Theatre 2015: Review Nine

Rules for Living, The Dorfman Theatre, National Theatre, London. March 2015

**Preview Disclaimer**

After a break of a couple of hours we were back on the South Bank to see the second play of the day in the newly refurbished Dorfman Theatre.  As this is a 'black box' theatre that can be reconfigured for any play I'm afraid that I didn't notice any changes in the actually auditorium but the foyer, cafe, cloakroom and loos were all very nice!

This play couldn't have been more different from Man and Superman if it has tried and if we hadn't known this was only the second preview I don't think I would have guessed.

The set depicts the ground floor of a large house - living room, dining area and kitchen - all set up on a basket ball court complete with electronic score board at either end.  It is Christmas Day and the family are gathering for Christmas dinner.

It is like watching a car crash in slow motion.  There are secrets in the family which slowly become clear and all of the main players have created their own 'rules for living'. As these become relevant they are flashed up on the scoreboard, this means that as the audience we saw extra humour in the characters that wasn't in the script just by their actions. One character for instance can only lie if he is sitting down and eating something, and as he is with a girl friend he doesn't love and has another secret this becomes very funny very quickly.

The car crash element is because I'm pretty sure anyone who has every had a family Christmas can recognise some of the tensions/actions in the play and seeing your life experiences in glorious Technicolour is excruciating.  Because this is so heightened not every experience is personal so there is some relief and some bits are just funny but I imagine that every audience member finds these different.

Other early reviewers have complained that they found the whole rules for living tedious and overblown but I liked this part of the play - for me it was the end that 'missed' slightly. I think I would have liked it to end just one scene earlier, but as it is a play about cognitive behavioural therapy I can see why it continues, it just would have remained a total comedy for me without it.  However as I have continued to think about this play more than the other two that I saw this weekend it must be doing something right.

In some real theatre geekiness Rebecca and I were sitting near lots of people who were taking notes on this preview performance and in fact I was sitting next to the director, Marianne Elliot.  They were all writing copious amounts so I don't know how much will change between the previews and opening night.

This was uncomfortable fun for me and while I don't think it will make my top 10 at the end of the year it was fascinating to see a new play, in a new space by a relatively new (and female) playwright.

If you are sat in the lower gallery at the front look out for flying eggs...

Theatre 2015: Review Seven

Farinelli and the King, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare's Globe, London. February 2015.

Liking and admiring Mark Rylance as an actor has become hugely popular this year thanks to his role in Wolf Hall and as a result of this Rebecca and I were pleased to have booked tickets to Farinelli and the King way back last year.  We already knew he was great without waiting to see him on the small screen!

So much could have been wrong with Farinelli - it was a new piece of theatre (with music/opera), written by Rylance's wife for him and performed in a theatre that is not the most comfortable to sit in.  Luckily we found it to be a great afternoon.

It is based on a true story where the King of Spain is mad.  The play opens with the king (Rylance) lounging in bed fishing in a goldfish bowl and talking to the fish.  His state of health is ambiguous at this point as he mostly seems lucid.  His leading ministers are not happy with him and think that he should be replaced.  His situation worsens but with the help of his wife and doctor a new cure is tried - that of music and the leading castrati of the day, Farinelli, is invited to court and appears to cure the king.

There are a few nuances and added parts to the story but it remains very simple and very affecting, the king remains mostly well as long as Farinelli sings.  There is a very interesting device used for Farinelli however, and one that I didn't spot at first.

When Farinelli is singing the actor playing the role doesn't actually sing, someone else - when we saw it Iestyn Davies provided the amazing voice - appears on stage next to Farinelli and they mimic each others movements.  It sounds terrible written down but on stage worked amazingly, Farinelli the man wanted to be seen as different from the voice and so on stage he physically was.  Only in the very last scene did the two men actually interact and that added more poignancy to the piece than anything for me.

While the play was very good I have to say that I did find it a little jarring that despite the setting and costumes all being redolent of the 1700s the language used was entirely 21st century.  It made for some funny moments but did create a little barrier between me and the play.  Possibly a bad attempt at replicating actual speech from the time would have  been just as bad however!

This was a lavish production with not a weak member of cast and a full ensemble piece - something that I would imagine is hard to create when Rylance is the leading man.  His charisma and skill shone through and I am now desperate to see him on stage in a truly modern piece.  Farinelli and the King has a very short run at the SWP and while I'd love to see it transfer so more people could see it the setting was ideal and in a bigger venue the intimacy created here could not be replicated I feel.

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.

Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-Four

Doctor Scroggy's War, Shakespeares' Globe, London. October 2014.

After meeting Rebecca, having a cup of tea, saying goodbye to companion number one and locating our hotel we returned to the Globe for the evening.

We started in the lecture theatre below the theatre for a "Perspectives" talk. This involved Howard Brenton (author of the play) talking about the play and then taking questions from the audience.  The talk tried very hard not to spoil any surprises in the play for those of us who hadn't yet seen it but at the same time gave us a good idea on how it came to be written and some of the research undertaken to formulate it.

I was most interested in the areas of the talk, and questions, that talked about how Brenton wrote the play for the space and the uniqueness of the Globe, and how the audience interaction can both be a help and a hindrance to the playwright and actor.  I was also really pleased to hear Brenton talk about how WW1 wasn't the first mechanised/trench war - he acknowledged the American Civil War! This is a pet peeve of mine - can you tell!

After the talk we had very high hopes for the play and were in our seats well before the start.

The plot follows three people Jack Twigg - a temporary gentleman with a commission in the London Irish Regiment, Penelope Wedgewood - a leading socialite, and Dr Harold Gillies - a pioneering plastic surgeon with a progressive and unorthodox take on medicine and the importance of morale on healing. There are many other incidental characters helping to drive the plot and in historical terms the play focuses on the Battle of Loos in 1915 and the incredible mistake made by high command.

The play purports to be, and the pre show talk lead me to believe, that the focus would be on the dramatisation of the real life Gillies and his unorthodox but effective treatment of soldiers who suffered facial injuries - he was in fact mentioned recently in the moving ITV series The People's War - however for me this didn't turn out to be the case.

For me the play felt like it was put on stage too early - I think that there are three excellent stories to be told, but that to develop them better each needs more space, or a play of their own.  Jack's story is fascinating and I wanted to know more of him in all ways, without spoilers it is also still very pertinent in asking what does being British actually mean.

Penelope undergoes the most radical of changes and has a fascinating arc to explore, especially in the light of last year's Bluestockings and as for poor Gillies...he was played by the ever wonderful James Garnon but was woefully under used and I felt that there was a lot more mileage in his character. It almost feel disrespectful to use a real person in such a desultory way.

My final grievance with the play was the jig at the end, I can't explain why but for me to see people dancing to Goodbye Dolly Gray and Tipperary seemed wrong.

On the plus side the play held my attention throughout the (scant) two hours, I laughed lots and learned lots of new things about a subject I do know well. It was acted brilliantly and the use of sound was incredible.  I hope that perhaps some more work is done on this play and that it does come back again as it is an interesting story, I'm just not 100% sure that at present the play tells it.

Theatre 2014: Review Thirty-Three

Pitcairn, Shakespeare's Globe, London. October 2014.

I'm just back from another of my epic trips to London. This two day stay saw me take in three exhibitions, three plays and a 'setting the scene' talk at The Globe!

I'd enticed a new friend to London with me this time and before we went to the Globe he suggested a visit to see the Magna Carta exhibition at London's Guildhall.  The display was small but we still managed to spend ages looking at the document and trying to understand what it was all about.  We came to the conclusion that it was a wonderful piece of propaganda that seemed to be offering the common man a lot of things but that in actual fact it was firmly maintaining the status quo and protecting the rich! The one surprise for me was how protected women were in the document and how progressive society was towards us.
After this we also visited the Roman Amphitheatre buried below, and again although small was fascinating.  I shall go back and explore other areas of the building in the future.

Pitcairn in the afternoon was another surprise.  Reviews for this had been decidedly lukewarm and I was apprehensive - was my run of great new writing at the Globe about to be broken?

Absolutely not - from the very start I loved the play, the story, the acting and the use of space.  I wasn't hugely up on my historical knowledge of Pitcairn, Fletcher Christian, Captain Bligh and the Bounty but the story was so clear that this never became an issue, without resorting to too much back story narration I understood everything clearly.

My theatre companion is more knowledgeable in this part of history and he also agreed that this was a good imagining of what could have happened and neither of us spotted the twist in the story and the very funny denouement at the end. One element of the plot was very Enid Blyton but such was the story that it just added to my enjoyment. I was impressed that even a play about the Mutiny on the Bounty could get in the obligatory dig against the French!

The play was a bit rude, lewd and crude and I can see why some might not like it but for me it was a great piece of entertainment that made me think and also made me want to know more about the history around this version.  I also adored the jig at the end becoming a South Sea Haka.

Theatre 2014: Review Twenty-One

Last Days of Troy, Shakespeare's Globe, London. June 2014.

New writing at the Globe has a real hit and miss reputation, however Mr Norfolkbookworm and I seem to have struck it lucky each time.  Last year Bluestockings was fantastic and this new play by Simon Armitage was equally as enjoyable.

The play is based on the last few weeks of the siege of Troy and uses Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid as source material to create a retelling of the events. The original texts are both sprawling and often confusing with many characters and interfering deities but this version simplified the cast and kept the narrative clear and easy to follow.

A few times the language seemed a little modern for the setting and the outburst from Achilles which was full of obscenity really jarred but apart from that I was swept away from the start.  I also very much liked the framing device of the immortal Gods stuck in a world where no one believes in them anymore and poor Zeus being forced to act as a living statue portraying himself and selling models of himself at an archaeological site!

We saw the last performance of this play at the Globe but if it tours or is revived then I do recommend it as it has certainly moved into my top 10 of plays seen this year so far.