Theatre 2016: Review Fifteen

Lawrence After Arabia, Hampstead Theatre, London. April 2016.

On a lovely sunny, if not warm, evening Rebecca and I went out to Hampstead to see only the second performance ever of this play. Apart from the (in)famous film Lawrence of Arabia I didn't know an awful lot about the eponymous Lawrence and so I was hoping for a play that would add more to my knowledge while being enjoyable.

I got just what I wanted, and more.

The play is set in the early 1920s as Lawrence is hiding from the press after joining the RAF incognito. His hiding place is with George Bernard Shaw and his wife who are also helping him to edit his memoirs.

We are also treated to some flashbacks to Lawrence's time in Arabia during the war and how he worked with both the Arabs and the Allies during World War One.  The story telling was clear, the actors brilliant and although there were some modern political messages within the play they weren't added with a crowbar, they felt like things the characters at the time would have said.

The last play by Howard Brenton that we saw, Doctor Scroggy's War, had a good premise but was muddled and felt like three plays mixed into one, but this was clean and informative.  I don't think that it is going to set anyone on fire but I now want to know more about Lawrence and the Shaws and have a stack of new books next to my bed ready to read.  I think that this play might end up in my 2016 Top Ten.

Jack Laksey as Lawrence (photo from Hampstead website)

Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-Five

Seminar, Hampstead Theatre, London. October 2014.

I was very glad that I'd made the Friday a Globe double bill for although the weather started fair on Saturday it didn't stay that way!

However before the rain fell Rebecca and I managed to get to the Tower of London to see the amazing Poppy installation at the Tower of London. This is a truly powerful way to mark the centenary of World War One and the sight of that many poppies marking those from Britain who died in the war is mind blowing.

One small section of the final 888, 246 poppies.

After this the long suffering Rebecca agreed to accompany me to Gordon Square to see all of the Book Benches in one place prior to them being auctioned off for charity.  I love these projects of installation art with themes and spent a happy half hour photographing the front and back of all 51 seats.  Poor Rebecca sat under a tree with a book hoping that the drizzle wasn't going to get worse before I was finished.  We were mostly lucky and it wasn't until we were walking towards the West End that the heavens truly opened on us.

Wet through we made our way to Hampstead, dried out a little in a cafe and then got drenched again on our way to the theatre.  Not entirely in the mood for a play that hadn't had great reviews we took our seats.

Again I find myself out of step with other reviewers.  Seminar is an odd play in that it is all about the craft of writing. We follow four aspiring writers as they present their work to an expensive and well regarded editor/author.

None of the characters - including the superb Roger Allam - are likeable and all are almost caricatures of different types of writers/artists. For me this didn't matter as the play was about how and why people write and read, and I found it easy to transfer a lot of the ideas to both my studies in theatre and also my job in the book world.  I really could see several people I've met over time in all of the stage roles - not all of them flattering!

A play about writing is hard to talk about strangely enough as it sounds terribly dull but it wasn't, in fact I found it very human and very funny.

Concentrating at times did feel hard however as Allam was playing against characters called Martin and Douglas and his accent was just like the one he puts on on the episode of Cabin Pressure called Paris.