The Trial...

Last night Stuart​ and I went to see The Trial at the Young Vic in London's increasingly glitzy Southwark.

Before the play I had a pulled-port burger at The Cut Bar and it was delicious, sweet, spicy, and varied. Four words that could not have been used to describe the play we saw next.

Rory Kinnear is an outstandingly fine actor. This production was not. What should have been gripping just left us griping. Rather like the main character Joseph K. trapped in an awful world from which he cannot escape so Kinnear too is trapped in this arduous production.

When people use the adjective Kafkaesque, it is The Trial they have in mind - the nightmarish world of Joseph K., where the rules are hidden from even the highest officials, and any help there may be comes from unexpected sources. K. is never told what he is on trial for, and when he says he is innocent, he is immediately asked "innocent of what?"

So a bit 1984, a bit Brazil then.

Indeed the play has a constant, relentless atmosphere of disorientation and quirkiness. Superficially the subject-matter is bureaucracy, but the story's great strength is its description of the effect on the life and mind of Josef K.

That said, this production was frankly boring. The conveyor belt set was a nice touch but it soon got tired. This was no Brazil. No 1984. We just wanted Mr (unspecial) K. to meet his fate so we could go home.

Some people around us fell asleep. 'Nuff said.

Avoid.

Othello...

On Monday night Stu and I went to see Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear in Nicholas Hytner's Othello at the Olivier Theatre on London's glitzy South Bank.

It was a wonderful production beautifully played. Lester's Othello was outstanding - in turn passionate, then raging and finally remorseful. Kinnear's Iago was equally sublime if not better - visceral in his hate, blokey in his demeanour and caustic in his concealment.

Strongly recommended. If you get the chance, go!

The Last of the Haussmans...

Last night Stu, Ollie, Toby and I went to see The Last of the Haussmans at the Lyttelton Theatre part of The Royal National Theatre on London's glitzy South Bank.

The Last of the Haussmans is a new play by Stephen Beresford starring Julie Walters as the anarchic, feisty but growing old, high society drop-out Judy Haussman who holds court in her dilapidated Art Deco house on the Devon coast. Rory Kinnear and Helen McCrory play her wayward offspring.

After an operation, Judy Haussman’s joined by said offspring Nick and Libby, sharp-eyed granddaughter Summer, local doctor Peter, and Daniel, a troubled teenager who makes use of the family’s crumbling swimming pool. Together they share a few sweltering months as they alternately cling to and flee this louche and chaotic world of all-day drinking, infatuations, long-held resentments, free love and failure.

The play examines the fate of the revolutionary generation and offers a funny, touching and at times savage portrait of a family full of longing that’s losing its grip.

The three main cast were excellent. The play is a little baggy though. Maybe it'll tighten up through the run.

"The only thing to be in life is a rebel."

"Let’s show this younger generation what it’s all about! Shall we get naked?"