An afternoon of doing not very much meant I was rushing, as usual. Another theatre that's easy to get to, it's just to the left of Exit 1 of Leicester Square Tube Station. Well, it should have been easy to get to, except that crowd control was in operation in the station, and we were obliged to leave by Exits 3 and 4! I chose the Cranbourn Street exit, and when I emerged, couldn't see a landmark I recognised -- I never normally use either of those exits. Fortunately, I thought to look around me, and glimpsed the corner of the Hippodrome, which is around where I needed to be.
When I found the theatre, on reflex I joined the long queue I could see snaking into the left entrance door. Of course, I had no idea whether that was the collection queue, and asked the first person in it who turned around. No, this was the returns queue - where people waited in the vain hope that someone might have returned a ticket and they might be able to get in. "You don't have a spare?" they called despairingly as I made my way past the entrance, to the faster-moving queue at the right entrance door. A guy standing in the middle door invited anyone that already had their ticket to come in that way. I handed in my printed confirmation to speed up my ticket collection, and made my way straight to the stalls - the lady who tore my ticket was a bit flustered, what with the crowd. "Never mind," I said, "only a few more to go!" She laughed at that.
There wasn't time for a drink - I made my way straight to my seat, thanking providence that it was on the aisle and I didn't have to disturb anyone. It's been a while since I was here, and I noted, approvingly, that there are no support pillars to block the view. My seat certainly had an excellent view, and although the overhang does probably start to cut off the top of the stage behind that row, for this production I think you could happily go quite a bit further back. As for the legroom, I really don't know what they were talking about, it was ample! unless you're very tall, but then, that's true of almost everywhere. Maybe the seat that was reviewed as having bad legroom was in the middle of the row. People were standing along the edges - I'd forgotten about the standing tickets. The standing area seems to be from Row M back - irritatingly for them, there's a ledge at the wall just ahead of that, which would be very handy for them: but they're not allowed to use it, ushers kept moving them back.
Well, this was a very different beast from The Crucible, last night! For a start, it's a lot shorter - I couldn't believe the interval came as soon as it did. It's also less.. momentous. The play takes place in a shabby flat in Kensal Rise, where Carey Mulligan - making her West End debut - lives, taking the bus every day to teach in a school in East Ham. We can see past her flat to the rest of the tower block. One cold December night, she gets home, intending to cook and correct homework, only to have her evening disturbed by two men from her past. The first is her (much older) ex-lover's teenage son, basically begging her to get back in touch with his dad, whose wife - the lad's mother - has just died of cancer, leaving him in a state. The second visitor is the father himself - Bill Nighy - who decides to take it upon himself to come and see whether she'll come back to him. It's obvious there's still something between them - but is the gulf between his love of wealth and a comfortable lifestyle, and her more socially conscious, but to him drab and self-castigating, lifestyle choices just too wide to bridge?
This is a very clever play, and real issues are carefully examined - from why she has chosen the hard life she lives, and the satisfaction she derives from it, to his opinion of the working classes: from why she walked out on him, to the reaction of his wife to their affair, and his loneliness. The acting from the two main characters is top-notch; it's such a relief to see big names living up to their billing! She's utterly convincing, and from the moment he takes the stage, he takes ownership of it - until he provokes her and sparks start to fly! He gives a bravura performance - he's quite hilarious - and you have no trouble believing that she could have fallen for this older man. Don't worry though, there's little physical intimacy between them in this play!
At the interval, I was one of the first to the toilet - thankfully, because there are only two cubicles. And at the end we were happy to give them yet another standing ovation. Runs until the 23rd August - booking essential. On my way home, I was glad to at least be able to enter the station via Exit 1..
Tomorrow is looking like a film again - Boyhood remains far ahead of the competition in IMDB ratings. An interesting project by Richard Linklater, it stars Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as the parents of a boy whose story is chronicled through the film, which begins with their separation. And follows it over the next 12 years. In real time. In other words, it took 12 years to shoot, in which time the lead character aged from 6 to 18 (everyone else aged 12 years too, of course). The director's daughter played the boy's sister. A new concept, that. It's playing in my local cinema, at three different times, which allows me some leeway if the weather is as beautiful as it was today!
No comments:
Post a Comment