Noticed (and surprised) there wasn't a thread on this(or I've gone blind) It was my first trip to see theatre so my review won't be too detailed but Matthew Kelly, in particular, is absolutely fantastic in this(I've made a point that if he is another play I will see it) as is David Dawson taking on the role of Gethin Price. I'd say all round fantastic casting(even Keith Allen!)

Anyone else seen this and able to give a better review than me!

It's just "Comedians", by the way. I'm looking forward to seeing it soon.

I'm wondering whether to go and see this - from reviews it seems as if it has dated badly ? Just like the works of that other old Marxist Brecht in my view. If it wasn't tricked up with celebrity casting I doubt many would be interested (though I think Keith Allen is a very underrated actor, actually).

However, if it really was based on "The Comedians" I'd be far more tempted to see it - James Fleet could play Ken Goodwin.

Yes, I can imagine Fleet saying in that weak fey sort of voice "I'm a riot, aren't I".

I'm such a theatre newbie I didn't even know there was another Comedians(with a The!) I heard many in the intervals say they didn't realise it was going to be set in the seventies(and that explains why I heard so many tuts during the more sexist material!) I do wonder if people went because of Allen, Kelly and Reece Shearsmith rather than the revival.

I think the artistic director's reason for reviving it seem odd; to appeal to X Factor generation but even with free tickets for the under 26s I, at 21, must have been one of the youngest there. It's cast certainly wasn't making it appeal to a younger generation and the older generation either have seen it before(perhaps even the original cast) and will just be interested in seeing a good play but a well known playwright.

Oh, that was just a little aside for my fellow board dinosaurs. David Bradley could play Colin Crompton.

"Comedians" kick-started the careers of Richard Eyre and Jonathan Pryce - I remember seeing it on TV (with the original cast I think), must have been late 1970s. Griffiths was a fantastically fashionable writer then, Laurence Olivier pratically begged to be in one of his plays and appeared in his tedious exploration of the gradations of British left-wing opinion "The Party". I saw this revived by the RSC, I think it was Roger Allam who got lumbered with the 20 minute speech - him and the audience. It seems like another era, as distant as that of Terence Rattigan.

Bradley as Compton ("Members of the Committee, we've decided the club should get a new colour telly. We're getting a blue one")- yes! You're good at this, Jan Brock. Perhaps casting early 70s comedians is your thing.

Yeah I too recall that screening of Comedians, with the young and intense Pryce, and if I remember correctly, Jimmy Jewel as the instructor. Was it still that period of having beloved stage comedians playing in dark dramas - Charlie Drake doing Beckett, etc?

Rattigan's plays are a lot fresher now than anything by Griffiths I would imagine, as anyone who has seen recent revivals of The Deep Blue Sea or The Browning Version will attest. Wasn't The Party Olivier's last theatre performance? Not Lear or John Gabriel Borkman but John Tagg. Most odd.

In the RSC version Iain MacDiarmid played Tagg and really rescued the whole thing with his fantastic stage presence.

This is a good little thread, as the great Ken Goodwin would say "We're having a good time aren't we !"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpQRBgVmCV8

Some fantastic audience reaction clips in that, eh ? In other clips from The Comedians quite a few of the audience are sitting there smoking cigarettes during the show - did that ever used to happen at theatre ?

Thanks Jan! I've just wasted five minutes watching that! He didn't really need an audience, did he? I'm old enough to remember him but my parents didn't watch it so don't recall much about it.

A bit late now, but saw this at the weekend and loved it. Excellent revival and not a weak performance.