Hay Fever...

Last night Stuart and I went to see Hay Fever at The Duke Of York's Theatre in London's glitzy West End.

Starring national treasure Felicity Kendal and directed by Lindsay Posner this was the Theatre Royal Bath production of Noel Coward's classic comedy.

It was all very amusing. And at times quite funny. Coward can be very drôle, m'dears. Pompous but drôle.

Felicity Kendal was great playing the mother Judith Bliss – a once glittering star of the London stage - alongside her dysfunctional scene-stealing family. Her author husband David Bliss (played by the lovely Simon Shepherd) and the dreadful Bliss children unbeknownst to each other have each invited someone down to stay for the weekend in their Berkshire rural retreat. And they are a competitive bunch.

All is not Bliss in this particular respectable English family as they soon show their true colours and try to outshine and out-misbehave and out-seduce one another.

The unassuming visitors are subjected to unconventional, risqué and often downright rudeness. Outrage, mock outrage, drama and melodrama proliferate. Can they stand it? You'll have to come along and find out.

It's all funny enough - if you find posh people squabbling and ignoring houseguests funny - which luckily I do!

Ms Kendal is in fine form and her performance is reason enough for our trip.

The Nether...

Last night Stuart and I went to see The Nether at The Duke of York's Theatre in London's glitzy West End.

I have to say we were rather disappointed.

The Nether = a future version of the internet where it is almost photo realistic and you can go online to indulge your wildest fantasies as avatars. In this case the fantasies seem to be all about child abuse and murder.

I'm not quite sure why the author suggests that given no law enforcement or repercussions offline then people's base instincts will make them want to molest and murder children online. Or indeed whether it is better for society if a child molester is kept online committing virtual crimes rather than allowed to roam the real world committing real ones. Surely it's sickness that needs therapy.

Anyway... technically the play was great - think The Matrix. And the acting was fine too. Even the plot supplied a couple of nice twists but the subject matter was a misstep I feel. There is an interesting discussion to be had about how we live our lives online and the digital personalities we create through social media but this play was rather like a paedophilic version of Godwin's Law. By resorting to child molestation the message was lost in the medium.

Constellations...

Last Friday Stu and I went to see the play Constellations at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's glitzy West End.

Constellations was first produced in January 2012 at the Royal Court as part of the Royal Court's Jerwood New Playwrights programme. The play is a two hander about free will and friendship - played here by Sally Hawkins (Jane Eyre, Made in Dagenham and Golden Globe winner for Best Actress in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky) and Rafe Spall (One Day, Channel 4's Pete Versus Life and Ridley Scott's Prometheus.

The play is told in multiple over-lapping strands with many possible outcomes of each scene being played out back to back. A sort of love affair in a quantum multiverse. And it was glorious; funny, poignant  bright, witty, tragic. What more could you want? We loved it.

Ghosts Stories...

Last night Mark very kindly took me to see Ghost Stories at the Duke Of York's Theatre in London glitzy West End.
We had heard quite a lot about the show - through friends and also through it's advertising campaign and a particular poster that stated:-
WARNING: Please be advised that Ghost Stories contains moments of extreme shock and tension. The show is unsuitable for anyone under the age of 15. We strongly advise those of a nervous disposition to think very seriously before attending.
OK, so basically this is just marketing blurb. In the show there were lots of loud noises, flashing lights and smoke machines. I won't provide any spoilers plotwise except just to say - we saw it coming. We were more terrified by the bar prices than what was going on on stage.
I can't decide; was the show just not that scary or do 'ghost stories' in general just not scare me as much as I thought they did? I have a feeling it may be the latter. I'm too much of a scientist to believe in supernatural explanations. However I do believe in situations in which your subconscious makes you think you're seeing things that actually have a logical explanation. I think the clue is in the question. They are stories. I'm much more frightened that the creak upon the midnight stair is actually burgular - not a ghost.