[Bryan99]

Was at the first of three performances of Lolita at the National last night and frankly, if I was Brian Cox I would take a short trip to Bruges for the remainder of the run. A total disgrace. Nowhere was this advertised as an unrehearsed reading! It would have been more-or-less acceptable to expect the audience to swallow the "reading from my diaries" conceit if there was a smidgin of nuance or story-telling to the performance. But there was nothing. What's more - he seemed, bizarrely, to be going for the weirdest laughs available. Surely your bloody should run cold when Lolita says "wasn't that the night you tried to rape me?" but instead it got a laugh - you didn't know who to feel angrier at - the performance for going for it or those members of the audience who took the bait and laughed. Baffling. Throughout the long long long evening you were left thinking - "it is possible for this to be a fanatastic monologue piece - why is it so terrible?" - the answer was that the NT has shortchanged their audience (is this the arrogance of giving a £10 audience what they pay for?) with minimal rehearsals and a greenlight to an actor and director who thought that this level of imagination (none) and preparation (next to none) was acceptable. Disgraceful. My friend said that all concerned should go for a Swine Flu Excuse for the next performances. My vote remains Bruges.

[nlc]

Oh dear. I'm seeing this on Monday. Perhaps I ought to give it a miss.

Is there nothing redeeming about it?

[Laughingmonsta]

but Bryan - as certain people on here will come to tell you, you were at the first show, which is clearly a preview and you shouldn't expect a performance or any rehearsals!

Personally, it sounds disgusting and if you got a reading and it wasn't advertised get in touch with the National and get your money back! show the theatre that you want take it and hit them where it hurts!

[armadillo]

It's a one-person show running 1 hour and 45 minutes - did anyone really expect that would be an interesting way of spending an evening?

[Bryan99]

Laughingmonsta - good advice regarding the refund - we are too quick to say "oh well" and write it off as a bad experience! I'm afraid I'm not happy to write it off as a preview though - and neither were the National - the place was packed full of critics!

armadillo - "Nocturne" at the Almeida last year - one man, 1'45'', no interval - unforgettable - show of the year!

nlc - no, nothing!

[El Peter]

The cast list comprised Brian Cox, which made clear to me that nobody else would be involved in whatever the National was going to do with 'Lolita'. Anyway, I quite liked it.

[curzon]

The cast list comprised Brian Cox, which made clear to me that nobody else would be involved in whatever the National was going to do with 'Lolita'. Anyway, I quite liked it.

Me too. I had forgotten what a truly horrifying book it is. Particularly insidious is the way some of the scenes impinge firstly as being highly erotic and then you remember he is talking about a 12 year old girl. Deeply disturbing.
Several posters talked about Brian Cox "just reading" but from my seat there didn't actually appear to be any writing in the notebooks. If there was it was pretty damn faint.
It was certainly an evening which required a high level of concentration from the audience which was obviously a commitment too far for the the family in front of me who spent the whole time extravagantly shifting, whispering, drinking and snogging (I hope the two snogging were not actually members of the same family!!). A depressing insight into the modern inability to concentrate for any lenght of time.

Seb

[El Peter]

"Several posters talked about Brian Cox "just reading" but from my seat there didn't actually appear to be any writing in the notebooks. If there was it was pretty damn faint."

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You're right, Seb, there was little or no reading going on much of the time. What the director had Cox do, in order to provide some movement on stage and give the audience pause, presumably, was go to this or that box and select one of the notebooks every so many minutes. Once opened, each notebook seemed barely referred to.

[The Suburbanite]

I saw it last night and really enjoyed it, and cannot reconcile my experience with that described at the start of this thread. It didn't appear in any way unrehearsed, and I found it spellbinding. The director's notes describe his attempt to reclaim the story from the film interpretations, or at least to provide an interpretation unshackled by having a pretty young girl right there in front of you, and therefore allow you to take on board the full impact of the story entirely though the telling of it. For me, while being a big fan of the Kubrick film (didn't see the other one), this approach worked.

There were a couple of minor titters at the 'rape' line and in all such situations I'd blame those audience members who have chosen to find humour in it (although it may be more of a 'nervous' titter).

I hadn't seen Cox on stage before and enjoyed his performance, for performance it was and definitely not a reading. His character refers to having written a diary, which he then appears to occasionally read from, but it seemed to me he was handling it more as a prop and there were substantial passages when he wasn't holding it at all. If last week's one was as unprepared as it sounds, I too would feel short changed. £10 is only cheap if what you're getting is good. But happily, I was more than satisfied with what I got.

Right, that's me done. Cheeri-bye all.