Honoured Guest

[Coughs]

I'm watching a live relay on television of this longrunning show. Black Rod is being played today by an amalgam of the two Vicious queens Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi. HM Queen (Helen Mirren, I presume) is on the throne in her crown. Dennis Skinner (playing himself) has interjected: "Royal Mail to be sold. Queen's head privatised".

Pharaoh, on 18 April 2013 - 01:40 PM, said:

It depends... If you want to experience this temporary venue's promised innovative and buzzing theatre for the dawn of a new generation, etc., etc., then I'd recommend giving this a firm miss. If you primarily like to see your favourite actors and it so chances that one or more of them is in this, then you'd probably find it a pleasurable experience. It struck me as a more-than-decent, well-acted production of a bog-standard new play which the NT thought it might as well put on because it had spent nearly three years workshopping it and it would be a waste to just write-off that investment. There's nothing wrong with it but not much special either. The newspaper critics' reviews (mainly awarding three stars) have all been generous, benignly noticing the better aspects, probably because they want to support the venture of the Shed, looking forward to its full programme over this forthcoming year.

How refreshing!

Once upon a time there was a new play about stories by Anthony Neilson.

To be continued.