Reader Reviews
The Hothouse (The Playhouse, Oxford)
Back to Show Details| Score | Comment | Date |
 | I'm confused as to whether I saw the same play as the reviewer. Went to see this completely by chance after the concert we were in Oxford to see was cancelled. It was only at the interval that we clocked it was actually a student production - remarkably good and on par with many professional Pinter productions I have seen! The acting was nearly flawless. The Lighting and Sound Effects were incredible. - Richard | 07 May 12 |
| Thoroughly entertaining. Extremely well executed. Very professional. - John | 16 Feb 12 |
| This is ‘political’ Pinter: lacking the realist security of his other early plays. It needs to be funny, it also needs a scrunch or two of dystopian fear. The performance managed to establish this (often curiously light) tone quickly and contained it throughout. I assumed the director thought there were no patients. If the doctors are the patients, it follows the characters’ combative exchanges are not about melding but carving out pecking-order . So there needs to be distance between the protagonists. Why should Cutts deal with Lamb’s mild flirtation when she’s about to put on the electrodes? This was provocative, nightmarish, Kafkaesque early Pinter with plenty of slow-burning menace. And I don’t think a penny was wasted on the back-projected surveillance system. They have their exits and their entrances on three cameras each – with the audience in the role of Big Brother. - Julian | 09 Feb 12 |
| a brilliant , sparkling production of a Pinter Play. all three of my party enjoyed every moment , and the applause at the final curtain was deafening. memorable. so glad we made the journey on a very cold night. we were warmed by the performance. - Martin | 06 Feb 12 |
| I have to say that I almost entirely disagree with this review. The sense that the actors are not 'a group working together' is neither true nor a failure in the production. It is the characters in The Hothouse who do not work well as a group, and the actors convey this through their individual and I felt, very thoroughly thought through, performances. I also felt that the set design was superb, and that the humour was spot on what I was expecting. The only criticism I share with Tavener of this performance is a feeling that the underlying menace in the script was not fully exploited. However, surely the act of choice in performance is a major aspect of what Pinter is about- the script allows for a humourous emphasis, or an emphasis on the sinister, or a mixture of both. This performance leans towards the humourous, but there are also moments of shuddering unpleasantness: the ominous noises, increasing in length and volume, and the sound-torture scene has possibly the most impactful stage design I have seen in a student production. - Will | 02 Feb 12 |
