The regulars were all present (Jack Dee, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Crier plus Collin Sell on piano) and the fourth panelist, making her debut on the shoe, was Susan Calman.  Scoring was looked after by both Sven and the ever delightful Samantha.

Each episode recorded at least an hour of comedy and we were lucky enough to have all of my favourite rounds played - Uxbridge English Dictionary, Mornington Crescent and Sound Charades.  Even rounds I don't like so much normally - letter writing with players alternating words - is hysterical when you can see the faces the teams pull at each other and the corpsing it caused!
The laser display screen malfunctioned at one point with the audience thinking one thing was being 'mimed' but the teams acting out another!

The two shows we saw recorded will be broadcast on 30th June 2014 and 7th July 2014 and I can't wait to hear them and see what made the cut.  Oh and even though it was fun to see behind the scenes as the show was taped I still maintain that it makes better radio than it ever would television.

Theatre 2014: Review Thirteen

Blithe Spirit. Gielgud Theatre, London. April 2014.

I was joined by an old friend, Jo, for this play - she is another person that indulges me in my hobby but in my defence she did already have an interest in theatre and (this time) I didn't do too much corrupting.

Some how or other I managed to get to this play without knowing anything about the story save that a seance goes wrong and a man's first wife comes back from "the otherside" to haunt him.  Unlike some plays where not knowing the plot is a hindrance this made Blithe Spirit a total delight as Coward is a master story teller and I could follow everything whilst still being surprised by the story.

Coming from Kent originally the little details about towns I know well were very funny and added another level of enjoyment to the afternoon. Once I'd got used to the applause every time Dame Angela Lansbury entered or exited the stage I found the play a delight. It was also nice to see a comedy that wasn't farce, yes there were elements but the laughs did rely more on the lines and interpretation rather than slapstick actions.

But...and you knew that this was coming... if there hadn't been a star name attached to the play would it be being staged in London, and would it be selling out?  There was absolutely nothing wrong with any of the play, it was well acted, well designed and funny but for Jo and I it wasn't anything more and certainly not standing ovation worthy.
I also certainly don't think that the premium tickets at over £100 represent anything like good value. I hasten to add that we paid nothing like this amount for our seats and although listed as restricted view we missed very little of the action.

I enjoyed the afternoon immensely and loved the play a lot but it just wasn't memorable and while our seats made this fine if I'd paid more I'd have been very disappointed.

The West End seems to have gone mad with pricing at the moment, and celebrity casting which could be causing the price rises.  I appreciate that it isn't cheap to mount a good production but when one premium West End ticket for Book of Mormon at £152 - through the theatre and not secondhand - will pay for an entire season at the National Theatre or The Globe I feel that something is wrong.  I know a lot of theatres offer day seats but when you live a 2 hour train ride away getting in the queue for these is impossible and the cheap ticket Mondays mean that you have to be on line at just the right time or else...

The train companies offer advance booking discounts and so do hotels - why not the theatres?

Theatrical Interlude 28

The Cambridge Greek Play 2013, Arts Theatre, Cambridge. October 2013.

Three years ago a friend told us about a version of Agamemnon that was being shown in Cambridge, intrigued we went and had a nice time. Intrigued because this is company that only perform every three years and when they do so it is in the original ancient Greek.

The trip didn't start well, one of the party couldn't make it and the main road from Norwich to Cambridge was shut but eventually Mr Norfolkbookworm and I met Rebecca at Cambridge station and set forth to the city. The run of bad luck seemed to continue as a phone stopped working and all the restaurants were full when it came to needing lunch. However we found sustenance and all seemed to be going well.

We had great seats in the theatre, lots of leg room and soon settled in for what we'd told Rebecca was a great experience, yes the plays might be in a dead language but that didn't matter - there were surtitles, no different than a foreign language film...

This cycle two plays were performed Prometheus before the interval and The Frogs after, tragedy then comedy.

Prometheus wasn't to any of our tastes although I can see that if you know the play/Greek it offered a lot more.   The plot was simple Prometheus has helped Zeus to over throw his father but then has helped out the human race and angered Zeus. Who has him chained to a rock.  The next 55 minutes or so are all about why he is there. With singing.  I can see from my studies into theatre why this is considered a good play and I can also see a lot of the aspects of drama that I've been reading about and I mean no offence to the cast when I say on the whole we didn't enjoy this one.

After the interval it was a different matter. The Frogs, and especially this version, is bonkers. The god Dionysus has decided that there are no longer any good jokes being written so he is going to have to go to the Underworld and bring Euripides or Aeschylus back to life in order to have some amusement.  The god is however a coward and this leads to much humour, oh and some ancient Greek politics (not that different from our own really!).

You really did have to be there to appreciate how funny and truly mad this play was, the jokes translate from stage to blog about as well as they do from ancient Greek to English - it really was all in the staging.  My mind melted when Charon and Dionysus are sitting in a row boat singing in Greek to the tune of O Sole Mio but the surtitles are showing the words to Row, Row, Row your Boat. Oh and apparently Greek frogs say brekekekex koax koax not ribbitt.

The day turned out to be great fun after all and I think Mr Norfolkbookworm and I will try to see the next play in 2016 but this really has reinforced to me that tragedies are my least favourite style of play overall, it isn't just Shakespeare!

Theatrical Interlude 16

Merchant of Venice, Norwich Cathedral. July 2013.

A Shakespeare Festival has been held at Norwich Cathedral for the past few years but for some reason I've never been - or even really noticed it taking place.  This year after some mocking by friends on Facebook about how often I go to the theatre the same friends asked if I'd be interested in going with them to a play at the festival!

In the end these two original companions couldn't come and my companions on the evening were Mr Norfolkbookworm and a friend/colleague Jon. It was a perfect evening for outdoor theatre - not too hot, not too cold, not windy and best of all for this summer not raining.

The Merchant of Venice was a new play to me although I knew the basic premise of the plot, I was surprised to see that in the first Folio had categorised the play as a comedy. I know that sensitivities were different in the late 1500s but still I wasn't sure how the topic could be funny...

This version really showed be just why it was classed as comedy - without over acting the humour was apparent throughout, especially in the characters of Portia and Nerissa.  In fact the comedy character, Launcelot Gobbo, was one of the weaker areas - the two leading ladies stole the show!

I very much liked how the play was performed, once more the idea that the players were travelling actors from times gone by was clear. The stage was simply some boarding with steps to the left, right and centre and all the props were either carried by the actors or stored in two trunks on the stage which doubled as seats.

The evening we saw Merchant was the first time the company had performed the play in public and just occasionally there was a stutter or stumble but as I can't imagine how actors can keep one part in their minds let alone several for more than one play I don't feel I can criticise.

There are downsides to performing outside (not including the weather) at the Globe the actors contend with helicopters flying low over head. In Norwich the outside noise came from the peregrine falcons that nest on the spire - every time Shylock appeared in the first act it appeared the birds took off and flew around the cloister screaming.

The uncomfortable moment in the play when Shylock is 'reprireved' so long as he renounces his Jewish faith and converts to Christianity was met with a big hiss by the audience in Norwich and that I feel was a nice way to deal with the worst moment of antisemitism whilst still enjoying what was a great performance.

I know that I will be keeping an eagle (or peregrine) eye out for the announcement of the festival next year.  I might even pack a picnic and really soak up the atmosphere!

Photo taken from my iPhone - the weather was really much nicer than it looks!