Has anyone else seen this yet?
I went last night having studied a lot of Thomas Paine at University and wanted to see it all being brought to life. I really enjoyed it and it does focus on his life in the midst of really interesting times such that some events seem to get mentioned in passing.
Keith Bartlett is really engaging as Benjamin Franklin who provides the narration to Paine’s life. He makes a pretty comic figure in comparison to Tom Wilkinson’s Franklin in the John Adams HBO Series. John Light as Paine himself conveys the man who stuck to his ideals throughout convincingly and does a pretty good Norfolk accent.
The real star for me was Jamie Parker who other than Paine seemed to be in every single scene. He played Matlack with a rough New England accent rousing the rebels, then Jefferson with a more refined southern accent charming Paine and quelling arguments. He also briefly played Marat when Paine visits France (sadly there was no bath scene, sigh!). He sings, he conducts a choir, he plays the guitar. He’s fantastic! When is he going to be cast as a lead instead of the brother or friend??
On a more mundane level the play seemed to overrun at just over 3 hours instead of 2hr 45. And the language is pretty strong at some points which didn’t bother me but a little girl and her mother who’d been to see it were on the same bus as me and I over head the conversation. ’Mummy what does c*** mean?’
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