Find content
Has it ever been this close to blowing the fuses? I can't remember a hotter period for plays with big names/Dames.
Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Rowan Atkinson, James McAvoy, Rupert Everett, etc., all performing within half a mile of each other, and doing huge business. Great to see plays putting musicals (bar Mormon) firmly in the shade right now.
- Whatsonstage.com Discussion Board
- → Viewing Profile: Topics: young offender
Community Stats
- Group Full Members
- Active Posts 113
- Profile Views 1652
- Member Title Advanced Member
- Age Age Unknown
- Birthday Birthday Unknown
-
Gender
Male
Contact Information
3
Neutral
User Tools
Friends
young offender hasn't added any friends yet.
Latest Visitors
Topics I've Started
West End Star Wattage
08 March 2013 - 01:47 PM
The Turn Of The Screw
11 February 2013 - 10:05 AM
I saw this on Saturday, my first visit to the Almeida. Well, I did turn up two weeks ago but it was cancelled due to illness.
Is the haunting real, or is it all the hysterical imagination of the governess? Somehow this version tries to have it both ways: there’s a strong Freudian thread, complete with nightgown disturbances, no doubt to keep Islington’s psychotherapists interested; but at the same time it’s made explicit that the children are indeed corrupt, and the play relies for its Hammer-sponsored shocks on the all too real appearances of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. The subtleties of the novella (or the film The Innocents), where it’s all about the uncanny glimpse, are lost.
Setting this confusion aside, is the play scary? There are a few jumps, and an ingenious trick with a blackboard, but nothing as heart-stopping as the ‘back from the grave’ moment in Deathtrap a couple of years ago. If this is angling for a West End transfer, it will need something comparable.
It’s all very capably played, but Laurence Belcher (at 17) is really too old for Miles – he was in the Donmar’s revival of The Late Middle Classes in 2010, and would have been perfect for this then.
Is the haunting real, or is it all the hysterical imagination of the governess? Somehow this version tries to have it both ways: there’s a strong Freudian thread, complete with nightgown disturbances, no doubt to keep Islington’s psychotherapists interested; but at the same time it’s made explicit that the children are indeed corrupt, and the play relies for its Hammer-sponsored shocks on the all too real appearances of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. The subtleties of the novella (or the film The Innocents), where it’s all about the uncanny glimpse, are lost.
Setting this confusion aside, is the play scary? There are a few jumps, and an ingenious trick with a blackboard, but nothing as heart-stopping as the ‘back from the grave’ moment in Deathtrap a couple of years ago. If this is angling for a West End transfer, it will need something comparable.
It’s all very capably played, but Laurence Belcher (at 17) is really too old for Miles – he was in the Donmar’s revival of The Late Middle Classes in 2010, and would have been perfect for this then.
- Whatsonstage.com Discussion Board
- → Viewing Profile: Topics: young offender
- Forum Terms & Rules
