Theatre

An archive of blog entries about plays and theatre production.

What have you been watching? Including The Elephant Man, Hannibal, Strike Back & Halt and Catch Fire

5 June 2015 Rob Buckley 14 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.

Elsewhere on this ‘ere blog, I’ve already reviewed all the new TV shows I could find this week and which you should either try to find yourselves or desperately avoid, these being:

So if you’re looking for new shows here, I ain’t got nothing for you, mister, I’m afraid, since I haven’t had a chance to watch Netflix’s new Sense8, the entire series of which was released today. Thanks Netflix.

However, we’ve got a few returning regulars this week, too, which means that after the jump, I’ll be reviewing the first new episodes of the latest seasons of Hannibal, Halt and Catch Fire and Strike Back: Legacy. I’ll also be looking at the latest episodes of Between and Game of Thrones, and casting an eye over perhaps the last ever episode of Community.

But first, a theatre review! I have in fact between to the theatre twice this week, but I’m saving up my review of the Almeida’s marathon modernisation of The Oresteia – a trilogy in four parts, it turns out – until next week when I can give it due consideration.

The Elephant Man (Theatre Royal Haymarket)
Little known actor Bradley Cooper and the rest of the Tony Award-nominated Williamstown/Broadway cast (Patricia Clarkson, Alessandro Nivola, Anthony Heald et al) come over to the Theatre Royal for this 12-week run of Bernard Pomerance’s 1979 play about the deformed Joseph Merrick aka ‘the Elephant Man’ because he was exhibited in a circus. Most people will be familiar with the 1980 David Lynch movie starring John Hurt, and this follows similar beats, focusing on Merrick’s life between his discovery by a Dr Treves (Nivola) at the circus run by Heald through his life in Treves’ care at the London Hospital and his friendship with Clarkson’s famous actress (who in real life actually did perform at the Haymarket) until his eventual death in the hospital.

It’s a moving piece, albeit one that can’t quite focus on a theme, jumping between questions of God and Darwinism through to women’s bodies in Victoria society. Merrick here is similar to Lynch’s version, being the beautiful souled man trapped in a body so horrifying everyone but a trained actress can’t help but avoid screaming and running away from. However, this is less ‘disabled as object pity’ than the movie, giving us a Merrick who’d quite like to see a naked woman, please.

Cooper takes on the challenging role of Merrick but eschews all make-up in favour of an entirely physical and quite breathtaking performance, assuming each deformity as it’s described in an early scene. Cooper’s obviously and deservedly the focus of the play, but Nivola’s performance is what anchors it and Scott Ellis’s direction is innovative. I was impressed, my wife loved it and the whole thing got a standing ovation, so see it while you can.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including The Elephant Man, Hannibal, Strike Back & Halt and Catch Fire”

News

News: Puppy Love cancelled, trailer for Tut, BBC3 online move delayed, trailers galore + more

24 April 2015 Rob Buckley Post a comment

The cast of Fox's Scream Queens

Film casting

Film trailers

  • Trailer for Black Mass with Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon et al
  • Trailer for M Night Shyamalan’s The Visit

Theatre

International TV

Internet TV

  • Trailer for Netflix’s Grace and Frankie

UK TV

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

News: more Fortitude, trailers for lots of new US shows, a returning Hero, a SHIELD spin-off + more

13 April 2015 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Film casting

Theatre

Australian TV

Canadian TV

French TV

Internet TV

  • Trailer for Netflix’s Grace and Frankie
  • Trailer for season 3 of Netflix’s Orange is the New Black
  • Casting for Netflix’s The Get Down

UK TV

New UK TV show casting

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

What have you been watching? Including The Producers, Divergent, Dig, Gallipoli, Fortitude and Vikings

16 March 2015 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.

Well, I’ve not quite caught up with my backlog. Nearly, but not quite. To be fair, the deluge of new shows has continued and this week I’ve already dealt with the first episode of American Crime and Powers, not to mention the first three of Secrets and Lies. But I’ve had to put on the backburner for a couple of days at least the first two episodes of A&E’s The Returned, a remake of Canal+’s Les Revenants, as well as E!’s first foray last night into insulting the British scripted programming, The Royals. I’ve also had to hold off starting on both the third season of House of Cards and Netflix’s new Tina Fey sitcom The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. But I will get round to all of them, I promise.

After the jump then, the regulars and the new regulars including 12 Monkeys, 19-2, The Americans, American Crime, Banshee, The Blacklist, Dig, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Fortitude, Gallipoli, Man Seeking Woman, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and Vikings. One of them has been promoted to ‘recommended’ status and one of them narrowly avoided demotion – which ones do you think they were?

But I’ve also watched a couple of movies and been to the theatre!

The Producers (touring production, Bromley Churchill Theatre)
Musical adaptation of the Mel Brooks movie classic, in which theatrical producer Zero Mostel discovered from accountant Gene Wilder that he could make a fortune from a flop, and the duo conspired to put on the worst play imaginable: Springtime For Hitler. This touring production sees Cory English take on the Zero Mostel role, Jason Manford take on Wilder’s, with Phill Jupitus, Louise Spence and David Bedella rounding off the rest of the cast. Despite Manford, Jupitus and Spence being the big names, it’s English who’s the film’s focus and who gets the lion’s share of the work, the others getting surprisingly little to do. But the cast itself, right down to the dancers, are all uniformly excellent, even if Manford spends a little too much time in the first half trying to copy Wilder’s vocal patterns rather than giving his own interpretation. Not quite as funny as the original film, and with too many songs for its own good, it’s nevertheless a top notch night out.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2014) (iTunes)
Catness is out with the resistance in the third part of the series, which dials back in the action in favour of lots of propaganda videos, as each side tries to out PR the other in the ongoing civil war. It’s all a bit bleak and miserable actually, with very little respite from the darkness, making it the hardest watch of the series so far.

Divergent (2004) (iTunes)
More young adult, post-apocalyptic misery. To maintain peace and prosperity, society gets divided into factions following a terrible war and just as with Harry Potter’s sorting hat, everyone gets sorted into factions that suit their personalities. Except Shailene Woodley’s Tris is ‘Divergent’ and could belong to any number of factions, so picks ‘Dauntless’. Unfortunately, the ‘Erudites’ don’t like that, because they have a naughty scheme up their sleeves that the Divergents could ruin.

Very much a watered down Hunger Games, with flimsy logic and a thinly veiled metaphor for High School life (are you a nerd, a jock, on the debate team, a wallflower or are you really just such an individual?) meshed poorly with a very sub-Equilibrium post-apocalyptic background and fight scenes and a Twilight-style ‘special’ heroine whom everyone is after because she’s so special, yet simultaneously special. All the same, it’s actually enjoyable enough stuff, with some darkish moments, a plucky heroine, Theo James (Golden Boy, Bedlam) almost summoning up a personality for a change and Ashley Judd getting to use her Missing training for all of five minutes.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including The Producers, Divergent, Dig, Gallipoli, Fortitude and Vikings”

Theatre

Can we have a little more variety in our Greek tragedies, please, London theatres?

13 March 2015 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Funny, isn’t it, how Greek tragedy has trends? After all, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Euripides et al all died two and a half millennia ago. Yet there are very definite trends in which Greek tragedies still gets performed – at least in London.

Yesterday, for example, the Almeida unveiled its year-long Greek tragedy season. Whoopee! Good news for all us who like Greek tragedies. Except…

…far be it from me to complain, as this isn’t exactly a commonplace event, and perhaps I should be grateful for whatever comes my way, but let’s have a look at what’s being performed.

  • 29 May to 18 July: Aeschylus’s The Oresteia, with Lia Williams as Clytemnestra
  • 23 July to 19 September: Euripides’ The Bacchae, with Ben Whishaw as Dionysus
  • 25 September to 14 November: Euripides’ Medea, with Kate Fleetwood as Medea

Lovely plays, obviously. And yet, in February alone, we had two versions of The Bacchae performed at the Bloomsbury Theatre and Theatro Technis. Last year, saw both the National and Riverside Studios putting on versions of Medea. And a little before that, Riverside also put on The Oresteia, which will also be produced by The Globe this summer.

This repetition isn’t isolated to the Almeida’s offerings, either. This month, the Barbican is hosting Juliette Binoche in a version of Sophocles’ Antigone, which BBC Four are going to broadcast as part of its forthcoming ’The Age of Heroes’ season. But you can also see a different version tonight at the Westminster Arts Library.

On top of that, Antigone, of course, was the National’s last Greek tragedy before Medea and – you guessed it – was also performed at Riverside Studios the same year. Meanwhile, KCL’s Greek play this year was Aristophanes’ The Clouds, which was performed at the Bloomsbury last year.

So quite a lot of Greek tragedy (and comedy) going on, but lots of the same Greek tragedies. Lots of the same Greek tragedies that people think have bearing on modern times. So lots of Medea – an obvious feminist work to start with with apparently one that can be made more feminist each time – but very little Ion and the nature of obedience to the gods; plenty of condensed down Oresteia, discussing the nature of revenge and justice, very little of the ‘historical’ Seven Against Thebes.

To a certain extent, the problem is similar to that of deciding which Shakespeare play to perform: you can usually do well commercially with a Lear or a Hamlet, and there’s many an actor willing to take on the Bard in those plays; trying to find someone interested in either watching or starring in Pericles and Timon of Athens is a much harder job.

All the same, it’s been a while since we’ve had the always popular Oedipus Rex, the engaging and comedic Helen, the always-relevant The Trojan Women or even an Iphigenia, either at Aulis or Tauris. So come on theatres, give us a little variety, please!

Until then, feel free to enjoy the stunning Elektra (Ηλέκτρα), directed by Mihalis Kakogiannis (Zorba the Greek).