42 replies to this topic

[Pharaoh's number 2]

Jamiem, on 15 July 2012 - 10:51 AM, said:

Do you think that David grindlay seats easily alongside Matthew warchus, nick hytner, rob ashford,
Stephen Daldry, Michael Grandage, Marianne Elliott, Thea sharrock and Rufus Norris

His production of Journey's End won the Tony for Best Revival, and his recent production of Copenhagen in Sheffield got very good reviews. No, his work may not be as high profile, or as frequent, as those you mention, but he is not a bad director (and neither is the rest of his creative team), as your post seemed to suggest.

[Jamiem]

I didn't say he was a bad director, I just said he wasn't premiere league

[Honoured Guest]

The original post seemed unnecessarily malicious in intent, despite being accurate. However, I think it's good to have some plays directed with an excellent straight bat, without the directorial spin of many of the "premiere league".

[Jamiem]

"malicious in intent"  - it was my opinion
"excellent straight bat" - can sometimes mean dull
"directorial spin" - is not obligatory in the premiere league

[savethekakapo]

If the Journeys End you are talking about was the one that ended up at the Duke of Yorks then I agree it was a really good production - far better than other West End versions that i've seen in the past.

PS Love the 'before Sky ruined it' comment.

[jaqs]

I quite enjoyed this last night, some lovely performances. Lots to think about.
The scene changes will hopefully tighten in time.

Only bad thing was coming out to the professional autograph sellers with their arms full of clipboards blocking the way.

[Pharaoh's number 2]

Is the 2 hour running time accurate?

[armadillo]

jaqs, on 27 September 2012 - 08:13 AM, said:

I quite enjoyed this last night, some lovely performances. Lots to think about.
The scene changes will hopefully tighten in time.

Only bad thing was coming out to the professional autograph sellers with their arms full of clipboards blocking the way.

None of whom will have seen the show, obviously. I wonder what Rory or Neville's signatures got for on eBay? Not enough to make queueing worthwhile I would have thought

[jaqs]

Pharaoh, on 27 September 2012 - 08:16 AM, said:

Is the 2 hour running time accurate?

Finished at 10.15 last night I think, so 2.5 hours including interval.  It may have started a bit late and it should absolutely tighten up.

[unlikelyheroine]

I saw this last night and I must have been missing something as everyone in the audience seemed to be enjoying themselves and hooting with laughter (I do think some of them were female fans of Laurence Fox and Arthur Darvill) whereas I didn't get too much from this. To me it was a reasonable, passable play and production but nothing more, and having read a couple of reviews suggesting the play was extremely funny from the off, I was disappointed that a huge number of the jokes fell flat for me. A lot of the humour is based on men's private parts (both front and back... hmm) with more hilarity apparently being derived from a character who has received a severe head injury, and thus has imperfect speech, swearing. I wasn't convinced and I didn't laugh much. Like I say, maybe I am missing something!

I suspect I don't have a clue about theatre (!) as I didn't see anything to justify this play getting a West End production with a quite strong cast and am unsurprised the piece has not attracted much attention for twenty years. There is not much to it. My partner who attended with me commented that the switches between humour and drama were unsubtle and there was no proper story and I had to agree, it didn't all fit together for me.

Laurence Fox's performance is a bit strange - at times he was great and other times seemed to be rushing through his lines and not concentrating. Matthew Lewis was consistently good although the part did not ask too much of him. Cian Barry as Keith and Lewis Reeves as Ian were the best on the night for me.

Re running time and scene changes, the play does need tightening up as noted above and for a show with one set there are a lot of fade to black scene changes, particularly in the second half. There were so many scenes opening and closing that the pacing was more television than theatre to my mind.