56 replies to this topic

[Honoured Guest]

My "Alan Ayckbourn" comment was intended to respond to Epicoene's immediately preceding post. Alan Ayckbourn notoriously scheduled new play titles at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, to be written and directed by himself, and sometimes wrote them in their entirety in about three days just before the start of rehearsals.

The Count of Monte Cristo was to be a family show, neither young people's nor children's theatre. I agree it should ideally be replaced by another family show but I fear some compromise will be inevitable due to the very short timescale.

[simon from oxford]

Ayckbourn may well have written in that way - but this is not the case with Bean.

He was working on his treatment of Monte Cristo at least 5 years ago (it was mentioned in a BBC documentary on R4)

The fact that it was programmed in an incomplete form is somewhat amazing

Unless it turned out that his script was actually not going to work - in which case, what is going on in the programming department?

Either way, this shows there are problems in the upper reaches of the RNT - and the sooner a new director is appointed, the better.  The whole thing needs fresh leadership

[Honoured Guest]

That's why I'm very curious to learn about the replacement. If the NT has other projects in development which they may be able to bring forward, this "putting back" will be merely an embarrassing hiccough. But if they have to whip up something from scratch, it could be very plain fare and an embarrassing disaster.

On the other hand, I seem to recall a similar NT scheduling chasm loomed at short notice in the 1990s. In desperation, the NT invited a relatively little known young director-designer team to remount a hoary old 1930s rep classic which had been surprisingly well received in their York production a few years previously. The creatives were Stephen Daldry and Ian MacNeil, the play was JB Priestley's An Inspector Calls, the rest is history...

[Epicoene]

There are a few similar examples in NT's history - for example Trevor Nunn programmed and directed "South Pacific" at short notice because "Coast of Utopia" was not ready. There are several RSC examples too - Mike Leigh worked for weeks with them on something that turned out to be so "not ready" it never appeared at all.

[Lynette]

Sometimes I wish I had a magic wand and could wave it over rehearsals...'Not ready' whoosh it disappears.

[Epicoene]

The BBC Shakespeare in the olden days had a famous "not ready" too - their production of Much Ado (with Chichester's own Penelope Keith) turned out, after they had completed i,t to be so not ready they threw it away and re-filmed it with an entirely new cast and director.

[Honoured Guest]

Often, it's the audiences and the critics who aren't ready. Think The Birthday Party, Blasted, Merrily We Roll Along.

[armadillo]

Epicoene, on 22 June 2012 - 01:11 PM, said:

There are a few similar examples in NT's history - for example Trevor Nunn programmed and directed "South Pacific" at short notice because "Coast of Utopia" was not ready. There are several RSC examples too - Mike Leigh worked for weeks with them on something that turned out to be so "not ready" it never appeared at all.

There was the Frogs which made it as far as the brochures, I think, and then they remembered they'd forgotten to get the copyright

I assume the BBC didn't actually throw Much Ado away - it would be fascinating to see what was wrong with it (especially as most of the BBC Shakespeares were fairly tedious school matinee affairs)

And did we ever hear what happened to the promised Trevor Nunn Follies at the Haymarket?

[Nosferatu777]

Considering the phenomenal ticket sales for "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time", would it not make sense to just transfer it to the larger auditorium for the Xmas slot once it has finished in the Cottesloe?

[Honoured Guest]

How about a winter berth after its arena tour for J C Superstar - ideal for the Olivier.