15/08/2024 by Peter Viney
AS YOU LIKE IT at the open air garden theatre at the RSC (follow link to review). We thought it marvellous. It’s edited to 80 minutes. It’s sharpened, focussed and very funny. It’s not just a “popular” version, it’s one of the best in its own right. It’s full of energy and we saw it in the rain. It’s budget price too. Try and get to Stratford! You can get in. Read my review for rain protection too.
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15/08/2024 by Peter Viney
Review of PERICLES PRINCE OF TYRE (follow link to review). This is the first Royal Shakespeare Company production by co-artistic director, Tamara Harvey. It’s also a rarely performed play, and often avoided because Shakespeare only wrote Acts III to V. It’s a stylish production. Well worth seeing, though the intrinsic faults of the material are impossible to hide.
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12/08/2024 by Peter Viney
Review of THE GRAPES OF WRATH at The National Theatre added. This is a mighty and epic production. trucks move, the Colorado River gets swum in, the creek tries to flood the place. Directed by Carrie Cracknell, with a cast of 24. The original New York adaptation by Frank Galati had 36, but it has been cut well for the National. As so often with plays and films of novels the reviewers get snotty. Not us. Extra marks too for a truly incredible last five minutes.
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11/08/2024 by Peter Viney
Review of THE HOT WING KING by Katori Hall at The National Theatre. A Pulitzer Prize winner in America, it went down extraordinarily well in London. I guess ticking both the Global Majority and LGBT+ boxes helped. We had some doubts though. Read the review.
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04/08/2024 by Peter Viney
Chichester’s annual big musical is one of the national theatrical events of the year. They’ve done it again with a new version of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! (LINK TO MY REVIEW) directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne. This is as good a musical as you’ll see this year or any other. Running to 7th September- if you can get tickets.
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01/08/2024 by Peter Viney
Review added of THE PROMISE by Paul Unwin at Chichester’s Minerva theatre (follow the link). Reviews are mixed. It’s the story of Labour coming into power in 1945 and the creation of the NHS. It really is the opportune time to stage the play, which is just luck for Chichester. We were somewhat reluctant, fearing it might be dull, uncritical and didactic. It is anything but. We found it totally compelling. Unwin has great characters in the ministers, and most importantly focuses on Ellen Wilkinson, the only woman in the cabinet and a vital character in Labour history. My review is lengthy and goes into personal asides. My mum’s family lived next door to Aneurin Bevan’s family in Tredegar.
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27/07/2024 by Peter Viney
They say Twisters is the blockbuster of Summer 2024. Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell and Anthony Ramos head the cast. We watched it, and it is exactly the sort of thing to watch in a big cinema on a massive screen. FOLLOW THE LINK to my review.
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22/07/2024 by Peter Viney
MGM (to 1967) is an elaborate and heavily illustrated article. It covers their years as a major EMI-distributed label, specialising mainly on their own soundtracks and musicals, together with excursions into C&W (Hank Williams), pop (Conway Twitty, Connie Francis, Richard Chamberlain, Sam The Sham etc) and even a little rare soul. 1967 is the cut off because then major changes took place. Coming next.
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18/07/2024 by Peter Viney
A review of A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE by Arthur Miller (follow the link). It started out at Bath Ustinov studios, and moved to the Theatre Royal Haymarket in the West End. It’s directed by Lindsay Posner and features Dominic West as Eddie Carbone and Kate Fleetwood as his wife. It’s an all-time favourite play, and this is the best production of it I have ever seen.
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18/07/2024 by Peter Viney
Review added of THE CONSTITUENT by Joe Penhall (follow the link). This is currently playing at The Old Vic in London and stars James Corden and Anna Maxwell Martin. Yes THE James Corden. The acting is great, the play relevant. It has an Afghan vet confronting an MP. Still running.
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