8 replies to this topic

[Parsley]

Thought this was really excellent.

Maureen Lipman is simply outstanding in her role.

Initially I thought the dialogue was a bit sparse (in fact the whole play is less than 2 hours and that's including the interval).

Whilst I think the play itself had some room for improvement, less is sometimes more and there were so many thought provoking issues raised here.

It's not a satisfying story, in terms of a beginning, middle and end but for me it offered food for thought and I am still pondering some of the topics, such as ageing and should the "older" generation be helping out the financially helpless "younger" one....
Also made me wonder about friends and family, where do you draw the line and how the 2 can be blurred.....

SImply staged and something a bit different for Lipman too.....not that cheery for xmas though, I warn you!

[Pharaoh's number 2]

This is my first show of 2013, so pleased to hear it's good.

[Latecomer]

Mine too! There 2nd Jan!

Pharaoh, on 18 December 2012 - 06:24 PM, said:

This is my first show of 2013, so pleased to hear it's good.

Mine too, there 2nd Jan!

[Pharaoh's number 2]

5th Jan matinee for me, followed by the Dear play at the Almeida in the evening.

[VDCNI]

Saw this a few weeks ago and thought it was very poor. Three generations of unpleasant women living mundane lives and treating each other like dirt. Nothing about it stood out at all with the acting, writing and production all pretty average, an utterly pointless 1hr and 40 minutes plus a 20 minute interval purely for bar sales purposes presumably as the play didn't need it.

[fringefan]

I'm also going to a Sat matinee in Jan and think I will enjoy it.  For one thing, it will be well-established by then and for another, the more favourable reviews have tended to come from older audience members, which is where I sit.

[Latecomer]

I agree with everything Parsley said ...he summed it up really well. It went quite well with The Republic of Happiness as my double bill as both had a bit of a theme of family stifling one. The description in the short write up of the play doesn't really describe what happens very well, it is a bit more subtle than "granny discovers how to have fun after husband dies" and I thought Lipman gave a lovely nuanced performance.

Also loved supporting cast, especially mother Helen Ryan, who was superb.

Special mention to Tracy-Ann who did an excellent job of caring on when an audience member decided to join in very loudly "he's not being very nice" shouted out by some confused old dear, followed by her mobile going off and then more aloud talking until she was hushed by people near! Quite the kerfuffle

Ironically (for those who have seen the play) I was delayed on leaving as daughter needed me to phone her about moving rooms in London, so it meant I was late enough to bump into Maureen Lipman on leaving! She was lovely, I asked if she was enjoying the part and she said she loved it and people kept coming up to her and saying their life was exactly like the play! She had lovely dangly jade elephant earrings!

[Pharaoh's number 2]

Latecomer, on 02 January 2013 - 11:32 PM, said:

I agree with everything Parsley said ...he summed it up really well. It went quite well with The Republic of Happiness as my double bill as both had a bit of a theme of family stifling one. The description in the short write up of the play doesn't really describe what happens very well, it is a bit more subtle than "granny discovers how to have fun after husband dies" and I thought Lipman gave a lovely nuanced performance.

Also loved supporting cast, especially mother Helen Ryan, who was superb.

Special mention to Tracy-Ann who did an excellent job of caring on when an audience member decided to join in very loudly "he's not being very nice" shouted out by some confused old dear, followed by her mobile going off and then more aloud talking until she was hushed by people near! Quite the kerfuffle

Ironically (for those who have seen the play) I was delayed on leaving as daughter needed me to phone her about moving rooms in London, so it meant I was late enough to bump into Maureen Lipman on leaving! She was lovely, I asked if she was enjoying the part and she said she loved it and people kept coming up to her and saying their life was exactly like the play! She had lovely dangly jade elephant earrings!

She was wearing a purple kimono and bare footed when I bumped into her at the Menier a couple of years back! I agree though, I was pleasantly surprised by this. Act one I thought was good, but it really came into its own in the second. Nuanced is really the right word to describe Lipman's performance; v different to anything else I've seen her in. This was quiet, understated. And the play was, for me, quite hard hitting. The grandma wanting new life after husband died, having a bad 40 odd years marriage, controlled by husband etc is exactly what happening in my family, to the extent that my aunt and uncle don't want to speak to their mum ever again. So it really rang true. The whole younger generation despising the older generation, wanting money etc is in the same vein as Haussmans and Love Love Love. I did think that the play shifted between too many locations, and the outside the pub scene was a bit unnecessary, as was the second funeral section - it was too crude- but on the whole, this is well worth a look, and the author Sarah Wooley is someone I'll keep an eye out for, from now on.

[Ian]

Extremely enjoyable, not least for the performances of the three related women. I thought some of the dialogue looked like a  left over from earlier cuts (what was the menacing scene at the end of Act 1 for?), and more could have been achieved if Fiona was not quite so self-centred and actually deserved some form of inheritance. Nonetheless the production hit some uncomfortable buttons, as the idea that each generation should have better lives and prospects than the previous one is a prospect about to hit the buffers in this age of austerity.