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Post by bellboard27 on Jan 7, 2019 15:53:05 GMT
Tonight's performance cancelled due to cast illness
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Post by bellboard27 on Jan 2, 2019 18:07:52 GMT
The Obamas’ take on Les Mis!
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Post by bellboard27 on Dec 23, 2018 11:04:46 GMT
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Post by bellboard27 on Dec 22, 2018 20:19:47 GMT
Going to Pinter 6 matinee on 3 January and Pinter 5 a couple of days later
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Post by bellboard27 on Dec 19, 2018 23:51:22 GMT
Reports on MTAS on Facebook of sexual activity in the auditorium during this evening's performance of Bat out of Hell. Not sure how credible this is - but I don't think I have heard of oral sex being performed in the audience at a musical before... Yeah, but it was the person next to them noisily unwrapping a Werther's Original that really p*ssed people off! I don’t believe the wrapper is a suitable substitute for a condom. But, hey, I’ll give it a go and report back.
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Post by bellboard27 on Dec 16, 2018 13:07:37 GMT
At the Harold Pinter dress circle I sat next to an elderly couple. The woman next to me fell asleep before the start and slept through almost the entire thing. Every so often she would start to snore, but her husband was on top of things and stopped her quickly - again and again. Afterwards she had the gall to tell a FOH staff that the sound where she was sitting was terrible. After she concluded her complaint, I then said to the FOH that I had sat next to her, that the sound was perfectly clear to me and that, in any case, it is difficult to hear anything if one is asleep for the whole show.
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Post by bellboard27 on Dec 13, 2018 9:58:23 GMT
This year my shows are around a couple of hundred again (still several to go). The main highlight for me was the Ring Cycle at ROH – from the anticipation of the first sustained chord to the final standing ovation. Other highlights – The Inheritance (Part 1), ENB’s Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, Caroline or Change, Company, Summer and Smoke, Julius Caesar at the Bridge and a rather good production of Chicago in Paris.
In the “I want to poke my eyes out” category was Brief Encounter.
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Post by bellboard27 on Dec 11, 2018 13:16:56 GMT
For Heaven’s sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell short stories of the death of kings.
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Post by bellboard27 on Dec 9, 2018 23:12:13 GMT
During Camden Fringe it should be straight forward to do 6 or possibly 7 in a day, but I think I’ve restricted myself to 4 a few times mostly because of not fancying what else was on offer.
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Post by bellboard27 on Dec 9, 2018 21:21:30 GMT
Dear Lovely People of Great Britain, Could I politely request, should you feel the inexplicable compunction to hang 3 miles of fairy lights around your front acreage, that you refrain from using the primary colour blue? You see, I keep thinking the Old Bill have business with me when they reflect in my rearview mirror. Classic guilty conscience!
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Post by bellboard27 on Dec 9, 2018 20:39:06 GMT
Thanks. I've been wondering what this might be like. I nabbed a couple of bargain seats for next week a few days ago - so looking forward to it all the more!
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Post by bellboard27 on Nov 12, 2018 18:51:53 GMT
I’ve noticed the National Theatre is selling a book entitled “Feminist”. It consists entirely of blank pages.
Of course it’s just a notebook.
OR
Could they be sending some subtle message I can’t figure out?
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Post by bellboard27 on Nov 11, 2018 12:14:03 GMT
When you say picked on by the cast @ryan do you mean more than just been featured to etc? Should I be worried in the front row? I can cope with being hit by a bread roll. I had a chat with Rufus Hound, name, how are you, what do you do, made fun of my name etc, had a few quips between us, was addressed by another actress twice and held hands with another actor and was pulled up at the front of the stage to stand over him and "protect him" from Don Quixote. Pretty similar to what happened to me a week ago. I was sitting middle of the front row. I had made eye contact with Rufus Hound earlier, so I suspect that singled me out as his victim for that evening. Personally, I'm quite comfortable with this, but others might not be!
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Post by bellboard27 on Oct 31, 2018 20:37:04 GMT
At Siegfried tonight I’ve seen quite a few that were at Myerling last night. Clearly there’s quite a few that can’t leave the ROH alone.
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Post by bellboard27 on Oct 11, 2018 11:01:22 GMT
A musical about incest. That is a niche No, that is a niece. And at least it keeps things in the family. About time. Others have been a disappointment. For example, I found Sister Act did not live up to expectations in this regard.
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Post by bellboard27 on Oct 2, 2018 12:03:24 GMT
The first venue I can remember in London where I turned up for a play and was told I couldn't take water in was the CLF Art Café in Peckham. And that was a few years ago.
The ENO is such a contrast to the ROH. My God, for the Ring Cycle I know that I (along with many others) will be taking in serious quantities of food and drink for the intervals as everyone camps out for picnics in the available spaces!
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 30, 2018 19:05:12 GMT
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 30, 2018 8:15:59 GMT
I saw/experienced this at The Old Market in Brighton. It is closing there today, but it has been touring in various countries for the last couple of years and it may pop up anywhere, so I thought it worth some comment in case others wonder about going at some point. It is a mix of live performance and VR. It lasts about 40 minutes. Trigger warnings were issued beforehand. They are listed below. Sometimes with trigger warnings in shows, they are pretty fleeting. For these (especially 1-5), they were extensive and immersive. Not for the faint hearted! 1. Violence 2. Death, including suicide 3. Blood and organs 4. Dead animals 5. Nudity 6. Underwater submersion 7. Sharks 8. Body contact 9. Nausea 10. Heat 11. Heights 12. Unknown fluid consumption 13. Strobe lights Doom Room was developed in Copenhagen and information is here: doomroom.dk/pages/doomroom.htmlEach show has a maximum of six participants. However, when I went I was on my own. This intensified the experience! Afterwards I happened to wander past the stage door where a couple of performers were hanging around. This gave me a chance to talk through their ideas, if only briefly. I am putting the rest in a spoiler! {Spoiler - click to view} The experience starts in a dark corridor. A woman appears at the end. She beckons me to join her. She is totally naked, but painted black. She takes my hand, leading me to a room where I sit. In front on me she performs a ritual. She then comes over with a silver bowl. In it are some hearts (lambs’ hearts I guess). I take one. There is congealed blood on it. After some time, I am asked to kneel in front of her. She takes the heart, then gently washes me, removing any blood. Eventually I get up and she leads me to another corridor. Before leaving her, she takes my hands, standing close and stares into my eyes for what seems like ages. I leave her and head down the corridor.
Talking to her afterwards, it seems this part is partly a challenge of intimacy – being comfortable with a naked woman touching, etc.,. Apparently some find this a bit much and they are very interested in audience reactions. I had no problem, though. With the hearts, there is a challenge of dealing with blood and organs. It seems that some do leave at this point. I wondered what vegetarians/vegans make of it!
The next section is VR. This starts with me sitting in front of a dead deer. I cut into its abdomen and remove its heart. I place it alongside the lungs and liver on the grass. There is a commentary asking me to relax, etc. I take a knife and slice open the heart. I play with my hunting rifle. Eventually I put it into my mouth and pull the trigger.
The VR then continues to a range of very odd images. One sequence involves school children, but joining them is Denmark’s tallest man, so perspective is a bit odd! The images continue for some time, but are frankly confusing. Eventually I am joined by a naked man in the VR. Someone takes my hands for real and leads me out of the room. He takes off the headset and it is the naked man from the VR.
Afterwards there is a relaxation area to have a drink and talk. I spoke to the theatre FOH there. She had done the show and had found the images as confusing as I did!
The first half is much more of a challenge than the second. I don’t have problems with animal organs. This does seem to be difficult for some participants. Frankly when the heart was sliced open, my initial reaction was “I wonder how much blood is still in there?”!
Overall, there were some interesting parts to this. I am not sure what the totality of the show is really meant to say, however. However, if it does come to a venue near you and you feel up to it!
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 30, 2018 7:32:52 GMT
There is another on at the end of October - Twelfth Night at the Young Vic: www.youngvic.org/whats-on/twelfth-nightI don't know yet what to make of it myself, but it sounds like it might be fun and it would be quite different from Macbeth and give another view of Shakespeare.
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 29, 2018 15:25:49 GMT
Stephen Sondheim at Pinter 2 today.
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 24, 2018 9:43:44 GMT
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 23, 2018 22:33:58 GMT
So we do have someone on the Board who knows a thing or two. Don’t worry. It won’t stop the rest of us.
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 23, 2018 21:04:37 GMT
I think it’s a harmless type of king snake which mimics the venomous coral snake. I was in the front stalls and it seemed a lovely creature.
Just be grateful that when Antony is describing a crocodile he doesn’t bring one on to assist in the process.
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 23, 2018 8:19:13 GMT
Went to this in the Raimund Theater last week. It is a juke box musical, but they are songs were not familiar to me. The overall feel was a musical of 20-30 years ago, rather than something created more recently. But it is pleasant enough for that.
It tells the story of a Hollywood star who returns to her native Austria to realise that that is where her heart really is and to find love. All rather straightforward and sugary. Running time 2 hours 50 minutes including 20 minute interval.
The staging is impressive. A great use of the revolve with very versatile sets and projections. Being in Austria it has to showcase its cakes, so including some singing torte is a nice touch. It also has the first on-stage helicopter I have seen since Miss Saigon – with a precarious mountain landing.
The performances were variable. Of the two leads I felt Irena Flury was excellent, while Martin Bermoser felt under powered.
On seating. My German is limited. There are English surtitles in two levels either side of the stage. I booked a seat in the 1st Rang (dress circle) to one side. This worked well for the surtitles as the angled view of the stage meant that they were within my eye line. I also decided to book a €10 cheap seat due to it being behind a pillar. I booked the seat 2 rows back from the pillar and found that it caused few problems (I was worried that the surtitles might have been obscured). So a real bargain compared to the others around it. In any case, the aisle seat next to me was empty, so I moved over to a more expensive seat.
Finally, there was a curious interval “show”. Looking out of the window from the 1st rang level across the street are various flats. Immediately opposite there was a young guy with his window open, curtains open, doing his cooking only in his skimpy underwear. Did he think he wasn’t observed? I doubt it.
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 23, 2018 7:51:24 GMT
I rather enjoyed this. I also felt Fiennes was better in the second half and Okonedo in the first. McMullen is very good. I was less taken, however, with Kasim’s Caesar. Overall the 3 ½ hours flew by for me.
Agree the set is impressive and great to see the drum revolve being given a good outing.
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 22, 2018 16:29:00 GMT
Having read comments here, I went in with some trepidation. Shouldn’t have worried. This gripped me from start to finish. The time rushed by. Funny and moving and great commitment from the cast - I loved it.
I did worry about how many young (10 years and younger) were in. I suspect some embarrassed parents! I can see how a play about children learning to dance might seem like children are a target audience (if you don’t read the website in detail)!
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 18, 2018 8:24:18 GMT
I went way back for the first preview - the £10 front row seats were a bargain. I also liked this. I was pleased that in having a story where the police controlled the women in the village through sexual violence, this was committed off stage. We know what this means and this avoided gratuitous depiction of this without diminishing the impact.
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 16, 2018 17:47:18 GMT
I went on one of the 4pm slots - quite a lot of younger kids were there.
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 14, 2018 21:45:56 GMT
After various discussions about the target audience age for Heathers, I’m pleased to report seeing Peter Bowles and Roy Marsden at the gala tonight with a combined age of 158.
Edit: forgot the more important person there: LMM himself.
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Post by bellboard27 on Sept 14, 2018 8:42:43 GMT
Well Mary and I have something in common... And I was thinking it was something to do with only going down if some sugar was involved.
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