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News: Angels in America amongst productions added to National Theatre at Home

The National Theatre has today announced three new filmed productions have been added to its streaming service National Theatre at Home, including Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches and Angels in America Part Two: Perestroika, Marianne Elliott (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, War Horse)’s multi-award-winning production of Tony Kushner’s two-part masterpiece, with a cast including Andrew Garfield (The Social Network), Denise Gough (Paula), Nathan Lane (American Crime Story), James McArdle (Ammonite), Susan Brown (It’s A Sin) and Russell Tovey (Years and Years). Continue reading “News: Angels in America amongst productions added to National Theatre at Home”

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Review: Top Girls, National Theatre

Caryl Churchill’s superb Top Girls receives a luxurious but clear-sighted production from Lyndsey Turner at the National Theatre

“They’re waiting for me to turn into the little woman”

Written by a woman and directed by a woman, the opening night of an all-female play couldn’t have been better timed for the National Theatre. But while this doesn’t negate the concerns raised in the too-male-heavy partial season announcement from last week, it does frame them – and the questions it provokes – in a larger context. After all, Lyndsey Turner’s production of Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls is the first not to use double-casting, which means it boasts a company of 18 women – more of this please.

It helps that they are performing such a bravura piece of writing. Churchill’s 1982 play is a shrewd and startling affair which has lost none of its impact here as it gives women their voices in ways which haven’t always (and in some ways still don’t) been encouraged. From historical characters (both real and imagined) to contemporary families (it may be set in the 80s but there’s nothing dated about what is happening here), we are dared to listen. Continue reading “Review: Top Girls, National Theatre”

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Round-up of news and treats and other interesting things

The announcement of the new cast for Broadway’s hugely lauded Hello, Dolly! has been a most strange affair – names trickling out one by one, rather than one big splash. However, it is Bernadette Peters (from 20th January) who has the unenviable task of following in Bette Midler’s shoes and trying to maintain the hefty box office that she’s managed to garner, and maintain. Victor Garber and our very own Charlie Stemp (making his Broadway debut) have also been revealed and doubtless by the time you read this, more will be have been announced too, one by one.

Producers Tim Levy (Director, NT America) and Jordan Roth (President, Jujamcyn Theaters) announced today that the National Theatre Production of Tony Kushner’s epic and seminal masterwork, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, will return to Broadway for the first time since its now-legendary original production opened in 1993. This spectacular new staging of Part One of Angels in America, Millennium Approaches, and of Part Two, Perestroika, had its world premiere earlier this year in a sold-out run at the National Theatre, where it became the fastest selling show in the organization’s history. This strictly limited, 18-week engagement will begin performances at The Neil Simon Theatre on Friday, February 23, 2018, with an official opening on Wednesday, March 21. Public on sale is: 27 October at 10am NYC time. Continue reading “Round-up of news and treats and other interesting things”

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TV Review: Will, Episodes 1 + 2

“You are a curiosity”

American versions of Shakespeare (whether his plays or the man himself) are always worth looking up, even if only for a chuckle and new TNT TV series Will is certainly no exception. There’s some weight behind it – it was created by Craig Pearce, the longtime writing partner of filmmaker Baz Luhrmann and has Shekhar Kapur, who directed the award-winning Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, directing and executive producing and in the role of the Bard himself, there’s a potentially star-making role for British newcomer Laurie Davidson.

I watched the first two episodes and they sure make an arresting introduction. You feel Luhrmann’s influence almost immediately as this is no antiquated version of a sedate Elizabethan London, but rather it is one shot through with bright colours and a punk-filled attitude. Literally so, as they have conceived the burgeoning theatre scene of the time as being akin to the contemporary(ish) world of punk rock – theatres filled with patrons in leather and mohicans, the soundtrack filled with the Clash and drunken singalongs to Lou Reed.  Continue reading “TV Review: Will, Episodes 1 + 2”

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Review: Angels in America, National Theatre

“It isn’t easy, it doesn’t count if it’s easy, it’s the hardest thing. Forgiveness. Which is maybe where love and justice finally meet”

In the many aspects of Angels in America that there are to enjoy and appreciate, the richness of Tony Kushner’s writing was not one that I was particularly expecting. But at several points throughout the many, many hours of the two-show press day, it felt like Kushner was almost writing in pull-quotes, such was the vividness of the language that was resonating from the stage of the Lyttelton. So to reflect that, I’m structuring this post a little differently to a traditional review, using some of those quotes to trigger and collect some of my thoughts. 

 

“The great work begins”

Such was the ‘noise’ around this 25th anniversary production of these shows that it was impossible to ignore the fevered level of expectation and that’s something I find a little hard to deal with. I’d never seen them onstage before, nor succumbed to the temptation of watching the HBO miniseries, wanting to be able to make up my own mind about them. But it is so difficult in this day and age, to dissociate from the chatter around the theatre I love. Plus the fact that so many exciting names were attached to the cast and creative listings – Marianne Elliott directing the likes of Oscar nominee Andrew Garfield, Olivier winner Denise Gough, bona fide cultural institution Nathan Lane…I mean who couldn’t get just a bit excited. Continue reading “Review: Angels in America, National Theatre”

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Countdown to new Who: Doctor Who Series 3

“You 
Are 
Not 
Alone”

There’s something perhaps a bit perverse in some of the strongest episodes of new Who emerging from the series which (arguably) had the weakest companion. Freema Agyeman was ill-served by writing that couldn’t let her be a companion in her own right, as opposed to the-one-in-Rose’s-shadow, and consequently never felt entirely comfortable in the TARDIS.

Series 3 has real highs and certain lows – the introduction of Doctor-lite episodes (to ease the production schedules) produced the inventive wonder that was Blink (and further proved Steven Moffat’s genius), the unashamed grab for the heartstrings was perfectly realised in the Human Nature / The Family of Blood double-header, and the re-introduction of one of the Doctor’s most enduring foes was well-judged. That said, we also had the inevitable return of the Daleks who already feel like they’re in danger of over-exposure.

Continue reading “Countdown to new Who: Doctor Who Series 3”

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Angels in America – a fantasia on how to get tickets for a sold-out show.

Tickets for Angels in America sold out very quickly- a mark of the excitement for this 25th anniversary production of Tony Kushner’s epic, but the folks at the National have come up with three ways that you can still catch the show and this bunch of jobbing actors (pictured by Helen Maybanks) have kindly re-enacted the experience of trying to get tickets for the show… Continue reading “Angels in America – a fantasia on how to get tickets for a sold-out show.”

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Cast images released for Angels In America

With public booking for Angels in America opening at 8.30am on Friday 20 January 2017, striking images of its key cast have just been released. 2017 marks the 25th anniversary of the shows which will be directed at the National by Marianne Elliott and its all-star cast make it a very tempting proposition indeed. Millennium Approaches, the first of the two plays which form Angels in America, received its British premiere at the National Theatre’s Cottesloe Theatre in 1992, in Declan Donnellan’s original production, and was joined by Perestroika in a double-bill the following year. Continue reading “Cast images released for Angels In America”