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Home, I’m Darling

Home, I’m Darling
by Laura Wade

Directed by Tamara Harvey
Designer Anna Fleischle

home-im-darling_2578x1228-sfw70-1

National Theatre co-production with Theatre Clwyd

Dorfman Theatre, National Theatre
Saturday 1st September 2018, 19.30

CAST:
Katherine Parkinson – Judy
Richard Harrington – Johnny
Kathryn Drysdale – Fran
Sara Gregory – Alex
Barnaby Kay – Marcus
Sian Thomas – Sylvia

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Katherine Parkinson as Judy, Richard Harrington as Johnny

Katherine Parkinson has delighted us on TV from The IT Crowd to Hang Ups. Just a couple of days earlier we watched her in The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society on DVD. We couldn’t miss the chance of seeing this, even though getting tickets meant breaking our rule of “never watch two unconnected plays in the same day.” We had long ago booked Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Wanamaker Playhouse for the afternoon, so we were to be in London and at the South Bank. Love’s Labour’s Lost had been a major disappointment, so thankfully Home, I’m Darling was able to lighten our mood!

Someone like me who writes about record collecting is not surprised by people dressing up in retro clothes. Try the JukeBox & Retro Fair at Brighton. You could buy the 1950s records, the clothes and the furniture and even the English Rose kitchen units there. I had an aunt who in 1967 still dressed in the high fashion of her heyday, 1939-1940. With her shoulder padding, she looked as if she’d stepped out of a film. Then in secondhand record shops I often see people dressed in clothes of earlier eras … 1977 punks or 1967 hippies or 1973 glam, and these are people in their early twenties.

The play starts as a domestic idyll in Judy and Johnny’s 1950s home with all the furniture. Judy, the domestic goddess, even takes the top off Johnny’s boiled egg for him. As my companion noted waiting for the play to start, and Judy’s mother says in the script later on, The Fifties didn’t even look like this in the Fifties. It is the 1950s Ideal Home Exhibition house. As we later discover, every part of it has been meticulously curated by Judy from eBay purchases. They even drove from Welwyn Garden City to Sunderland to get the ancient fridge. Our realization dawns when Johnny sets off to work, trilby on his head, and Judy produces her laptop computer from a drawer and starts tapping away. It’s now.

Act Two: three years earlier. They’re stripping the wallpaper to put up 50s paper. Judy has the idea …

As we discover in a flashback start to Act Two, the whole 1950s lifestyle came to Judy three years earlier when she was offered redundancy pay. She loved the style and mood of the 1950s, a reaction to her commune late-hippy upbringing. There are beautiful touches throughout as when she explains to her friend Fran that you can use lemon juice for cleaning taps. That’s a fact she discovered on the internet.

Scene divider: Fran (Kathryn Drysdale) and Marcus (Barnaby Kay)

Throughout the scene division is a choreographed dance-led set-adjustment to music by the “other couple” in the story, Fran (Kathryn Drysdale) and Marcus (Barnaby Kay). They’re a contrast. Marcus is a great jive dancer, and comes to the 1950s through cars – he has a Chevy Bel-Air and an Airstream caravan. But it’s an interest, a hobby, not a lifestyle, most tellingly pointed out when he says he uses the Audi for work. They’ve kept a lid on the 1950s interest. Judy and Johnny haven’t. Fran borrows Judy’s 1950s housewife manual, after saying that the longest recipe she’s used this week is Pierce film lid.

Marcus (Barnaby Kay) and Fran (Kathryn Drysdale)

Judy has decided to revert to her perceived 1950s image of femininity. She will keep a perfect house, clean behind the furniture daily, take off her pretty pinny before Johnny gets home from work, and have his slippers and a cocktail on hand. However, as her mother points out, she has no children to justify this. We learn that they have money problems. Their lifestyle choice started with two incomes.

As an aside, single people in 2018 are severely disadvantaged. Saving up for a deposit for most requires two incomes. I’m not sure that’s so new. With no family money to get us started, Karen and I saved up for two years in the mid 1970s. My salary was what we lived on. Hers went into a building society account towards a deposit on our first flat. It takes two. But now there’s only one, and Johnny’s income as an estate agent on commission is falling.

Alex (Sara Gregory) and Judy (Katherine Parkinson). Am I over-dressed?

Johnny pins his hopes on a promotion, so they invite his boss, Alex (Sara Gregory), to cocktails. Judy is dressed up in a fur stole having prepared 1950s dainties like cheese straws and devilled eggs. Alex is young, attractive, assertive and in trousers. Judy worries that Johnny fancies Alex.

Sian Thomas as Sylvia, Judy’s mother

There is a long speech by Judy’s mother, Sylvia (Sian Thomas), ranting about the REAL 1950s and we re-read it afterwards, and on the train home chuckling all the way. Reading the text the day after a play is great. You remember it enough to hear the actors’ voices as you read.  Sylvia’s rant was perfectly delivered, and we loved every word of it. She calls Judy’s world this gingham paradise. All so true – the 50s were crap if you were black, gay or disabled. (Worse if you were all three, I guess!)  As she says, the open fire was the only warm place in a house, and you’d have scarlet burning shins, while the backs of your ears turned crisp with cold.  Karen’s favourite line was:

Sylvia:  Sundays that lasted a month, nothing open. Nothing to do. Church. Freezing. But you couldn’t not go.

Sylvia must be about our age (the text says 67), and her daughter Judy is 38 years old. That’s our daughter’s age … There’s also reference to Judy’s constant changes of frock. She has a vast collection of 1950s clothes, and of course clothes were comparatively vastly more expensive in the 1950s (using the measure of hours worked to buy an item) and such a wardrobe would have been the preserve of the very rich.

Back to the story. Fran turns up during the discussion with Sylvia. It seems Marcus has been suspended for sexual harassment. While Judy commiserates ; everyone is so PC that everybody gets accused for the smallest pat on the back nowadays. Sylvia, almost autistically interrupts to point out that a great deal of it goes on and he might well be guilty. Fabulous.  It rang so many bells. In ELT teaching I was once deputy to a guy in his fifties, and we shared an office. I was twenty-six.  He’d ask homesick young Latin American girls in and say “Sit on my knee and tell me all about it …” then say, “Peter, this is a private conversation. Could you leave the office?” I’d reply that (a) it was in Spanish which I can’t speak and (b) no chance because (c) my being here is saving you from yourself. And mutter “you dirty old pervert.” Speak to women who were shorthand-typists then. There are so many tales of older men who thought they should wear short skirts and sit opposite, or take dictation perched on their knees.

Judy fantasizes that she can become in contrast the perfect 50s secretary to Marcus, without any of this 2018 PC stuff, and invites him round. It’s a wonderful scene with Katherine Parkinson and Barnaby Kay operating two different agendas through the conversation, and it is revealed that Marcus is indeed a total sleaze.

Judy (Katherine Parkinson) dances with Marcus (Barnaby Kay)

Johnny doesn’t get the promotion. He fears that seeing him in his weird lifestyle removed Alex’s respect. Later he confesses that yes, indeed, he fancies Alex. Judy decides she’ll have to sell and downsize, and invites Alex to do a valuation. She begs Alex not to take Johnny away from her, and Alex is totally repelled (Yuk!) at the very thought that Johnny fancies her. In a delicious twist, Johnny gets promoted to another office. We see the subtext – Alex wants to get rid of him.

It ends quite quietly- I think I’d expected a more dramatic finish to events.

Judy & Johnny: money troubles. The letter from the bank

It’s a wonderful play. It brings up so many aspects from the value we place on domestic work, to male-female roles, to what the 50s really were like (and so were the 60s and 70s in the sleaze departments), to the issue of living a fantasy. Not only that, it’s very funny, and never flags for a moment. Katherine Parkinson’s facial expressions are a joy. She conveys how brittle she is behind her facade. How needy, how lacking in confidence … a side effect of being the perfect housewife. The isolation is manifest when we realize that Fran and Marcus are the only people Judy and Johnny really socialize with. It made me think of teacher training in the 80s when so many of the trainees were women who’d taught foreign languages, stopped to have children, then were re-entering the workplace via ELT. It took weeks for their confidence to reassert itself. We can see that in Judy.

FOUND MUSIC

It was all perfectly chosen from Mr Sandman onward. I’ll make my perennial comment that found music should be listed in the programme. Mr Sandman is, and it’s by Pat Ballard, but the others aren’t. I wish I could note them all in deference to the writers. I recall Teenager in Love (Pomus-Schuman). For the next revival, Bobby Darin’s 1958 B-side Judy Don’t Be Moody would be ideal.

THE SET

Upstairs: Johnny. Downstairs: Judy, Fran, Marcus

For acting performances, direction, costume and the play itself, this is a clear five star production. The two-level set is one of the best-looking I’ve seen this year, and it should be a candidate for “Best Set of 2018” … if it had been in a different theatre. The National put it in the Dorfman Theatre, which often functions as three quarters in the round with a long thrust stage. The set is designed for proscenium, and if you’re sitting in the middle area (often it’s the stage in this theatre), it would be fabulous. In the Dorfman a lot of the audience are sideways on. OK, tickets say clearly “Side View” but that covers a lot of the area. We were stage left in the Circle, the middle of three levels, and the one you enter at. The trouble was that the kitchen is extreme stage left, and much of the action takes place there. Add to that is they often position Judy on the stage left side of the kitchen table. Our whole front row was craning over trying to see her. I thought the late-on argument between Judy and Johnny was a knowing pastiche of that 1950s “kitchen sink” genre (so was doubly entertaining) but only on the way out did I see that there actually was a kitchen sink on stage, extreme stage left. Conversely, those sitting stage right, would have had the same issue with the entrance door and characters passing the window to and from it, which we could see clearly.

So, one off for the Dorfman sight lines, but I looked up the seating plan for its initial run at the Theatr Clwyd in Mold and it was obviously perfect in that space.

Given that tickets were very hard to get, and reviews were so good, it would have been better placed in the larger, wide proscenium Lyttelton Theatre rather than the Dorfman. Admittedly that’s too large to feel intimate (which the Dorfman does) but it wouldn’t have compromised the set. A small solution would have been moving the kitchen table four of five feet towards centre, so almost between kitchen and lounge.

However, I’d assume this will be a West End transfer. I’ve always praised the National Theatre’s loos, restaurants, public areas and bookstore compared to those cramped old West End theatres. In this case, most unusually, an old West End proscenium stage will work better.

****

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID:

5 star
Dominic Maxwell, The Times *****
Rosemary Waugh, The Stage *****
Chris Bridges, The Londonist *****
4 star
Natalie Haynes, The Guardian ****
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph ****
Paul Taylor, The Independent ****
Kay Maltby, The Sunday Times ****
Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard ****
Sarah Crompton, What’s On Stage ****
Alice Saville, Time Out ****
Sarah Carson, Radio Times ****
Natasha Sutton Williams, Culture Whisper ****
Matt Wolf, The Arts Desk ****
3 star
Quentin Letts, Daily Mail ***
Neil Norman, Daily Express ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

LAURA WADE (writer)
The Watsons, Chichester Minerva, 2018
Home, I’m Darling, National Theatre 2018
POSH, Salisbury Playhouse 2015

KATHRYN DRYSDALE
The Ruling Class by Peter Barnes, Trafalgar Studios 2015

 

 

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          • Van Morrison 2000
          • Van Morrison 2001
          • Van Morrison 2002 Jan.
          • Van Morrison 2002 Oct.
          • Van Morrison 2003 Jul.
          • Van Morrison 2003 Sep.
          • Van Morrison 2005 Mar.
          • Van Morrison 2005 Nov.
          • Van Morrison 2007
          • Van Morrison 2012
          • Van Morrison 2013
          • Van Morrison 2019
        • Ward Thomas, Hyde Park
        • Zawinul Syndicate
        • Zoot Money
      • Gigs, venues and prices
      • HMV. His Master’s Voice silenced?
      • Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
      • Music From Big Pink – 50th anniversary
      • Names, Scribble & Numbers
      • Nancy Sinatra
      • Note of Hope (Woody Guthrie)
      • Phil Everly RIP
      • Rock pictures
      • RoseAnn Fino
      • Shadows In The Night
      • Thank You For The Muzac
      • The Band reviews & pictures
      • The Beautiful Old
      • The Village Green Preservation Society
      • The Weight – covers
      • Twelve Songs For Christmas 2013
    • rants
      • 100 Days Plus and Counting …
      • Driving Me Mad …
      • A Fishy Story
      • A Legal Matter
      • A Post-Brexit Vision
      • Agatha Christie: Deduction in a dell’arte mask
      • Allergies … and lawyers
      • Baby Boomer v Wokeperson
      • Barcodes
      • Beaujolais Nouveau …
      • Best of 2011
      • Best of 2012
      • Best of 2013
      • Best of 2014
      • Best of 2015 – music
      • Best of 2015 – Theatre
      • Best of 2016 – Music
      • Best of 2016 – Theatre
      • Best of 2017 – Music
      • Best of 2017 – Screen
      • Best of 2017- Theatre
      • Best of 2018 – Music
      • Best of 2018 – theatre
      • Best of 2019 – Concerts
      • Best of 2019 – Theatre
      • Best of 2019- Music
      • Best of 2020
      • Best of 2020- Music
      • Best of 2022 – Music
      • Best of 2022- Theatre
      • Cars are cars
      • Chorizo is Vile
      • Christmas Markets
      • Christmases long past …
      • Civil Wars & Statues
      • Climate Change: my rant
      • Communication skills: Leaders TV debate 2015
        • Opposition Leader’s Debate, 16 April 2015
      • Crisis at the Cash Register
      • Culture Shock Bourbon Street
      • Cycling in London (and elsewhere)
      • Encounter: Saul Bellow
      • Eurovision 2022
      • Fawlty Towers and Tall Poppies
      • Flags and anthems
      • Football nicknames
      • Free Broadband in Every Packet!
      • Guilt and innocence
      • Hail, hail, the first of May
      • Howards End is a blur
      • In the April Garden …
      • In The Days of Covid-21
      • In the May Garden
      • Jangle Bells: shopping for Christmas
      • Jumble Sales
      • Land Of My Mother’s
      • London-centric theatre
      • Mail v Guardian
      • Major Brylcreem or My adventures in the CCF
      • Matinees
      • Not an amazing grace
      • On The Road: Information overkill
      • Parent and child spaces
      • Poppies
      • Princely Names
      • Quaint hotels
      • Remember, remember …
      • Secondhand Christmas
      • Shrink wrapping albums
      • Sloppy fiction?
      • Someone will call you back …
      • Sound … and Fury… at The Globe
      • SS-GB – Mumbling soundtracks
      • Supermarket check-outs
      • Surveys
      • Testing in schools
      • The “Poldark” Effect
      • The 2019 watershed?
      • The 70s were crap
      • The Building Behind Me …
      • The Cheerful e-bay seller
      • The Curse of The Crawleys: Downton Abbey Series 10
      • The Decline of Bournemouth
      • The End of Deference …
      • The Famous Five – by Paul F. Newman
      • The four day week?
      • The Great War
      • The Hacking Cough
      • The Long & The Short Of It
      • The March of The Halloumi Fries
      • The Shakespeare Cod-Piece
      • The Stitch Up
      • View From The Queue
      • What happened to car CD players?
      • What’s happened to air travel?
    • stage
      • ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore – Cheek by Jowl
      • ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore – Wanamaker
      • 8 Hotels
      • A Damsel in Distress
      • A Little Hotel On The Side
      • A Mad World My Masters
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – BBC TV 2016
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Bridge 2019
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Filter 2011
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Globe 2013
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Globe 2016
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Grandage 2013
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Propellor 2013
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – RSC 2011
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – RSC 2016
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Selladoor 2013
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Watermill 2018
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Watermill Tour 2019
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Young Vic
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bath 2016
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Globe 2019
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream- Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream- Headlong
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream- Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare
      • A Midsummer Nights Dream – Handspring 2013
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream RSC 2016 Revisited
      • A Number
      • A Streetcar Named Desire NT Live
      • A Taste of Honey
      • A Very Very Very Dark Matter
      • A View From The Bridge
      • A Woman of No Importance
      • Abigail’s Party 2013
      • Absolute Hell
      • Ah, Wilderness!
      • Albion
      • All My Sons
      • All New People
      • All’s Well That Ends Well – RSC 2013
      • All’s Well That Ends Well- 2018
      • All’s Well That Ends Well- RSC 2022
      • Amadeus – 2014
      • Amadeus – NT 2017
      • American Buffalo
      • An Enemy of The People
      • An Ideal Husband 2018
      • An Ideal Husband- 2014
      • Antony & Cleopatra – RSC 2013
      • Antony & Cleopatra – RSC 2017
      • Antony and Cleopatra – Globe
      • Antony and Cleopatra 2012
      • Arcadia
      • Arden of Faversham
      • Around The World in 80 Days
      • As You Like It – Globe 2015
      • As You Like It – Globe 2018
      • As You Like It – National 2015
      • As You Like It – RSC 2019
      • As You Like It RSC 2013
      • Awful Auntie
      • Bakkhai
      • Balletboyz: The Talent
      • Barber Shop Chronicles
      • Bartholomew Fair
      • Beauty & The Beast (Ballet Theatre UK)
      • Before The Party
      • Birthday
      • Bitter Wheat
      • Black Comedy
      • Blithe Spirit
      • Blithe Spirit – Bath 2019
      • Blood Wedding
      • Blues For An Alabama Sky
      • Boudica
      • Bring Up The Bodies
      • Broken
      • Candida
      • Cardenio
      • Carmen Disruption
      • Caroline or Change
      • Comedy of Errors – Globe
      • Comedy of Errors – RSC, 2021
      • Comedy of Errors NT 2012
      • Comedy of Errors RSC ’12
      • Communicating Doors
      • Comus
      • Copenhagen
      • Coriolanus – NT Live
      • Coriolanus – RSC
      • Crazy For You
      • Curiosity Shop
      • Cymbeline – RSC
      • Cymbeline – Wanamaker
      • Dancing At Lughnasa
      • Death Of A Salesman
      • Deathtrap
      • Dedication
      • Dido, Queen of Carthage
      • Dinner With Saddam
      • Doctor Faustus
      • Don Carlos
      • Don Juan in Soho
      • Don Quixote
      • Doubt – a parable
      • Dream
      • Dunsinane
      • Echo’s End
      • Educating Rita
      • Edward II
      • Electro Kif
      • Endgame / Rough for Theatre II
      • Eyam
      • Fallen Angels
      • Fantastic Mr Fox
      • Far
      • Farinelli and The King
      • Fences
      • First Light
      • Flare Path
      • Follies
      • For Services Rendered
      • Forests
      • Fortune’s Fool
      • Forty Years On
      • Fracked! Or Please Don’t Use The F-Word.
      • Frankenstein – NT Encore
      • French Without Tears
      • Funny Girl
      • Future Conditional
      • George’s Marvellous Medicine
      • Girl From The North Country
      • God of Carnage
      • Gypsy
      • Hairspray, The Musical
      • Half A Sixpence
      • Hamilton
      • Hamlet – Cumberbatch
      • Hamlet – Globe 2014
      • Hamlet – Maxine Peake
      • Hamlet – NT 2010
      • Hamlet – RSC 2016
      • Hamlet RSC 2013
      • Hamlet- Almeida / BBC 2017
      • Hamlet- Young Vic 2011
      • Hangmen
      • Harlequinade / All On Her Own
      • Harlequinade / All On Her Own – review
      • Hay Fever
      • Hecuba
      • Hedda Gabler
      • Hedda Tesman
      • Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 RSC
      • Henry V – 2018
      • Henry V – Jude Law
      • Henry V – RSC 2015
      • Henry VI – Rebellion
      • Henry VI – Wars of The Roses
      • Henry VI: Three plays
      • Hobson’s Choice
      • Hogarth’s Progress
      • Home
      • Home, I’m Darling
      • Hysteria
      • Imogen (Cymbeline) – Globe 2016
      • Importance of Being Earnest 2010
      • Importance of Being Earnest – Suchet, 2015
      • Importance of Being Earnest – Watermill
      • Importance of Being Earnest 2014
      • Importance of Being Earnest- 2018
      • Inala
      • Institute
      • Into The Hoods – Remixed
      • Ivanov
      • Jack Absolute Flies Again
      • Jeeves and Wooster
      • Jerusalem
      • Jerusalem – 2018
      • Jitney
      • John Gabriel Borkman
      • Julius Caesar – Globe 2014
      • Julius Caesar – RSC 2012
      • Julius Caesar – RSC 2017
      • Ka
      • King Charles III
      • King John – Globe 2015
      • King John – Rose, 2016
      • King John – RSC 2019
      • King Lear Frank Langella
      • King Lear – Antony Sher, RSC 2016
      • King Lear – Barrie Rutter
      • King Lear – David Haig
      • King Lear – Globe 2017
      • King Lear – McKellen 2017
      • King Lear – Russell-Beale
      • Kiss Me Kate
      • Kunene and The King
      • La Bête
      • Lady Windermere’s Fan
      • Leopoldstadt
      • Life of Galileo
      • Little Shop of Horrors
      • Local Hero
      • Long Day’s Journey Into Night
      • Love
      • Love For Love
      • Love’s Labour’s Lost
      • Love’s Labour’s Lost – 2018
      • Love’s Labour’s Lost- 2016
      • Love’s Labour’s Won
      • Love’s Sacrifice
      • Love, Love, Love
      • Macbeth – Globe 2016
      • Macbeth – McAvoy 2013
      • Macbeth – National Theatre 2018
      • Macbeth – Tara Arts
      • Macbeth – Young Vic
      • Macbeth RSC 2018
      • Macbeth, RSC 2011
      • Macbeth, Watermill 2019
      • Macbeth- Chichester 2019
      • Macbeth- Wanamaker 2018
      • Mack & Mabel
      • Malory Towers
      • Man and Superman
      • Mary Poppins
      • Me and My Girl
      • Measure for Measure – Globe 2015
      • Measure for Measure – Young Vic
      • Measure for Measure RSC 2012
      • Measure For Measure- RSC 2019
      • Medea NT live
      • Miss Julie / Black Comedy
      • Miss Littlewood
      • Mojo
      • Monsieur Popular
      • Mrs Warren’s Profession
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Globe 2014
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Globe 2017
      • Much Ado About Nothing – NT 2022
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Old Vic 2013
      • Much Ado About Nothing – Rose 2018
      • Much Ado About Nothing – RSC 2014
      • Much Ado About Nothing- Northern Broadsides
      • Much Ado About Nothing- RSC 2016
      • Much Ado About Nothing- RSC 2022
      • Much Ado About Nothing- Wyndhams 2011
      • Murder On The Orient Express (stage)
      • Murder, Margaret and Me
      • My Brilliant Friend (play)
      • My Night With Reg
      • Neighbourhood Watch
      • Nell Gwynn
      • Nice Fish
      • No Man’s Land
      • Noises Off
      • Obsession
      • Oklahoma! – Chichester
      • Once
      • One Man, Two Guvnors
      • Othello – Globe 2018
      • Othello – RSC 2015
      • Othello NT 2013
      • Othello- ETT 2018
      • Othello- Wanamaker 2017
      • Othello- Watermill 2022
      • Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour
      • Our Man in Havana (musical)
      • People
      • People Like Us
      • Pericles
      • Peter & The Starcatcher
      • Peter and Alice
      • Peter Gynt
      • Peter Pan (pantomime)
      • Peter Pan Goes Wrong
      • Photograph 51
      • Pitcairn
      • Plastic
      • Platonov
      • Playing Cards 1: Spades
      • Plenty
      • POSH
      • Present Laughter – Chichester 2018
      • Present Laughter – Old Vic 2019
      • Present Laughter- Bath 2003
      • Present Laughter- Bath 2016
      • Pressure
      • Private Lives
      • Privates On Parade
      • Punishment Without Revenge
      • Punk Rock
      • Pygmalion
      • Quatermaine’s Terms
      • Queen Anne
      • Quiz – James Graham
      • Racing Demon
      • Ralegh: The Treason Trial
      • Relative Values
      • Richard II – Globe
      • Richard II – RSC
      • Richard III – Almeida
      • Richard III – Apollo 2012
      • Richard III – Freeman
      • Richard III – RSC 2012
      • Richard III – RSC 2022
      • Richard III – Spacey, 2011
      • Robin Hood (panto)
      • Romantics Anonymous
      • Romeo & Juliet – Globe 2017
      • Romeo & Juliet – RSC 2018
      • Romeo & Juliet 2014 – Box Clever
      • Romeo & Juliet, Headlong 2012
      • Romeo & Juliet- Branagh 2016
      • Romeo and Juliet – NT, 2021
      • Romeo and Juliet- Globe 2015
      • Romeo and Juliet: Tobacco Factory
      • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
      • Ross
      • Rules for Living
      • Salomé – RSC
      • Same Time, Next Year
      • School nativities
      • Secondary Cause of Death
      • Separate Tables
      • Shakespeare in Love
      • She Stoops To Conquer – Bath 2015
      • She Stoops to Conquer – Rain or Shine
      • Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads
      • Skylight
      • Slava’s Snowshow
      • Snow in Midsummer
      • South Pacific
      • Spring Awakening
      • Stepping Out
      • Strife
      • Swan Lake
      • Sweet Bird of Youth
      • Switzerland
      • Tamburlaine
      • Tangomotion
      • Tartuffe- RSC
      • The Alchemist – RSC
      • The Argument
      • The Beauty Queen of Leenane
      • The Beauty Queen of Leenane – 2021
      • The Beaux Stratagem
      • The Birthday Party
      • The Book of Mormon
      • The Broken Heart
      • The Canterbury Tales
      • The Captive Queen
      • The Caretaker
      • The Chalk Garden
      • The Changeling
      • The City Madam
      • The Constant Wife
      • The Country
      • The Country Girls
      • The Country Wife
      • The Cripple of Inishmaan
      • The Crucible, NT 2022
      • The Crucible, Old Vic 2014
      • The Deep Blue Sea – 2019
      • The Deep Blue Sea-NT live, 2016
      • The Doctor
      • The Dresser
      • The Duchess of Malfi – 2012
      • The Duchess of Malfi – 2014
      • The Duchess of Malfi – RSC 2108
      • The Entertainer
      • The Famous Five: A New Musical
      • The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich
      • The Ferryman (Acts 2 & 3)
      • The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk
      • The Four Seasons: A Reimagining
      • The Game of Love and Chance
      • The Ghost Train
      • The Height of The Storm
      • The Homecoming
      • The Hot House
      • The Hypochondriac
      • The Hypocrite
      • The Jew of Malta
      • The Knight of The Burning Pestle
      • The Ladykillers
      • The Lie
      • The Lieutenant of Inishmore- 2018
      • The Lieutenant of Inishmore-2001
      • The Lock In
      • The Lock In Christmas Carol
      • The Magistrate – NT Live
      • The Magna Carta Plays
      • The Man In The White Suit
      • The Merchant of Venice – Almeida
      • The Merchant of Venice – Globe
      • The Merchant of Venice – RSC
      • The Merry Wives – Northern Broadsides
      • The Merry Wives of Windsor – Globe 2019
      • The Merry Wives of Windsor – RSC 2012
      • The Merry Wives of Windsor- RSC 2018
      • The Misanthrope ETT
      • The Miser
      • The Narcissist
      • The Nightingales
      • The Norman Conquests
        • Living Together
        • Round & Round The Garden
        • Table Manners
      • The Odyssey
      • The Painkiller (2016)
      • The Play That Goes Wrong
      • The Play What I Wrote
      • The Price
      • The Provoked Wife
      • The Recruiting Officer
      • The Rehearsal
      • The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
      • The Rivals
      • The Roaring Girl
      • The Rover
      • The Ruling Class
      • The School for Scandal
      • The Seagull
      • The Seagull- Chichester
      • The Seven Year Itch
      • The Shoemaker’s Holiday
      • The Silver Tassie
      • The Southbury Child
      • The Spire
      • The Storm
      • The Syndicate
      • The Taming of The Shrew – RSC 2012
      • The Taming of The Shrew – RSC 2019
      • The Taming of The Shrew- Globe 2016
      • The Taxidermist’s Daughter
      • The Tempest – Bath Ustinov
      • The Tempest RSC 2012
      • The Tempest RSC 2016
      • The Tempest- Wanamaker
      • The Truth
      • The Two Noble Kinsmen- 2018
      • The Two Noble Kinsmen- RSC
      • The Unfriend
      • The Upstart Crow
      • The Wars of The Roses
        • Edward IV
        • Henry VI
        • Richard III
      • The Watsons
      • The Way of The World
      • The Weir
      • The Whale
      • The White Devil – Globe
      • The White Devil – RSC
      • The Winter’s Tale – Branagh
      • The Winter’s Tale – Cheek by Jowl
      • The Winter’s Tale – Globe 2018
      • The Winter’s Tale – RSC 2013
      • The Winter’s Tale – RSC 2021
      • The Winter’s Tale- Wanamaker
      • The Witch of Edmonton
      • There and Back Again – An Odyssey
      • Thérèse Raquin
      • This Happy Breed
      • This Is My Family
      • Timon of Athens
      • Timon of Athens – RSC
      • Titus Andronicus – RSC 2017
      • Titus Andronicus- Globe 2014
      • Totem
      • Travels With My Aunt (musical)
      • Travesties
      • Tristan and Yseult 2017
      • Troilus & Cressida RSC 2018
      • True West
      • Twelfth Night – Apollo 2012
      • Twelfth Night – Globe 2017
      • Twelfth Night – Globe, 2021
      • Twelfth Night – NT 2017
      • Twelfth Night – RSC 2017
      • Twelfth Night – Watermill
      • Twelfth Night – Young Vic
      • Twelfth Night RSC 2012
      • Twelfth Night- ETT 2014
      • Two Gentlemen of Verona – 2016
      • Two Gentlemen of Verona – RSC
      • Two Gentlemen of Verona- 2013
      • Uncle Vanya (Hare)
      • Uncle Vanya (McPherson)
      • Venice Preserved
      • Vice Versa
      • Volpone
      • Vulcan 7
      • Watership Down
      • Way Upstream
      • What The Butler Saw
      • While The Sun Shines
      • Wolf Hall
      • Woman in Mind
      • Women On The Verge of A Nervous Breakdown
      • wonder.land
      • Worst Wedding Ever
      • Woyzeck
      • Yerma (2017)
      • Young Chekhov Season
      • Young Marx
    • video
      • A Weekend Away, A Week By The Sea
        • Sections: Weekend Away / By the Sea
      • Dennis Cook: A history
      • Drama, dialogue and video
      • Teaching with video: techniques
      • Video: non-authentic
      • Video: on location
      • Video: Peter Viney Interview
      • Video: What happened?

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