Author Topic: What was the last play you watched?  (Read 44959 times)

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #25 on: 06 February, 2014, 09:40:06 am »
:thumbsup:

I've been umming and ahhing about whether or not it's worth forking out for tickets for that. I can imagine Jude Law would make a good Henry V.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Andrij

  • Андрій
  • Ερασιτεχνικός μισάνθρωπος
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #26 on: 06 February, 2014, 09:51:01 am »
:thumbsup:

I've been umming and ahhing about whether or not it's worth forking out for tickets for that. I can imagine Jude Law would make a good Henry V.

'Forking out' is an appropriate phrase.  When I bought mine (December?) all the decent 'cheap' seats had been snapped up, so decided on decent seats over price.  Sitting in the first row of the Royal Circle was very nice.  8)

;D  Andrij.  I pronounce you Complete and Utter GIT   :thumbsup:

CrinklyLion

  • The one with devious, cake-pushing ways....
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #27 on: 27 February, 2014, 12:13:10 am »
Brassed Off, at York Theatre Royal.

Proper review may follow, but having gone straight from work on the off chance of a ticket and then stayed for the Q&A with the company after and then had to go collect the tandem from where I'd locked it safely at work, a long way away from the theatre, I didn't get home til about half 11 and am knackered.

Summary?

Politics and brass and ripping the piss out of Lancashire.  Lots of swearing.  Especially about the tories and That Woman.  And on-stage cycling.  What's not to like?  Recommended.

tiermat

  • According to Jane, I'm a Unisex SpaceAdmin
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #28 on: 27 February, 2014, 08:20:20 am »
Brassed Off, at York Theatre Royal.

Proper review may follow, but having gone straight from work on the off chance of a ticket and then stayed for the Q&A with the company after and then had to go collect the tandem from where I'd locked it safely at work, a long way away from the theatre, I didn't get home til about half 11 and am knackered.

Summary?

Politics and brass and ripping the piss out of Lancashire.  Lots of swearing.  Especially about the tories and That Woman.  And on-stage cycling.  What's not to like?  Recommended.

Interesting.

Brassed Off has to be right up there as one of my all time favourite films, probably one of only a handful I will watch over and over again*.

To me the whole point of the film is the climax, at the Royal Albert Hall, I would be interested in hearing how they manage to capture that, and the speech, in the stage play.

*The others being The Big Lebowski, The Godfather Trilogy and Once Upon A Time In America.
I feel like Captain Kirk, on a brand new planet every day, a little like King Kong on top of the Empire State

CrinklyLion

  • The one with devious, cake-pushing ways....
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #29 on: 27 February, 2014, 09:11:21 am »
In york til sat then touring... with a different local brass band in each venue :-D

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #30 on: 07 March, 2014, 12:07:54 am »
Not long back from seeing the NT Live production of Coriolanus.   Very good,  I've never heard of Tom Hiddleston before but he gave a superb performance.  The rest of the cast were excellent as well, esp Mark Gatiss as Menenius and Elliot Levey & Helen Schleisinger as two scheming tribunes.

I wish I hadn't had that Lebanese mixed grill & beer beforehand though.... more gas than is left in the North Sea!
Not fast & rarely furious

tweeting occasional in(s)anities as andrewxclark

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #31 on: 19 March, 2014, 12:14:27 am »
A very exuberant performance of "Twelfth Night" at the Brand New Shiny Liverpool Everyman. http://www.sevenstreets.com/twelfth-night-everyman-review/

I was far more commonly found in the old bistro than the old theatre,  but have seen plays there in the past, I recall it being a little grubby, cramped & very uncomfortable.  The new building (using bricks & wood from the old one) is a much more impressive space and the 400 new seats have ample padding & enough legroom  :thumbsup:

I really enjoyed the performance and was greatly amused by the device of Sebastian and his sea captain rescuer Antonio turning up on a tandem, and not just any tandem but a really filthy Thorn Raven Discovery , which gets taken for several spins around the stage  :D

Another review here http://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/if-twelfth-night-at-the-everyman/

Not fast & rarely furious

tweeting occasional in(s)anities as andrewxclark

Wascally Weasel

  • Slayer of Dragons and killer of threads.
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #32 on: 21 March, 2014, 03:36:39 pm »
From Here to Eternity (technically a musical I know).  Really enjoyed it - sadly it's closing on the 29th of March.

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #33 on: 13 April, 2014, 11:21:20 am »
"A View From The Bridge" at the Liverpool Playhouse (not the Young Vic!).   

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/apr/02/a-view-from-the-bridge-review-greek-tragedy-work-boots
Not fast & rarely furious

tweeting occasional in(s)anities as andrewxclark

Ruth

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #34 on: 13 April, 2014, 11:41:04 am »
That isn't a play I'm familiar with but reading the review I might need to amend this.

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #35 on: 13 April, 2014, 03:40:15 pm »
Dangerous Corners - JB Priestly.
Local AmDramSoc.
V. good.

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #36 on: 04 September, 2014, 01:02:55 am »
Medea at the National. Helen McCrory was tortured, Danny Sapani suave and manipulative, the chorus showed "the involuntary judders and tics of Lucy Guerin's disturbing choreography" (Independent) or were just slightly oddly modernistic depending on taste. I'm still giving little shudders at the memory of some scenes and don't really want to go to bed yet - bleak, dark stuff.

Sold out and the second-last night, but I booked a standing ticket for a fiver this morning and there'll be some tomorrow (well, today now): it's also in cinemas tonight as an NTLive show.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #37 on: 28 September, 2014, 07:05:52 pm »
Knightmare Live

Geeks of a certain age rejoice!  This one totally holds up, in a student theatre silliness kind of way.   :thumbsup:

Bring a map of Barcelona, and cheer along with an auditorium of like-minded people whenever anyone says "Where am I?" or "You're in a room."

http://www.knightmarelive.com/

essexian

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #38 on: 22 October, 2014, 10:25:47 am »
The Importance of being Earnest: Birmingham New Alex.

Well that was different. I suppose it had to be given that the lead actors: Rosalind Ayres, Niall Buggy, Patrick Godfrey, Nigel Havers, Martin Jarvis, Christine Kavanagh, Cherie Lunghi and Siân Phillips are all somewhat older (by about 30 years!) than the characters they play; that was to be expected.  So, instead of playing it straight, last night’s performance of “The Importance of Being Earnest” was staged as a “play within a play.”

Did it work? Well to a degree it did, although people like me who had seen it before were somewhat confused at the start when instead of heading straight into the play, we had the “Bunbury Company Players” setting the scene with jokes about cucumber sandwiches and dead former company members…. Most strange.  And rather disappointingly, the need to end the play within the play by adding a number of lines on after the final and main joke: a joke on which the whole play is based, crashed the ending for me.

Overall, while Wilde’s play stands the test of time, the reimagining of it as a play within a play simply to allow the casting, felt a little, hum, not right. I suppose my slight reluctance to accept the changes stem from the fact that it is often impossible to improve what the writer wrote (although I suppose that is the job of the director/producer) while staging plays away from their historic setting (like as happened at Stafford Castle this year where a Shakespeare play was set in the Cold War…. I mean…?) often doesn’t work for me.

Sorry, this is rather rambling and no doubt it makes no sense.

Plus points…. £10 to sit in the fifth row of the stools (slightly off centre: we could see 90% of the stage) is great value, while getting to and from the New Alex in Birmingham is really easy.

Would I recommend this staging…well yes, if you like a laugh but don’t expect it to be played straight like the film or the West End staging some 6 odd years ago.

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #39 on: 22 October, 2014, 04:36:12 pm »
I got a freebie to one of the previews for that production in London - the first and only time I've seen the Importance. Glad to have seen it, but found it all a bit unsatisfactory - the play within a play conceit didn't really work for me because it just did stranger things to the farcical elements than I could cope with. Great cast though, even if they did seem to be playing well within their limits.

Great Britain: National transfer to Theatre Royal, Haymarket

Pretty mixed feelings about this too. Obviously it's the play of the phone hacking saga, and equally obviously it's lost something because there were so many acquittals. I wanted it to be biting satire, and found it was a bit of a toothless rendition of stereotypes which were no less tired or lazy for retaining some accuracy. Some good lines, some genuine laughs, and better than sitting on the sofa on a Tuesday night, but a bit meh overall.

Psychler

  • Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........
  • 33.2 miles from Steeple Bumpstead
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #40 on: 22 October, 2014, 04:53:30 pm »
The last play I saw was "... Dorian Gray" at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts.  The youngest Miss P. is studying there and we'll be watching her in "Pericles" at the end of November.
I'm gonna limp to the pub and drink 'til the rest of me is as numb as my arse.

Si

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #41 on: 24 October, 2014, 04:58:50 pm »
Saw "Ha Ha..Hood" last night - the latest in the Ha Ha series (Ha Ha Hamlet, Ha Ha Hitler, Ha Ha Holmes).
This one had Sue Pollard and Canon and Ball (but sans Ball who'd been taken ill, so they had an understudy who'd only just been drafted in so had to read the script throughout).

Quite entertaining - better than I'd expected as I've never been a fan of Pollard or Cannon and Ball.  But not as good as the original Ha Ha plays when it was just the three unknown actors.  However, the bloke playing Bobby Ball was very good.  And, of course, half the front row of the audience ended up on stage.

They used to be £10 in the studio theatre, they are now £20 in the main. I preferred the studio.

Dibdib

  • Fat'n'slow
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #42 on: 27 October, 2014, 04:54:35 pm »
Really enjoyed seeing Frantic's production of Othello at Oxford Playhouse the other night. Fast-paced (about 90 minutes, maybe a little over), with some fantastic choreography as well as a modern twist on the story.

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #43 on: 01 November, 2014, 12:53:54 pm »
Really enjoyed seeing Frantic's production of Othello at Oxford Playhouse the other night. Fast-paced (about 90 minutes, maybe a little over), with some fantastic choreography as well as a modern twist on the story.
I saw that at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth a good few years ago - I hadn't seen (and wasn't aware that it was) physical theatre and nearly got lynched by the 6 other navy guys I dragged along. I remember it was very good, beautifully choreographed and extremely fast paced.
Allow me to explain through the medium of interpretive dance

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #44 on: 09 November, 2014, 03:02:23 am »
Made in Dagenham: Adelphi, London

Musical of the film of the industrial dispute. A bit frothy, a few tired jokes, a few jokes that got in the way, a few stereotypes played for laughs when a straighter performance might have been better - but hell, I enjoyed it and laughed like a drain through pretty much everything except the poignant bits.

Gemma Arterton (I'm not a Marxist, nor a Leninist. I'm a machinist) carries it well: song and dance cameos from Harold Wilson (complete with Gannex mac) and Barbara Castle, and a comedy Yankee (cowboy exec as panto villain) provide light entertainment. And I don't think the Bechdel scale goes high enough to score this one.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #45 on: 30 December, 2014, 02:05:04 am »
Family outing to the NT this evening to see 3 Winters. Very good. A play about Croatian political history told through the experience of three generations of the same family wouldn't normally be my first choice but it was largely dictated by what was on and what tickets were available at short notice and not too expensive. And I was very glad to have seen it - interesting staging, well written (not too didactic or preachy, some nice one-liners), good acting all round.

Good narrative structure too. Essentially there were three scenes, one in 1945 immediately after the war, the second in 1990 on the day Slovenia and Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia, the third in 2011 on the day of the youngest daughter's wedding. The action hopped backwards and forwards through the three eras, gradually revealing details - a fairly standard technique but used intelligently here as a way of forcing the viewer to question their prejudices and assumptions, and illustrating that whatever side people fight on in a war, they're more complex than just representatives of a political ideology.

The revelation at the end was a bit predictable though. High quality all round despite that though.

(Alternative was Henry IV at the Barbican but we weren't in the mood for Shakespeare. Still might try to see that soon anyway.)

"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #46 on: 15 April, 2015, 03:17:54 pm »
BUMP
<i>Marmite slave</i>

Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #47 on: 15 April, 2015, 03:53:53 pm »
Teechers by John Godber, performed by the Blackeyed Theatre group.

A total of 22 characters played by a cast of 3 at breakneck pace without any (obvious) slip ups.  It is a play about a school play.  Hugely enjoyable, one of the best things I've seen in the theatre and one of the simplest sets ever - played to greys with 3 tables and 3 chairs.  Top marks too for the lighting and sound bods as they had to work just as fast as the actors.

Apparently John Godber wrote in the stage directions that the music was to be kept up to date to stop the play from dating, and this works very well.

Also saw Made In Dagenham last week and I agree whole heartedly with jsabine, but it is too late to go and see it now as it closed at the weekend due to poor ticket sales (although it looked like a sell-out last Thursday when we were there).

CrinklyLion

  • The one with devious, cake-pushing ways....
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #48 on: 20 April, 2015, 09:54:05 am »
Cor blimey, I haven't seen a John Godber play in years.

(For a few years my secondary school drama studio managed to become a touring venue that Hull Truck and Remould took most of their shows to in the 80s - and we did a fair number of workshops and projects with both, plus the youth theatre I was part of got to perform at Spring Street a few times.  Feeling all nostalgic now!)

Andrij

  • Андрій
  • Ερασιτεχνικός μισάνθρωπος
Re: What was the last play you watched?
« Reply #49 on: 04 July, 2015, 01:29:09 am »
Does opera count?  Or does this belong in the 'gig' thread?

This evening met a friend at Canary Wharf to watch a broadcast of the Royal Opera's production of Don Giovanni.  In a word: brilliant!  The performances were were compelling and well executed, but this star of this show is the staging.  If you get a chance to see it, do so.  I haven't looked, but some shows are also broadcast in cinemas.

I'd write more, but after a couple of bottles during the opera and some cocktails after, I'm rather tired.
;D  Andrij.  I pronounce you Complete and Utter GIT   :thumbsup: