Reader Reviews
Southwark Fair (Cottesloe (National Theatre), West End)
Back to Show Details| Score | Comment | Date |
 | A shame that this play, which starts off with great promise, degenerates into an incoherent mess with largely 2-dimensional characters. The best scene by far comes early in the first half, featuring Rory Kinnear and Con O'Neill in a cringe-worthy dinner date that has shades of Abigails Party written all over it. I thought Rory gave a great performance throughout and is by far the most likeable character on the stage. The one armed grunge songstress was extremley irritating, to the point where I could understand why Con preferred to dabble with young men. For anyone who saw Con O'Neil in Telstar, as I did, it is disappointing to see him almost reprise his nervous break-down in this play, using all the same facial tics and movements. Yes, there is a clever device which makes the play slightly more understandable in the second half-the problem for me was that I really didn't care about the characters. It was all rather far-fetched and pointless. My tip-don't spend more than £10 on this. - 212.135.157.226) | 06 Jun 06 |
| I should think once again that Peral Marsland should be on this show. it would add wit to it! - 82.227.142.141) | 22 Apr 06 |
| I thought by the end of the first half what the heck is going on here and I must admit I was slightly confused with what the point of this play was but by the end everything like in all good plays became clear. The acting is excellent and I enjoyed this play and encourage all to see it through to end. The second half is the best though. - 152.163.101.12) | 16 Apr 06 |
| I saw this on Wednesday night & I loved it. There's some beautiful writing - contemporary, sharp & funny with a dark undertow. Also three award-calibre performances from Rory Kinnear, Con O'Neill & Madeleine Potter, wonderfully tough & vulnerable. - 81.170.5.39) | 06 Apr 06 |
| Extremely enjoyable new play for the National. The direction was slick, extremely good acting particularly from Rory Kinnear and Con O Neil. Occasionally the plot could be a bit too much but to be honest i didnt really care as this was a feel good experience. Nothing exceptional, but thoroughly enjoyable. - 80.47.46.22) | 06 Apr 06 |
| I really loved this: true the structure is a bit meandering and the playing with time device has been done before (Ronald Harwood's "Another Time" back in 89 for example) and there are moments when Adamson seems intent on overdoing the cookie eccentricity, yet I found myself being really drawn in to the weird and wonderful characters and their predicaments. The dialogue is wonderful; I laughed alot and was really touched by the end. It may not be an accurate reflection of Southwark life but it is warm and enchanting. In Nicholas Hytner's attractive production the entire cast acquit themselves well but I particularly liked Rory Kinnear's acid-tongued urban prof (nice contrast to alot of the other things I've seen him do), Margaret Tyzack's adorable old eccentric, and Michael Legge's smart, lovelorn waiter. Con O'Neill turns in another manic, troubled homosexual and Madeleine Potter is engagingly tortured as his shrill, arty wife. Hugely enjoyable. - 195.82.123.181) | 06 Apr 06 |
| ok. we did leave in the interval. but neither of us has ever felt the need to do that before, especially at the national theatre. we were disinterested in all of the characters by the end of the first half, none of them were in any way likeable or had redeeming features and therefore we didnt really care what happened to them. It should have been cut by at least 20 minutes, and what on earth were those comedy songs at the end of act 1? we felt the play was a cliche, and although some of the comedy lines were clever, we would not describe this play as a comedy. although we did have trouble containing our giggles... - 86.143.156.219) | 02 Apr 06 |
| I think many of the previous reviewers are spot-on with their comments: the play is slight and fluffy and it doesn't seem to go anywhere. Ibsen, it ain't. Some of the scenes drag a little and you can't help thinking that a 20-minute cut would have made things tighter. Still, for all that, it's an enjoyable piece with some cracking lines - and impressive performances from Rory Kinnear, Con O'Neill and the lovely Michael Legge. The final scene sends you out of the Cottesloe with a smile on your face, so it's not all bad. - 193.130.127.205) | 31 Mar 06 |
| I didn't leave at the interval and it's not being mean to expect a play about contemporary London to be vaguely about contemporary London, not Camberwick Green. Seriously this entire play - minus a few tick-box fatuous references to London governance - could be set in any small parish anywhere. The protagonists behave like they're in a parochial ITV country drama. This is simply not how the metropolis works. Forgive us for hoping, expecting, we might get something palpably about the multi-fractured multi-cultural city in which we actually live. This was entirely alien to me. Maybe it's meant to be whimsy, I don't know. But why? I don't need to see a cute, friendly, sanitised version of London to know these are things which it is not. Rory Kinnear's character is the only credible one (or at least the always impressive Kinnear makes him so) but he's stuck in the wrong play. I would have been fascinated to see the character's real life - to have seen him at work and socially with his real peers - not in a contrived narrative like this with a disparate selection of characters forced to each carry about seven archetypes on their shoulders and mingle with other archetypes with whom they wouldn't vaguely interact in real life, just to express the multiethnicity of London via a small cast. I really hoped for so much more from Adamson after his bruising, modern adaptation of Pillars of the Community. That, in fact, though it's set miles and years away, seemed closer in tone and truth to the London we live in than this naive fluff. I'm sorry if that sounds mean. But if I somehow owe Southwark Fair my kindness then it at least owes us as smidgen of authenticity. - 194.81.216.130) | 24 Feb 06 |
| By the interval I thought this was a charming but slight play which belonged in the Bush or Soho Theatres. By the end I had changed my mind. There is a roundedness and humanity about this cleverly structured piece which won me over. I think every other reviewer either left at the interval or is being a bit mean ! - 86.130.208.41) | 24 Feb 06 |
| one hilarious scene, the rest is diverting at best. only three of the characters feel real - the others are only characterised by their quirks, and they're annoying when they're on stage. the narrative folds in on itself for no apparent reason. the ending is loose and lame. still, fine performances, particularly from michael legge, rory kinnear, and con o'neill (who have something to work with). (the set, on the other hand, with its strange mix of literal and figurative elements, is something of a mess.) - 213.78.86.76) | 18 Feb 06 |
| The first act looked very promising, with very funny moments and some bold pacing, pretty much all of which is to be found in what feels like the lynchpin of the whole piece, namely the restaurant scene with Patrick and Simon (Con O'Neil and Rory Kinnear). Awkward silences are stretched to breaking point, but it's hysterical. But, having established some good rhythms, it's all lost in the second act. It's as though all the play's nuts and bolts fell out during the interval. Part of the reason for this is the use of a neat structural turn-around trick that can work well and be very effective - only here, I found it removed from the play everything that had made the first act good. A real disappointment. The cast do well with what they're given. Don't go looking for anything distinctly Southwark-related, apart from a few superficial references the play could be set almost anywhere. - 194.80.238.40) | 17 Feb 06 |
| The heart sinks when a play advertises so eagerly its desire for contemporary relevance. A flimsy and very unsatisfying comedy of errors here throws in references to anything of interest in present-day SE1 - particularly around the City Hall development, so Ken gets regular name-checks - but its plot is so laboriously contrived and implausible that the reality of 2006 seems far distant. Welearn that unfulfilled gay Simon was once taken advantage of by Patrick, the director of a school production of the Dream; 18 years on, the same man (who would now be seen as a paedophile) has contacted him again, and he looks on it as his romantic dream realised. But it turns out Patrick has misremembered, and harbours fond memories of sexual fumbling with another of the cast (now a leading barrister). In the play's best scene, this emerges excruciatingly during a bibulous lunch at the Chop House. Meanwhile, Patrick's deranged rock-chick wife, who sports a prosthetic hand, is stalking them. In and out of the story wander a borderline senile actress (who once appeared in Catweazle), a "trainee barista" (Polish initially, but subsequently revealed to be Hungarian-Canadian - for no good reason) and his male fiance, the Deputy Mayor of London. A boxing glove suposedly worn by Brando is occasionally flourished, and changes hands more frequently than a mediaeval love-token. Sounds intriguing? It isn't. Despit a few waspish arias from Simon, the whole enterprise has no fuel in the tank, and just slows to a stop: the final, would-be touching scene, wanly accompanied by a dirge duetted by the wife and a happy-go-lucky Aussie rucksack boy, is one of the most embarrassingly lame conclusions to any drama of the past few years. Director Nicholas Hytner's determination to bring new writing to the NT receives ritual applause; but surely there is far better available in the theatre's slush pile than this misbegotten commission. - 80.3.32.6) | 15 Feb 06 |
