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Post by juicy_but_terribly_drab on Jul 31, 2019 18:32:14 GMT
Saw this and loved it by the way. Had a big cry at the end and it was brilliant to see all the intricacies of the performances from the second row since I'm rarely that close in the Olivier. It was a bargain for £15! Definitely will have to try and sit there again.
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Post by peggs on Jul 31, 2019 20:23:39 GMT
You did lucky to get a seat there, I couldn't get a seat I could afford and see from for this, bit gutted so hope it comes back round again.
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Post by lynette on Aug 1, 2019 18:11:55 GMT
Has to return, best thing at NT for yonks
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Post by showgirl on Aug 2, 2019 3:40:52 GMT
You did lucky to get a seat there, I couldn't get a seat I could afford and see from for this, bit gutted so hope it comes back round again. Is Friday rush no use to you, peggs? Not convenient for me but today should be the last chance (of the current run) to book seats for this next week.
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Post by TallPaul on Aug 2, 2019 13:07:26 GMT
There was a programme on the World Service just this week about the creation of Small Island. It has 'unique access' to the rehearsal room. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz1ys
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Post by jadnoop on Aug 2, 2019 14:56:05 GMT
Managed to snag a couple of Friday Rush tickets, so really excited to see this next week. For anyone still looking there are a couple of seats still available.
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Post by peggs on Aug 2, 2019 18:39:46 GMT
You did lucky to get a seat there, I couldn't get a seat I could afford and see from for this, bit gutted so hope it comes back round again. Is Friday rush no use to you, peggs? Not convenient for me but today should be the last chance (of the current run) to book seats for this next week. Thanks for the thought, sadly now work in a signal dead zone so ticket buying during work hours isn't an option. I did look at the options this evening and wondered about the circle ones but I've not done well sat up there in the past, I feel rather remote and tend to disengage, I considered it might still be worth it but the production is so long and i'm in a new job and just can't afford to be half asleep at it the next day, trying to absorb all the new information is sending me home like a zombie as it is. I'll have to hope it comes back and somehow that I can get cheap tickets near the front though not seeing how this will be doable, it'll always be in the archive I suppose.
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Post by theatre241 on Aug 4, 2019 22:06:48 GMT
I saw this yesterday and it was fantastic. Very cinematic and fluid! I loved the style and the projection! It didn’t feel like 3 hours at all and these stories just built and built. The cast were brilliant and in the final scenes they were actually crying, I was sat on row C so I could see everything. I loved the house scenes with the revolve and I loved the lifts that got people on stage quickly.
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Post by jadnoop on Aug 7, 2019 10:33:18 GMT
Wow. This was really rather special.
Great acting, an interesting, engaging (and hugely timely) story, and it excellently balanced the seriousness of the story with a sense of humour. I also loved the visuals (beautiful moving paintings and echoes of Emma Rice’s Brief Encounter) and use of music.
I’ve read a lot about plays not working in the Olivier but this really felt like a perfect fit to me. It might not have been as wildly exciting or unpredictable as some of what’s shown on the Dorfman, but it felt brilliantly suited to a big stage and a wide audience. Like a big prestige film by Steven Spielberg.
I really hope this gets a longer life.
A solid 4 and a half stars.
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Post by showgirl on Aug 9, 2019 3:54:16 GMT
Eventually I enjoyed this at the matinee yesterday and think it was worth having splashed out on a more expensive seat for once, given the length of the performance. It was great to be in the Olivier, too, which is my favourite of the NT's spaces but seems rarely to have productions I want to see. Disappointing to find that what I'd thought was an aisle seat was actually the inner end of the row, against one of those silly walls, and that as usual, everyone else in my row took an age to shift at the interval and end.
I found the first 30 minutes or so really slow and tedious (I actually nodded off), but once it got going I became more engaged and at the end, felt the cast deserved the enthusiastic applause and standing ovation (from many but not all). I haven't read the book and felt the narrative suffered from jumping about and being unable to go into more detail but that's inevitable with adaptations of long novels.
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Post by londonpostie on Aug 9, 2019 14:51:43 GMT
I finally went last night. tbh, I struggled. Not my cup of tea. Generally happier with something in the Dorfman.
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Post by musicalmarge on Aug 9, 2019 23:43:15 GMT
Does anyone else think it strange that this Windrush story is being adapted and directed by white creatives? Isn’t that a tad insensitive? In this anniversary year when the Windrush generation were treated so appallingly, they now have to experience the appropriation of their stories by the National Theatre. Has RN become so up himself that he can’t see this? Next you’ll say only gay people can direct LGBTQI+ source material. Zzzzzzzzz Aren’t we all human beings and storytellers? Attitudes like that divide us all. Peace x
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Xanderl
Member
Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Aug 10, 2019 16:24:53 GMT
I think Cleo has a point. But not sure why you are picking a fight with someone who has left the forum and can’t answer back over a 10 month old post
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Xanderl
Member
Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Aug 11, 2019 7:23:54 GMT
Finally saw this on the last night. Staging and performances were amazing but I found it all a bit disappointing. It's FAR too long - could have dropped most of the early childhood stuff for Hortense which had no real bearing on what came next, and also most of Queenie's back-story about pig-farming in Lincolnshire and working in a sweetshop. That would have shaved a good half hour off. And also if it's 3 hours 20 minutes, start the evening show at 7 not 7:30.
And as noted above I have reservations about the fact that a story about black experiences of immigration written by a black novelist has been filtered through a white playwright. Presumably Andrea Levy was OK with the choice (although not sure at what point her health problems started so she may not have been particularly involved)
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Post by juicy_but_terribly_drab on Aug 11, 2019 7:35:41 GMT
Finally saw this on the last night. Staging and performances were amazing but I found it all a bit disappointing. It's FAR too long - could have dropped most of the early childhood stuff for Hortense which had no real bearing on what came next, and also most of Queenie's back-story about pig-farming in Lincolnshire and working in a sweetshop. That would have shaved a good half hour off. And also if it's 3 hours 20 minutes, start the evening show at 7 not 7:30. And as noted above I have reservations about the fact that a story about black experiences of immigration written by a black novelist has been filtered through a white playwright. Presumably Andrea Levy was OK with the choice (although not sure at what point her health problems started so she may not have been particularly involved) I don't know about cutting the backstory I think it's pretty important character stuff and cutting it down to just saying essentially "Hortense was in love with this guy" and "Queenie really wanted to move away from home" wouldn't be enough to fully understand their motivations or perhaps fully appreciate would be the better term since they're very simple motivations. I don't think that simply saying would be enough to show why Hortense has grown up so prim and proper and pretty rude (and her unrequited love would be less tragic) or why Queenie would be so desperate to marry.
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Post by jadnoop on Aug 11, 2019 9:12:32 GMT
Finally saw this on the last night. Staging and performances were amazing but I found it all a bit disappointing. It's FAR too long - could have dropped most of the early childhood stuff for Hortense which had no real bearing on what came next, and also most of Queenie's back-story about pig-farming in Lincolnshire and working in a sweetshop. That would have shaved a good half hour off. And also if it's 3 hours 20 minutes, start the evening show at 7 not 7:30. And as noted above I have reservations about the fact that a story about black experiences of immigration written by a black novelist has been filtered through a white playwright. Presumably Andrea Levy was OK with the choice (although not sure at what point her health problems started so she may not have been particularly involved) I don't know about cutting the backstory I think it's pretty important character stuff and cutting it down to just saying essentially "Hortense was in love with this guy" and "Queenie really wanted to move away from home" wouldn't be enough to fully understand their motivations or perhaps fully appreciate would be the better term since they're very simple motivations. I don't think that simply saying would be enough to show why Hortense has grown up so prim and proper and pretty rude (and her unrequited love would be less tragic) or why Queenie would be so desperate to marry. I agree. For me, Hortense & Queenie’s childhoods were important for providing context on things like their views on, and experience of, love, and the expectations put on them by family. Those scenes were also v important to showing why they wanted to move to England / a bigger town, and what they expected to find there. While it didn’t register hugely for me at first, those early scenes also set up the topics of adoption and parenting, that the play wrapped back to at the end. Perhaps these scenes could have been shortened and had the same effect, but I enjoyed them anyway and I liked that boarding the Windrush was more-or-less the play’s halfway point.
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Post by NorthernAlien on Feb 4, 2020 20:24:00 GMT
Saw this last night on an NT Live - Encore! showing at my local cinema. I was one of four people in the audience.
As this was the cinema, we got a little pre-show talk, and an interval BTS piece about the music and how it was put together.
I managed to completely miss this when it was actually on at the NT, and didn't realise it had quite such a long playing time. That said, it didn't feel like it was over three hours, and at no point did I even vaguely feel like it was dragging (not something that can always be said for a one-hour fringe show!).
I really, really enjoyed this. I haven't read the book, so I don't know if that tells you what happens to all the characters, but I came out so totally wanting to know what happens next. Some of the language *was* quite shocking, but in the pre-show bit they did specifically point out that they'd done research, and were being accurate. Great night, amazing piece of theatre, brilliant story.
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Post by zahidf on Feb 19, 2020 10:04:36 GMT
It's back at the national from October.
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Post by ncbears on Jun 25, 2020 14:24:19 GMT
So happy to have caught this on the NT @home streaming before it disappeared. I'm now kicking myself for not knowing about this when I was in the UK last summer. While it looks great on TV - it must have been even more impressive live. And, while I read the comments above about the size of the Olivier stage- at least in the filmed version, this felt plenty "intimate". This is not a complaint - but after three hours (which flew), I was so invested in the characters that I wanted to know what happens next. It is not that the story doesn't have a stopping point - or that where this production stops isn't an appropriate stopping point - it is just that I felt like I was at the end of a chapter - and there was so much more story to be told. I'll be buying a copy of the novel - even if the novel doesn't go beyond where the play ends. Just a wonderful production and Leah Harvey was just astoundingly good.
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Post by NeilVHughes on Jun 25, 2020 15:21:24 GMT
I saw Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre at around the same time, an excellent companion piece as it reflected the life of the children of the Windrush generation in the 80’s.
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Post by londonmzfitz on Jun 25, 2020 15:59:48 GMT
I loved this, felt the screening worked very well and was absolutely drawn in from start to finish. I've been so easily distracted with many screenings but I was glued to this.
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Post by peggs on Jun 25, 2020 20:55:29 GMT
Yes very glad to see this having not being able to get a ticket I could afford and see from when it was on. So uncomfortable to watch in places and how little distance travelled sadly it seems in these times. Lovely use of the Olivier.
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Post by viserys on Jun 26, 2020 5:09:15 GMT
I loved this, too, brilliantly written and great performances. I do have one question though, which I'll try and put in spoiler tags... What happened to Michael? Where he did he go after his affair with Queenie and fathering the baby? I understand the symbolism of her giving the child to Hortense and Gilbert, but I'd still like to know where he had gone to and if he ever found out and was reunited both with his cousin Hortense and his own son? Couldn't help thinking there was still a great sequell in this!
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Post by londonmzfitz on Jun 26, 2020 11:10:32 GMT
{Spoiler - click to view} Micheal went to Canada, didn't he? It poses an interesting scenario though, doesn't it - present times with DNA testing and it could be proven that the baby and Mum are in fact related. I'm the daughter of Irish immigrants who moved to London from County Kerry in 1948, and settled in Kilburn (the No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs is something M&D would talk about). I've recently been contacted by my Mum's oldest sisters grandson through DNA testing, gave up her illegitimate son.
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Post by teamyali on Jan 12, 2022 11:29:12 GMT
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Post by poster J on Jan 12, 2022 23:22:00 GMT
Oh Leonie Elliot is excellent, I will definitely be looking to see this now, having missed the show I'd booked in the first run.
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Post by Stephen on Jan 13, 2022 0:45:42 GMT
Nice to see Mirren Mac being cast as Queenie. She was excellent in the great BBC Scotland Drama 'The Nest' I might see this again!
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Post by edi on Mar 5, 2022 10:11:51 GMT
I've just got some front row tickets for small island and when i paid i noticed it says restricted view.
I sat front row in the national olivier numerous time, it's never restricted.
Would you know what is different with this production?
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Post by juicy_but_terribly_drab on Mar 5, 2022 10:30:01 GMT
I've just got some front row tickets for small island and when i paid i noticed it says restricted view. I sat front row in the national olivier numerous time, it's never restricted. Would you know what is different with this production? I sat front left when I saw the original run and they were apparently restricted view as well but I didn't have any issues whatsoever so I don't think you'll have anything to worry about.
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Post by mkb on Mar 5, 2022 12:03:09 GMT
I've been to three different shows recently at the NT, and, at every one, my "restricted view" seat was unrestricted.
Unfortunately, it's become a case of boy crying wolf. On the occasion a seat really does have a partially blocked view, no-one will know in advance.
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