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Synopsis If it were all to end... Where would you go? Who would you see? What would you do? On a farm in the North East of England a family gathers. Three of the UK's leading playwrights come together to create an epic play about the very end of time. Ages 14+
The epic new play - penned by three leading playwrights (and close friends), David Eldridge, Simon Stephens and Robert Holman - is set on a Northumbrian farm, where a mother gathers her sons together as the universe begins to crumble.
As well as marking a unique collaboration of three acclaimed dramatists, the press night of A Thousand Stars was significant for another reason - it marked the final review from Benedict Nightingale as of chief critic of The Times, a position he has held since 1990. One of the industry's most respected voices, he has been reviewing since the late 1950s over the course of what the Guardian dubbed recently a “monumental career”.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (four stars) - “Here are characters etched in sharp relief, having the conversations we all know we should have but probably never will. This sense of concentration and valedictory resolution is stamped all the way through Sean Holmes’ superb production … what is most striking is the attempt to 'write' theatre, something not often done since the heyday of Edward Bond and Howard Brenton. The old mother (a magnificent Ann Mitchell) slowly washes her naked eldest son (expressive Nigel Cooke), who is dying of cancer, in a tin bath … John Bausor’s design, a clear thrust stage with a cycloramic sky and a constellation of light bulbs, cleanly incorporates a hospital in Middlesbrough, a bar in Manchester, a park in Stockport, and a house in Twickenham. The show is a great achievement all round, and will surely spark further explorations by these three talented spacemen.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (two stars) - “Considering it’s about the impending end of the Universe, A Thousand Stars is less bang than whimper and, at times, melancholy bleat … aside from a story about the murder of a traffic warden who is ticketing abandoned cars, there’s little sense of catastrophe off stage and not much more on stage … The problem may be that it’s written by almost as many dramatists as Labour tried to bring parties into its doomed coalition … At the risk of sounding terminally southern, I wonder if setting their piece on a northumbrian farm isn’t a problem, too … I fear I wished the world would end sooner than it did: a pity for me, too, for this review marks my own end as chief theatre critic of The Times.”
Henry Hitchings in the Evening Standard (two stars) - “This collaboration between David Eldridge, Robert Holman and Simon Stephens confronts the idea of apocalypse, in a manner that seems, if the paradox is not too much, darkly optimistic … A penny-farthing makes an appearance, but the main accoutrements of apocalypse appear to be cheese, snails, scones and - a little more excitingly - erections ... The text is spangled with lovely touches - starbursts of poetry and toothsome observations - and the play as a whole has an unusually ruminative air … There’s much less precedent for a three-way partnership, though, and it’s resulted here in a piece that, while locally intriguing, lacks narrative energy or even a cogent sense of purpose.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (four stars) - “What touches you is the play's absence of hysteria and its attention to human detail. In one stunning scene, worthy of DH Lawrence, William's 71-year-old mother washes every inch of his pain-racked body as he stands naked in a tin bath. The careful removal of William's prized watch stirs memories of how it was a gift from his grandmother, who herself received it from her Jewish refugee lover. Together, the writers have created less an apocalypse drama than a family saga that explores loveless marriage, fraternal rivalry and the undisclosed hurts of everyday life … Sean Holmes' production, played against Jon Bausor's expansive cyclorama, is impeccably acted. The cast are unforgettable … But the triumph belongs to the writers who, against the odds, have achieved a play full of terminal stoicism and grace.
Patrick Marmion in the Daily Mail (one star) - “There’s a certain kind of writer who likes to wear his miserablism on his sleeve. Here we have three … The writers wisely avoid dwelling on the quantum physics behind this event and stick to the story of five brothers … The most interesting thing is the way time is accelerated and reversed, as a result of the cosmic crinkle. Otherwise, the play is basically a soap opera elevated to the level of mystical experience … The acting is uniformly strong, or at least realistic … Maybe the world will end not with a bang but a whimper, but I doubt the countdown will be this dull.”
The new play at the Lyric Hammersmith, A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky, is a fine collaboration between David Eldridge, Robert Holman and Simon Stephens. And, as film critic Barry Norman used to say, why not? The Elizabethans and Jacobeans wrote together, so did Arden and D’Arcy, Hare and Brenton, and several other fringe dramatists in the 1970s.
The intrepid trio of good friends started off in the National Theatre studio sharing a pen and a roll of wallpaper. They ended with a trenchant domestic epic played out in the shadow of the apocalypse.
Three weeks before the cosmic string destroys the universe, the five Benton brothers converge on the family farm and their ancient mother, unravelling old arguments, finding new paths, seeking closure, if not reconciliation.
Here are characters etched in sharp relief, having the conversations we all know we should have but probably never will. This sense of concentration and valedictory resolution is stamped all the way through Sean Holmes’ superb production.
You can identify bits of Holman in the nature poetry; of Stephens in the Stockport chapters and news of panic in the cities, where customers in department stores are defecating on perfume counters; and of Eldridge in the domestic recapitulations, notably, perhaps, in the suddenly maturing friendship of one of the brothers and the grandson he has raised alone.
But what is most striking is the attempt to “write” theatre, something not often done since the heyday of Edward Bond and Howard Brenton. The old mother (a magnificent Ann Mitchell) slowly washes her naked eldest son (expressive Nigel Cooke), who is dying of cancer, in a tin bath.
The ghost of a Stockport grandmother (Lisa Diveney), who had an affair with a Jewish refugee from Buchenwald (Tom Mothersdale), appears to the youngest Benton (Harry McEntire), who is cradling his own mother as a baby. A valued watch is passed down. The clock ticks on, inexorably.
The generations coalesce in the urgency of clearing the air and addressing unfinished business. James Benton’s marriage to Harriet, fraught with needless misunderstandings and the love of a dog, is worked through in the intensity of the acting by Pearce Quigley and Tanya Moodie. Even the lost sheep brother (Andrew Sheridan) comes in from the mean streets.
John Bausor’s design, a clear thrust stage with a cycloramic sky and a constellation of light bulbs, cleanly incorporates a hospital in Middlesbrough, a bar in Manchester, a park in Stockport, and a house in Twickenham. The show is a great achievement all round, and will surely spark further explorations by these three talented spacemen.
Dreadful- trite, pretentious writing and turgid direction. Very disappointing. - smithers
29 May 10
WOS needs to do some maintenance on this site - the review above was one I gave Ghosts, another disappointing evening at the Lyric. And so yet again history repeats itself and I have another early night after struggling through the first act. Why on earth have Tim Walker, the Telegraph, and Michael Coveney, WOS, given this clumsy, poorly acted and tedious play four stars? I am fortunate (and, clearly, in some cases unfortunate) enough to have seen much theatre over the past 25 years and over the past 10 alone something like 1,600 productions in the UK, NYC, and Canada. After a while one gets to know when a play is working or not. I have long wondered how often directors get a chance to see new productions and ones that aren't heir own? A good case for some work experience I feel. It's not just the poor ol' actors whom I pity having to try and make something out of their parts, but the audience too some of whom may very well be put off going back to the theatre again for life. - rds
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