Post by marion on May 9, 2024 9:02:04 GMT
This is a dramatisation of Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. It lasts 3hr 15min and has songs by PJ Harvey. I booked thinking, Yippee, this will be a bit of a BBC serial show but it wasn’t exactly traditional at all! The novel has been stripped down a bit and a lot of the story is declaimed to the audience by whichever character, rather than acted normally, although there is a lot of normal acting too. It isn’t a musical as such, the extremely dirge-like (imho) songs mainly make points about London. The words London, Thames, tide, beat, mud etc feature a lot!
This is very much an ensemble piece although I only recognised a few actors, including Peter Wight and Joe Armstrong (son of Alan?). However, imagine my joy to see Jake Wood (Max from EE, looking very muscly and with quite a swagger) and Stephen Kennedy (Ian from The Archers). The staging is almost bare with a few chairs and tables, there is a small band onstage, and atmosphere is produced by the movement of about five lighting rigs. According to one review, this represents the tidal movement, but I didn’t get that! The chap next to me was very disparaging about the singing and the diction (and I thought I was bad, 😂) but a lot of it is in broad East London accents so I don’t know why he was surprised they sang like that.
This opened to pretty mixed, if not poor reviews but I really enjoyed it! WhenI booked I hadn’t read a review and didn’t know it was over three hours, and may not have gone, but I thought it was a really good piece of entertainment. The music could have been perkier… I wasn’t sure whether they played the same song several times or they were slightly different! This was extremely well received by the audience as well, and to be honest the time really flew by.
This is very much an ensemble piece although I only recognised a few actors, including Peter Wight and Joe Armstrong (son of Alan?). However, imagine my joy to see Jake Wood (Max from EE, looking very muscly and with quite a swagger) and Stephen Kennedy (Ian from The Archers). The staging is almost bare with a few chairs and tables, there is a small band onstage, and atmosphere is produced by the movement of about five lighting rigs. According to one review, this represents the tidal movement, but I didn’t get that! The chap next to me was very disparaging about the singing and the diction (and I thought I was bad, 😂) but a lot of it is in broad East London accents so I don’t know why he was surprised they sang like that.
This opened to pretty mixed, if not poor reviews but I really enjoyed it! WhenI booked I hadn’t read a review and didn’t know it was over three hours, and may not have gone, but I thought it was a really good piece of entertainment. The music could have been perkier… I wasn’t sure whether they played the same song several times or they were slightly different! This was extremely well received by the audience as well, and to be honest the time really flew by.