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Post by lonlad on Mar 20, 2017 8:47:11 GMT
The idea of George Clooney and Angelina Jolie as George and Martha is certainly, um, a novel one .....
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Post by lonlad on Mar 11, 2017 7:24:27 GMT
Oh dear: coy and patronising and faintly embarrassing, I'm afraid. The Improbable team could take a leaf from Caryl Churchill's extraordinary Escaped Alone as regards writing for the elderly without getting all cutesy and cloying about it. The audience responded like doting friends and or children/grandchildren but it's a very long 55 minutes and pretty much a total waste of time. No Charlie Kay last night, by the way.
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Post by lonlad on Mar 9, 2017 0:48:57 GMT
Richard Bean's new play is supposedly kicking off their season .....
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Post by lonlad on Mar 9, 2017 0:10:01 GMT
Christian is in it now? Fantastic -- and very easy on the eye:-)
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Post by lonlad on Mar 8, 2017 6:48:07 GMT
The way the ever-nonsensical Oliviers are going, there will be a nomination one year for Every Actor in a West End Show for their Contribution to London Culture ..... it's stupefying, and not worth taking seriously, and the bar was set this low 20 years ago with the nomination from TOMMY of someone from the ensemble who didn't even have a named part .....
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Post by lonlad on Mar 8, 2017 6:39:46 GMT
Really lovely production, gorgeously designed by the great Anna Fleischle and infinitely more engaging than the Trevor Nunn version at the Haymarket. Daniel R. looks a tad overwhelmed by it all in ways that have nothing to do with the character, but he's a game observer of the great McGuire and Haig, both of whom are sublime. Between this and V WOOLF, what a week for ace revivals !
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Post by lonlad on Mar 6, 2017 0:02:31 GMT
>> His manipulations as Iago was subtle but enthralling that before he says "what says he then that says i as a villain" a few audience members were oohing and hissing at him. When he picked out a woman in the pit she rebuked with "I am watching you", and he replied "I'm the one who's talking here"
Gosh, sounds like the production has the subtlety of a sledgehammer. I don't go to Othello to engage in pantomime theatrics.
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Post by lonlad on Mar 5, 2017 11:53:39 GMT
Hill a total revelation and not camp at all ---- plays it with a sense of gathering defeat and sadness that, just as he's about to bottom out, comes back as if recharged, this time for the kill. Imelda has quite a few Momma Rose-isms intact but she's still a dynamo. Imogen Poots is remarkable --- one of the best Honeys I have ever seen, and much more than the usual giggly sad sack that the character can become.
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Post by lonlad on Mar 5, 2017 3:43:12 GMT
Wasn't it glorious? A complete triumph for all concerned.
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Post by lonlad on Feb 26, 2017 0:21:33 GMT
THEO !!
(As for the rest of it, well .......... )
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Post by lonlad on Feb 25, 2017 9:27:22 GMT
See AAIP - it's far and away the better show - and fresher, in any case.
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Post by lonlad on Feb 25, 2017 1:07:14 GMT
It's 95 minutes :-)
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Post by lonlad on Feb 24, 2017 0:26:50 GMT
LOL re the Mail. Interesting casting - she may surprise us temperamentally and emotionally if she can muster the breath control needed for that marathon first act, which is a killer. O'Connell an intriguing choice as well. Let's see who they get to play Big Daddy .....
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Post by lonlad on Feb 22, 2017 1:12:17 GMT
It's a noxious show but if you want a quietly pro-Brexit vehicle with no people of colour or anyone "other" - and you've already seen Half A Sixpence - well, welcome to it.
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Post by lonlad on Feb 20, 2017 23:20:47 GMT
It's becoming a trademark -- like Rufus Sewell's inability to project beyond the second row, bless him
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Post by lonlad on Feb 20, 2017 23:10:48 GMT
Funny you mention Chris P's gait in your elegantly worded review - he did the exact same thing at the performance I saw of DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY and I assumed it was meant to be spectral or otherworldly but perhaps he just doesn't know how to walk? He's VERY odd casting for Nicky -- for one thing, he doesn't begin to have the sheer size and stature to persuade anyone that Fanny would give this guy a second look.
Oh well.
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Post by lonlad on Feb 16, 2017 0:49:41 GMT
How is the wonderful Oliver Chris?
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Post by lonlad on Feb 14, 2017 0:19:48 GMT
At Buried Child tonight, 4 people in the 2nd row got up and left about 15/20 minutes into the first of the three acts - with Ed Harris within punching distance, should this great actor have wished to take issue with their rudeness .....
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Post by lonlad on Feb 13, 2017 1:46:50 GMT
At the McBurney play at the Barbican on Friday a guy had his iPad on for a sizable chunk of the play and NO ONE TOLD HIM TO PUT IT AWAY - I would have done but he was well at the other end of the row in front of me so my silencing him might have created an unnecessary scene .... did no one near him care?
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Post by lonlad on Feb 13, 2017 0:12:09 GMT
Interesting that Bordeaux preferred Sher, who played Carr as if reciting the language to a metronome -- as par for the course with this actor, he didn't begin to connect with the part emotionally. Hollander, by contrast, is tremendously moving, as well as verbally deft.
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Post by lonlad on Feb 12, 2017 2:22:52 GMT
Comparing TRAVESTIES to Donald Trump is so perverse and preposterous that it defies analysis - and doesn't need further comment.
This is actually a glorious production of a difficult play - MUCH better than the previous RSC one with the dreadful Antony Sher.
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Post by lonlad on Feb 9, 2017 23:40:08 GMT
What's The Verdict?
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Post by lonlad on Jan 22, 2017 12:03:10 GMT
Doubt it will transfer since Scarlett has a gig coming up in NY at Encores! and I can't see that they would replace her - also the show almost never been a commercial hit. It's a critics' darling, not a commercial one.
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Post by lonlad on Jan 17, 2017 17:26:47 GMT
Saw it last night. Very poor. The grey, drab design is ugly beyond belief and the cast sinks with the proverbial ship. Gabriel Vick is a charmer in the right role, but this is not that role. Members of the creative team yammering away during the performance didn't help but it's too late now - the die is cast.
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Post by lonlad on Dec 14, 2016 0:39:52 GMT
Rufus's voice always sounds like that - his vocal husk is part of who he is - in the Donmar CLOSER he was barely audible from the third row - but he's still sexy and wonderful :-)
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Post by lonlad on Dec 14, 2016 0:34:57 GMT
It's obviously flailing on the vine - no surprise since there's nothing to sell it aside from Charlie's charm
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Post by lonlad on Dec 13, 2016 1:33:20 GMT
A stunner - ranks with the v best of Ivo van Hove's prolific output and Rafe Spall in particular is scarily brilliant - but they're ALL good. What a year this has been for actresses, between McCrory, Piper, Glenda Jackson, the Donmar Shakespeare women, and now Wilson, who would have a third Olivier in her sights if the competition weren't so intense.
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Post by lonlad on Dec 11, 2016 18:20:40 GMT
And Ron Cook on press night of THE CHILDREN and the female lead in SHEPPEY and Clive Francis the other week in AN INSPECTOR CALLS -- I guess memorisation ain't once it what was ,,,,, all good actors, though!
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Post by lonlad on Dec 11, 2016 18:18:04 GMT
No mice on press night.
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Post by lonlad on Dec 11, 2016 11:02:34 GMT
Vocal rest for a lead prior to the press coming in (or, in the spring, Tony season) has now become more or less the norm for musicals in NY, so that is what has been happening here -- there is no evidence that Amber was or is "under the weather" - if anyone, it is/was Curtis, who has been out already several shows during the past week, who sounded the most fragile last night - these things happen.
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