Reader Reviews
Embers (Duke of York's Theatre, West End)
Back to Show Details| Score | Comment | Date |
 | This is what the West End Theatre is all about. Go and enjoy Jeremy Irons, his performance was excellent as was the play. - 217.44.105.31) | 09 Jun 06 |
| Pointless. A complete waste of the considerable talents of the actors, director and writer. - 80.177.231.164) | 28 May 06 |
| Mr Irons was very hairy And I was slighly lairy, There goes act one and oh act two But still Im so bored I stare at my shoe, But here's three cheers for the theatre bar, A place to place to drink that's not too far. Forget this European angst, Get another whiskey and give God thanks. I really did like his beard. - 80.47.76.76) | 26 Apr 06 |
| Interesting if flawed, Irons gives it his all in the second half and is mesmeric whilst Malahide just sits and smokes, which was bizarre as Malahide was the only one actually playing his character as aged, Boht supposed to be playing 93,purlease! The part where Irons takes the diary and (well you'll have to see the play) had the crowd gasping in shock. Now the major flaw is that after 40+ years the final confrontation should be more than what we get and all the forewarning of the gun comes to naught, although I'm convinced that after the final goodbye he's going to shoot himself. Was it just me or was the lighting done so that at one point the shadow on stage became that of the dead wife? - 62.254.189.98) | 03 Apr 06 |
| This is a play that has clearly attracted mixed reviews both in the press and here and so obviously it strikes a chord with some but not for others - for me I thought it was utterly beautiful and poignant and brilliantly adapted. The understated performances were filled with pathos and I left the theatre totally moved. - 82.43.199.20) | 27 Mar 06 |
| This play troubled me. Whatever convinced the management to put it on. It might have worked as a radio play perhaps but static performances and little drama gave it the equivalent of theatrical lead boots.Jean Boht and Patrick malahide seemed at times to be in a different play and Jeremy Irons just spoke to himself.It managed to send plenty of the audience to sleep but at these prices we should expect better froim the West End. - 88.104.233.146) | 25 Mar 06 |
| This is an odd one: it's really high quality work on so many levels (the writing, the acting, the production values.....) yet it never succeeds in catching dramatic fire. Having Jeremy Irons one-sidedly reminiscing with Patrick Malahide just doesn't produce much interest, despite the fact that Hampton's writing is exquisite. But where's conflict and dynamism? It's an odd structure too: Act 1 lasts barely 30 minutes while Act 2 goes on for over an hour. The consummate acting and sheer beauty of Peter J Davison's set cannot disguise the fact that this is rather thin fare, albeit elegantly rendered. - 195.82.123.181) | 23 Mar 06 |
| Matinee performance, 22 February. While I can appreciate the forgoing comments about the performance, the central problem about this play is the failure to convey what it is really about. Those in the audience we spoke to who had read the book appreciated the play through having the book in mind. The most central point of the book, the cultural significance of the decadence and collapse of Austria-Hungary for the middle and upper classes (rather like the experience of White Russians), is completely omitted from the play. We have here two eccentric English county/imperial types, only one of whom has the gift of speech, masquerading quite ludicrously as Austrian gentry and nobility. Christopher Hampton has such a good track record of understanding and conveying the meaning of early 20th century Central European literature (particularly Schnitzler) that my disappointment at this massive misfire was all the keener. All we are left with is the peculiar obsession of two strange English fish out of water, which produces impatience followed by incredulity and ultimately exasperation or boredom in the audience. - 82.45.198.140) | 23 Mar 06 |
| We saw this on the 8th March, with some trepidation having read the reviews, and I am sure that it must have improved greatly. Jeremy Irons was giving a performance worth watching although I found myself wondering whether this was a radio rather than a stage play. To test this theory I closed my eyes, which proved to be a bit of a mistake as when I opened them again Patrick Malahide had disappeared and the faithful female retainer was taking a curtain call. However I found myself feeling sadly disappointed that I had missed the performance rather than relieved that I had not had to endure an evening of tedium. - 72.14.192.53) | 19 Mar 06 |
| Saw this on the night of the 20th and it sounds like there has been some improvement but not much. Jeremy Irons clearly stumbled over his lines several times, but more troubling is the fact that the writing lacks bite or wit and the near monologue grows tiresome. Poor Mr. Malahide has little to do but sit awkwardly in his chair. - 24.147.169.46) | 27 Feb 06 |
| "Embers" was a complete catastrophe. I suppose, it wouldn't have been so bad if Mr. Irons had troubled to learn his lines. As it was, he waffled them at least 5 times in the first half (and I'll have you know that the first half lasted all of half an hour). In the second half, in the height of his emotional monologue, he had to be prompted from behind the scene 3 (three) times. In one of those the prompt had to read on, because the first sentence didn't seem to ring a bell. I haven't seen anything like it since my third-grade school play. As you can imagine, this quite dampened the mood. "Embers" is a play based purely on emotions, and the emotions simply were not there. After all, every time Irons paused, I wasn't sure whether it was a "theatrical pause", or whether he was trying to remember what he was supposed to be saying. The fact that one of Patrick Malahide's bushy eyebrows fell off mid-performance also didn't help. It also didn't help that he smoked a sigar and blew the smoke into the audience, making people in the first two rows cough. At one point he had an emotional tear running down his face, which I hoped had a little to do with the embarrassment for the abyssmal performance. Perhaps, it's unfair to expect a decent performance on a preview night? But if they don't expect to perform that well, maybe they shouldn't charge the full ticket price? It was embarrassing... really embarrassing. The audience was full of Hungarian people, who presumably hoped for a great staging of their classic. I shouldn't wonder if Hungary sends the ambassador home after this. As it is, I feel like Mr. Irons owes us the price of the tickets, and an apology. We travelled to London for 6 hours - for this? - 84.64.145.63) | 18 Feb 06 |
| It may be unfair to score this on the basis of the opening night of the previews, but this was immensely disappointing. Jeremy Irons' leading performance has potential, and he undeniably has huge stage presence in what is a demanding role. HOWEVER he fluffed his lines on numerous occasions - and had to rely on the prompt three times. Inexcusable - although one felt genuinely sorry for him as he struggled through to the end. The whole play feels unbalanced - neither of the other two actors has more than a few sentences in the whole play; the first act lasts only 30 minutes before the interval; the second turns (virtually) into a monologue by Irons (which makes his inability to remember his lines, to his obvious embarrassment at the curtain call, all the more frustrating). We were hugely disappointed. Hopefully by the proper opening night, everything will be more polished. - 84.64.145.63) | 16 Feb 06 |
