4 replies to this topic

[armadillo]

Read and discuss

[Alexandra]

What an appalling whinger that man Neilson is. There are plenty of places doing new plays. There are not, of course, as many new plays being done as are being written, but that's because most of them aren't very good - you only have to see a load of stuff at Edinburgh to realise that. I don't think the classics are dying in this country (and I doubt Mendes really does either) but I'd say the current balance was about right.

And, on the subject of Mendes, I'm thrilled about the new Old Vic initiative. It strikes me as being great for Spacey and great for audiences - such a coup to get Stephen Dillane. I  can't wait to see his second go at Hamlet (the oldest Hamlet I will ever have seen, but I'm sure he's up to it - this seems to be the season of middle-aged Shakespeares!) and his Prospero. Fantastic news.

[coated peanuts]

There is just about the right amount of classics for me. I haven't seen all that many, so I still have the pleasure of my first Rhinoceros and my first Richard II ahead of me, but those are the plays I want to see as well as interesting new plays. There seems to be a wave of Neilson hatred floating around at the moment and while some of his comments were a bit inflammatory, all he is saying that he'd like to see more new plays being performed. Not an unexpected opinion from a playwright, really. Personally, I am looking forward to watching Dissocia and I'm also exited about seeing yet another Seagull.

[Alexandra]

I don't hate him or his work. As he admitted in his comments under the article, he's a self-publicist and this is generating some useful publicity for him. But he's still a terrible whinger.

[coated peanuts]

I don't hate him or his work. As he admitted in his comments under the article, he's a self-publicist and this is generating some useful publicity for him. But he's still a terrible whinger.

Yeah, he does go on a bit. He seems to have really gotten up a lot of people nose with his original article. I've come across a few places were his play was panned and the article was used as evidence against him. I guess if you write something about 'other writers should't be so boring' you should expect a lot of flak.