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Post by djdan14 on Apr 10, 2022 19:54:39 GMT
This is going into previews this week - anyone going?
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Post by Jon on Apr 10, 2022 20:09:43 GMT
This is now in previews - anyone going? It's not in previews until Tuesday as the first four previews were cancelled.
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Post by Dave B on Apr 10, 2022 21:10:03 GMT
Middle of next month for us. The usual £20 front row seats and had to go quite a bit into the run to find 'em when booking opened.
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Post by teamyali on Apr 11, 2022 9:06:03 GMT
This is now in previews - anyone going? It's not in previews until Tuesday as the first four previews were cancelled. They cancelled the first four previews due to director Dominic Cooke getting COVID, then he had to do a virtual tech run while recovering. He just recovered in time for the Oliviers last night.
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462 posts
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Post by djdan14 on Apr 13, 2022 20:45:47 GMT
Anyone been yet? Arrived in London today and see it quite heavily advertised on the underground. I’ve taken the plunge to book for Saturday
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Post by andrew on Apr 14, 2022 20:57:40 GMT
I'm waiting for the Theatreboard opinions to roll in before I book a ticket, so stung have I been by promising but ultimately rubbish National Theatre plays.
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Post by catcat100 on Apr 16, 2022 18:32:43 GMT
Really enjoyed this today.
Its a nice play which flows along quite nicely, its not one that has massive plot twists or will leave you in tears but its well done, very well acted and characters you believe in. So you end up leaving the theatre knowing that you've seen a good play. And there's some good welsh singing in there as well.
A good 4 stars from me.
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Post by Jon on Apr 16, 2022 22:41:52 GMT
Saw this tonight and it is a very solid play. Nicola Walker is great as Miss Moffatt but what I liked about the play is and I'll put it in spoilers to be safe The play has been reframed as a memory play with Gareth David Lloyd as Emlyn Williams constructing the play as it unfolds, it starts off with a bare set in Act 1 but by Act 2 it is a fully realised set. There is a moment in Act 2 where Emlyn stops the narrative in order to make changes which sounds weird but actually worked quite well. It's also made quite clear to the audience that the character of Morgan Evans is essentially a stand in for Emlyn himself. We had a 15 minute stop towards the end of the play due to an audience member falling ill but it ended at 2222 so not too bad a delay and the cast were able to pick up where they left off with ease.
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Post by jampot on Apr 16, 2022 23:29:02 GMT
Saw this tonight and it is a very solid play. Nicola Walker is great as Miss Moffatt but what I liked about the play is and I'll put it in spoilers to be safe The play has been reframed as a memory play with Gareth David Lloyd as Emlyn Williams constructing the play as it unfolds, it starts off with a bare set in Act 1 but by Act 2 it is a fully realised set. There is a moment in Act 2 where Emlyn stops the narrative in order to make changes which sounds weird but actually worked quite well. It's also made quite clear to the audience that the character of Morgan Evans is essentially a stand in for Emlyn himself. We had a 15 minute stop towards the end of the play due to an audience member falling ill but it ended at 2222 so not too bad a delay and the cast were able to pick up where they left off with ease. Bizarre as something similar happened at the matinee...
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Post by Jon on Apr 16, 2022 23:33:48 GMT
Bizarre as something similar happened at the matinee... The National must be prone to people falling ill!
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Post by marob on Apr 16, 2022 23:36:05 GMT
Will have to try and catch this. The studio space at my local theatre is named after Emlyn Williams, with a bust of him outside, but I’ve never seen any of his plays.
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Post by Jon on Apr 20, 2022 19:04:26 GMT
I notice they have two performances that are being filmed, I wonder if it's for NT at Home or for archive purposes.
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Post by Being Alive on Apr 20, 2022 20:06:53 GMT
I notice they have two performances that are being filmed, I wonder if it's for NT at Home or for archive purposes. It's not on the upcoming slate that cinemas have received (we don't know from Sept onwards yet but I'd assume the Sept one would be the Katherine Parkinson Much Ado)
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Post by dlevi on Apr 21, 2022 23:04:32 GMT
Saw this tonight and thought it was extremely satisfying. Dominic Cooke has found a way to frame the play so that it wasn't simply a revival of an old chestnut.A wonderful performance from Nicola Walker ( did we think she wouldn't be? ) a totally worthwhile and satisfying evening.
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Post by teamyali on Apr 22, 2022 5:53:20 GMT
I notice they have two performances that are being filmed, I wonder if it's for NT at Home or for archive purposes. I think NT answered a query about this on Twitter and they said they have plans for The Corn is Green to be in NT at Home, since no NT Live will happen. All of their shows have filmed performances that are in their archives now (their recent shows, Hex, Manor, Trouble in Mind, The Normal Heart, are all in their archives with filmed recordings. Even The Visit (the very long Lesley Manville play that was stopped by COVID) now has a recording available). Given the NT has a massive archive, how do the rest of the theatres preserve their archives? Does the Harold Pinter Theatre have a library of their previous shows? Where does the Almeida or Royal Court keep their files?
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Post by kate8 on Apr 22, 2022 6:32:41 GMT
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Post by harry on Apr 23, 2022 7:53:51 GMT
Saw this tonight and thought it was extremely satisfying. Dominic Cooke has found a way to frame the play so that it wasn't simply a revival of an old chestnut.A wonderful performance from Nicola Walker ( did we think she wouldn't be? ) a totally worthwhile and satisfying evening. Yes, this is exactly how I felt. The things that are lovely about those “old chestnut” revivals are still lovely, and the production, staging and framing of the story manages to cut through elements that might seem especially dated, or theatrically abrupt. All the performances are great. There is a lot of humour and coupled with the relatively low stakes mean it’s a very warm, low stress, entertaining evening. Which might sound like damning with faint praise but I was genuinely moved and captivated throughout - I just mean I enjoyed not having to worry if someone was going to get stabbed or shot or beaten up at any moment! I’d never seen the play before but the story or some version of it has been told in multiple other plays and films down the years and it’s lovely to feel how this play has perhaps influenced them, and maybe how they in turn have influenced this production. All in all, very highly recommended.
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Post by jek on Apr 23, 2022 8:16:28 GMT
We were there last night. I had no idea until we got there that it was press night. I think this skewed the audience in that it was much younger in the back half of the stalls where we were than I was expecting. There was lots of enthusiasm and a part standing ovation at the end as people saluted their friends in the cast. I'm old and knew the story well from repeated viewings of the film version with Bette Davis, which was one of those films that was regularly shown on BBC2 on Saturday afternoons in the 1970s. I also vaguely remember the Katherine Hepburn from 1979. You can see why, with a pedigree like that, Nicola Walker would want to take on the role. It was a treat to see her - the last time I saw her on stage was in The Curious Incident.
We did enjoy it but found the initial clever framing device to go on a bit too long (I felt a bit like I did once when I accidentally turned on audio description on my TV remote). We definitely enjoyed the second half more. I see it got a four star review in the Times and 5 stars in the Telegraph. I suspect it will be a winner in terms of getting audiences and the National must be thrilled about that. It was good to see the building back to its old buzzing self last night.
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Post by Rory on Apr 23, 2022 8:39:21 GMT
I think audiences have been starved of really classy, old school revivals so hopefully this will be a deserved big hit for the National (hurrah! It's been a while). Would love to see it.
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Post by kathryn on Apr 23, 2022 18:26:51 GMT
Really enjoyed this today! In fact I think it’s the best thing I’ve seen at the NT for ages.
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Post by fossil on Apr 24, 2022 16:14:02 GMT
Middle of next month for us. The usual £20 front row seats and had to go quite a bit into the run to find 'em when booking opened. If you have front row seats they may be changed. There is an extension to the front of the stage that overhangs all of the front row except for four of five seats at each end of the row so only these seats were occupied. I had a centre front seat for yesterday's matinee which the box office upgraded to an excellent centre stalls seat in the main block which I regard as a very good result for me. As for the play. I enjoyed it. The performances are excellent but I found the framing device somewhat irritating at times.
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Post by showgirl on Apr 25, 2022 3:51:26 GMT
I saw this at Saturday's matinee and though I can see it was a good production (and very enthusiastically applauded at the end), it seemed inconsistent and did not cohere. Nicola Walker, of whom I'd heard but had never seen in anything, seemed either to be in a different play or to have been put there solely to show up and mock the other characters - speaking quickly, dashing about, running rings round everyone else for most of the time and relentlessly "modern" in all she said and did. I know this was partly the point and I haven't the advantage of reading the book to see how true to it this interpretation was but even her speaking style seemed anachronistic for the period setting. The squire, though entertaining, was a complete cariacature as was Miss Ronberry as the disappointed spinster, whilst Bessie Watty wouldn't have been out of place in an Oscar Wilde play. So a curate's egg but I'm glad to have had the opportunity to see it and clearly in this the NT appears to have the hit which it needs.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2022 21:42:12 GMT
I’d really like to see this, but the NT seem to still be insisting on masks in the auditorium and I find them very uncomfortable to wear for long periods (for various reasons I won’t bore you with, as I don’t want to derail the thread).
If you’ve seen this play recently, can you please give me a sense of what mask compliance is like among the audience so I know whether I can risk booking? Eg 25%, 50%, 95%…?
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Post by Jon on Apr 26, 2022 21:44:38 GMT
I’d really like to see this, but the NT seem to still be insisting on masks in the auditorium and I find them very uncomfortable to wear for long periods (for various reasons I won’t bore you with, as I don’t want to derail the thread). If you’ve seen this play recently, can you please give me a sense of what mask compliance is like among the audience so I know whether I can risk booking? Eg 25%, 50%, 95%…? The mask mandate wasn't enforced when I went.
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Post by justinj on Apr 26, 2022 23:11:05 GMT
I’d really like to see this, but the NT seem to still be insisting on masks in the auditorium and I find them very uncomfortable to wear for long periods (for various reasons I won’t bore you with, as I don’t want to derail the thread). If you’ve seen this play recently, can you please give me a sense of what mask compliance is like among the audience so I know whether I can risk booking? Eg 25%, 50%, 95%…? Went tonight, bar a couple of signs there was nothing to suggest you need to wear a mask. I’d say about 5% of the audience were wearing masks, maybe less.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2022 18:36:58 GMT
Thank you everyone, looks like I can risk it. Hooray!
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Post by Steve on Apr 28, 2022 22:37:34 GMT
Dominic Cooke is one of my favourite directors, and lifts this dated on-the-nose play by his staging, and by casting Nicola Walker, who is always worthwhile. For me, a four star production of a three star play. . . Some spoilers follow. . . As far as inspirational teachers go, I think movies like Dead Poets Society or Dangerous Minds, or even To Sir With Love, go a lot further dramatically in developing the characters of the pupils and teachers and the relationships between them. Here the pupils are massively underdeveloped as characters, and plot developments, which are the primary driver, are archaic and dated. That said, the milieu is the strength of the play, and Dominic Cooke, who directed the National's spectacular Follies, takes inspiration from that show's strengths, and gets in lots of Welsh mining singing choruses, as well as the dramatic device of having the main character exist in two different timelines at once, by having the character of Emlyn Williams on stage, reading the stage directions, witnessing and staging his own story. I was reminded of how effective this same device was in the Young Vic's "The Inheritance," with Paul Hilton's terrific E. M. Forster, guiding us through his story, but this is a pale imitation of that, as the character of Emlyn Williams is, for the most part, limited to Williams's own stage directions, rather than being fully characterised. How Iwan Davies's dashing charming extroverted Morgan Evans (the playwrights alter-ego) becomes the introspective haunted Gareth David-Lloyd was an anathema to me for almost the entire running time, but the plot developments satisfactorily resolve this question, and this resolution is part of Cooke's crafty and successful imagining. This is the least interesting play I have seen Nicola Walker do, as "Seasons Greetings" was better plotted, "Curious Incident" better characterised, "Di and Viv and Rose" better plotted and better characterised, and "A View from the Bridge" was an all round tour-de-force masterpiece in every way. But you really appreciate an actor when they have less to work with, and Walker brings a welcome mischief to the by-the-numbers set-up, and when she finally gets some worthwhile meaty scenes, especially with Iwan Davies (who is terrific) in the latter half of the play, they both really shine. I feel there are better plays about teachers (not least "The History Boys, "The Browning Version," "South Downs" and "Quartermaine's Terms") but if you want to see a solid but dated play about an inspirational teacher superbly done, Dominic Cooke and Nicola Walker are hands that can be trusted to make a good night of it. 3 and a half stars from me for some solid old fashioned entertainment.
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Post by jojo on Apr 29, 2022 16:55:56 GMT
We did enjoy it but found the initial clever framing device to go on a bit too long ( I felt a bit like I did once when I accidentally turned on audio description on my TV remote). We definitely enjoyed the second half more. I see it got a four star review in the Times and 5 stars in the Telegraph. I suspect it will be a winner in terms of getting audiences and the National must be thrilled about that. It was good to see the building back to its old buzzing self last night. I love this explanation. We've all been there, confused by why the voice-over won't shut up. But I've found that audio description can add a lot of value to cheesy dramas, especially the ones that don't realise they are cheesy. I feel for the poor people trying to describe sex scenes, but it's probably quite a skill to describe the way characters give each other knowing/dodgy looks without drawing too much attention to what is supposed to be a subtle clue that something is amiss. Great news that the National seems to have a decent show on their hands.
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Post by jek on Apr 30, 2022 9:58:28 GMT
Thanks jojo. My own personal favourite audio description moment was during an episode of Doctors. I must have sat on the remote as I had no idea I had turned on the relevant button. It took me a good ten minutes to realise that it wasn't one of those episodes of Doctors when they had let the work experience student/young graduate director loose. I mean they've had some weird episodes over the years (I'm not an everyday viewer but used to catch it often enough to recognise the characters). There have been flashbacks, episodes in black and white - all the sorts of things you'd reckon could be comfortably tried out when not too many people (or at least people who could be reckoned not to count - housewives like me, for example) were watching. I really did think it was just the TV production crew being a bit kooky. I was quite disappointed when I realised it was all down to me. Yes it really is good news that The Corn Is Green is proving to be a winner. Apart from anything else I want to see all those young people they employ front of house not having to deal with fed up customers who feel they've been short changed by a production, or watching the mass exodus at the interval (I felt really guilty collecting my coat half way through George and The Dragon, for example!)
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Post by Mark on Apr 30, 2022 10:04:01 GMT
Glad to read the positive reviews. I managed to pick up a Friday rush ticket for next weeks Saturday matinee.
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