From Morning to Midnight (National Theatre)

And now the National Theatre’s Christmas show for grown ups! I saw it a couple of weeks ago, another preview, with my friend Lisa for her birthday. I don’t think she’s a fan of German expressionism or maybe she was just two hungover from the day before… but I actually really enjoyed it.

Adam Godley’s performance was totally insane, all arms and leg and jerky angles, I booked it because I knew he was good but I did not realize just how good he was. Brilliant. I enjoyed the first half of the play more than the second, I think just because of the maniacal behavior, but also the beautiful snow! Ever seen a giant stage covered in billowing snowdrifts? Lovely! There were some great things to look at in the second half too but Adam Godley calmed down (a bit) and there was not nearly as much shrieking and clambering about.

Long tall actors should always clamber about like loons. It pleases me.

The Ritual Slaughter of George Mastromas (Royal Court- October)

Back to the present day! I saw this overly long piece a couple of months ago. Let me have a look at the texts I sent to my pal afterwards to try and remember how I felt. Hmm.. Seems I thought there were lots of good bits but it was so long that they weren’t worth waiting for. BUT Tom Brooke was amazing and terrifying. He does that maniacal breakdown acting so well with his Mr Punch face. Frightening!

Made For Each Other (Edinburgh Fringe)

Made For Each Other by Monica Bauer and performed by John Fico is my other highlight of this year’s Fringe. I was working at the venue where both of Monica’s shows were performed -she performed a monologue about her young life which was also very good but this is undoubtedly her masterpiece.

Wonderfully performed by such talent! All of us who managed to see it wept with joy and sadness.

Broken (2013)

I can't remember if I saw this rehash of To Kill a Mockingbird before or after some of these April/May films but I thought it was brilliant and violent and haunting and horrible and brilliant. It was a film Anna and I wished we'd seen with our parents and with our boyfriends but that we didn't want to watch again in a hurry because it was just so traumatic! 

Rory Kinnear's ham-eating was a good comic moment for us but in context just as frightening as the rest of his great performance. All actors involved brill- Cillian Murphy was great. Tim Roth was praised at the time but I don't know why, he was barely in it and he didn't add much when he was. 

Electrick Children (2011)

What a weird but enjoyable little film. Rented purely 'cause I wanted to see what Rory Culkin had grown into (another good actor, but Kieran's probably still the most promising). A mormon girl listens to a cassette tape, hears music for the first time and suddenly becomes pregnant. Her parents don't believe her immaculate conception story so they throw her brother out believing he raped her. They run away to Las Vegas, him wanting her to confess on the tape to who really raped her so he can go home and clear his name, she wants to find the voice on the tape, believing him to be her baby's father and the man she must marry.
A good culture shock film with everything you wanted to happen, the brother gets drunk and high and makes out with girls and swears and has a great time, the sister falls in love with a loser skaterboy and they escape the weird religious oppression of the commune. Hooray!

In Treatment (2008)

So I can't stress how much I liked In Treatment, though I also can't stress how much it was just because of the concept! Five half hour episodes a week; the patient he sees on Monday on Monday, the patient he sees on Tuesday on tuesday, etc and then on Friday he goes to his therapist and talks about what he really thinks of all his nut job patients! And the best part of it was you had to wait a week to see Sophie again, or Jake and Amy or whoever was your favourite, and how has what Paul's (Gabriel Byrne, our therapist) had to deal with over the week, how was that going to affect how he treats his patients. See even though you only see him non-professionally in the friday episodes it was still all about him, it took a week to get into it, but once you're in you are caught!
So Sophie was my favourite. Not just because she seemed to be the only patient he actually managed to help (Laura, no, that didn't work, Alex, that definitely didn't work, Jake and Amy, well, Jake seemed much better but I grew to like him more and more towards the end and hate Amy, and his own therapy, well what a disaster!) But I liked the relationship between them. One of the things Paul argued to his own therapist was that he loved all of his patients, if he didn't feel a connection then he couldn't really help them. Sophie was the one he really loved I think, and she loved him. She got what she needed out of therapy, a safe place and someone she could trust and a father figure who didn't let her down or take advantage of her. I came to the conclusion he should be a child psychiatrist, as he was gentle and patient with her when he wasn't with some of the others, after all it's ok for a child to act like a child but surely you can't help showing your anger and disgust if after ten sessions a grown man is still acting that way (I liked it when he went mad at Alex, did he punch him or did he just throw coffee in his face?).
Mia Wasikowska was bloody good. Makes me want to watch Jane Eyre again, she's now on my list of actors to always watch. I liked Melissa George as Laura as well, but only 'cause I fancied her.

This Is England '88 (2011)

I saw This is England (2006) when it came out at the cinema, it was really good and then I forgot about it, when This is England '86 came on the telly and was all about Woody and Lol's wedding and breakup and her murdering her rapist father, well, I thought it was excellent, the best thing I'd sen on tv for years and years. Why didn't I write about it on the blog? Maybe then I would have remembered how much I'd enjoyed it and I wouldn't have somehow managed to miss this one! '88 was on last Christmas and is a sort of nativity story, it wasn't as gripping as the last series but I really enjoyed it. It was just about how Lol and Woody were both so sad without each other. I like stuff like that, I like depressing romances.

Breaking Bad, Seasons 1-4

And now to what I am currently doing. I have had surgery. I am bedbound. We got that. So what happens when you're bedbound? You watch tons of boxsets. Breaking Bad I have been watching slowly now for a while. After the appendicitis kicked in- and by the way I thought it was food poisoning for the first week so I just lay in bed writhing!- in the week pre-hospital I started and finished season 4. Bloody hell! What a show! I can't see how they could need another season, tie up a few little loose ends I suppose, but really, that was an ending, it was an ending I'm happy with and when I was in the hospital after my operation and off my face on morphine for three days I had a hell of a lot of nightmares about Breaking Bad!! It gets in your head, man!!

Blue/Orange, York Grand

The night me and Rob went to see Blue/Orange in town I started to get bad back pains, they were terrible for three days then they eased and I went to see King Lear in London, that's when my troubles really started! Anyhoo, I took some paracetemol and we went to see the play. It was good! The three actors did a great job, all of them, I went to see Robert Bathurst of course, who Rob likened to a gorilla but who I've always seen as a charming blond boy. It was a good psychological drama and the first time me and Rob have been to the theatre together, I think he enjoyed going too but next time I think a period piece, something less mind-fucky!

Last of the Haussmans, NT live

Haven't been to the National Theatre for ages! Don't know when I will! I really wanted to see the new John Lithgow play but I'll probably miss it, I hope I get to see Alan Bennett's latest as well but I think it's all sold out already! But when you miss plays you can always go to see them at the cinema these days! We saw Rory Kinnear's latest (we haven't missed anything he's done for the last six years or so! He's great!) at the cinema. We were glad we hadn't made the trip. To be honest I wouldn't actually want to pay to see Julie Walters do anything, I think she's ghastly, over-rated and the same in everything. She was ok in this, but still just Julie Walters. Rory was ok too, but really it showed that it was the writer's first play, it wasn't saying anything about selfish baby-boomers we didn't already know. The good thing, the really good thing was Helen McCrory, she was really really good. Her preformace made the play worth seeing, after being angry that Rory was just playing a depressed gay goth and Julie Walters was her annoying self it took a while to realise the play wasn't about them, it was about McCrory's character and all the shit she had to put up with, she was really excellent. I'd like to see her for real next time.

Betrayal, Sheffield Crucible

I passed myself off as a York Student and went on the Theatre-Goers trip to see Betrayal at the Crucible. What a great theatre and art gallery next door! With fab restaurants! Me and Anna had steak and chips beforehand, dee-lish! This is a play I don't remember much, well I do, but I found it dull and I found the cast dull. The art gallery was great though!

Henry V, Globe

The Globe finished their World Shakespeare Season with Henry V, and also launched their new season with it. Jamie Parker returned as Hal and was as charming and cocky and young-Kenny-Brannagh as ever. We'd seen Henry IV parts one and two last year at the cinema and my god they were fantastic, so much better than the BBC's Hollow Crown series, Simon Russell Beale can fuck right off, he is a charmless slime-bucket, we love you Roger Allam, your Falstaff is my dream man, I was horrified at his "death scene cameo" (a large covered corpse was carried off) in Henry V. Yes, it was a good show and I'm glad I saw them all, but I miss Falstaff and as soon as it was over we went straight to the shop and bought Henry IV parts one and two on dvd to give to Dad-Y for birthday. Making this June!

Step 9 (of 12), Trafalgar Studios

With a Thursday afternoon to kill in London and all the exhibitions having been seen I got a ticket and and ice cream for this one act play in the Trafalgar Studios teeny intimate theatre. I sat in the front row, which was practically on the set- my feet were in the set, it was up close and personal! And it was a claustraphobic little play! Funny, then tense, then uncomfortable, then terrifying!! I really REALLY enjoyed it. Neil from the Inbetweeners starred and he was very good indeed, that boy has range and I couldn't help but totally fancy him when I realised what talent he has! I'm a sucker for talent. And he reminded me of Rob. He was the same height and shape, but like forty years younger. Ha!

Mad Men, Season Five (and yes I'm still alive)

Ok. I'm going to start with this one because I have just rewatched it on DVD after having watched it all when it was originally on tv. I haven't put anything on here since April, I've been useless! I blame having that job at the comic shop! And then having that tv job in Leeds and then being on holiday and then being in hospital. I am now bedbound and so I have no excuse... The thing is I actually did keep a note of all the films and plays I've seen and I prepared images for the blog, I just never seemed to have time to write it. So now, even though the reviews will be short and probably I'll say "I can't really remember it" a lot, at least I'll be back up to date!


Madmen season five was thrilling, I loved watching it weekly as well as watching it all in a couple of nights last week! Peggy is just the bomb, I can't wait for her in the next season. I can't write more, just that I love it and I'm glad after a season of Don thinking he can be different with Megan the final shot of him was like "Ah, fuck it, I'm Don Draper!"

27 (Edinburgh Lyceum)

I actually saw a play the night before I went to see this play in York put on by a little group of local actors, I can't remember what it was called but it was about this girl who had an imaginary friend who she played sex games with, it was really weird and ticked every cliche in the book but the set design and the costumes were good.
Then I went on a day trip and saw 27 up in Edinburgh, my main memory from seeing it was that the set looked SO dangerous. There was a huge steep staircase, open on one side and the older actors who played the nuns kept running up and down it, I was on edge and uncomfortable watching it. Nuns vs Scientists. Not my cup of tea really, seemed more suited to being a Radio 4 play as nothing was said that needed to use that giant staircase, in fact I might have been more able to concentrate on it if the distraction of the idea of Maureen Beattie plunging to her death of the edge hadn't been there! Can see why Nick le Prevost was cast as the American, he's sort of old Holywood in his looks, not as camp as Cary Grant but almost.

The Kitchen (National Theatre)

I feel like I haven't been to the theatre in so friggin' long!! I didn't even go tonight, this was another NT Live affair. After The Cherry Orchard I wasn't sure if the National know how to film their productions, but because this was an ensemble there weren't loads of irritating close-ups of "the star".
Because the Kitchen is so beautifully choreographed whoever was filming was obviously keen to show it. It looked really good, I wish I'd seen it live- uh, I mean, live without the ten minute delay, actually in the theatre. I bet it's even more spectacular!
Tom Brooke is a great firecracker, weird boney face and beautiful eyes, Jonathan Pryce-like in his manic desperation, I think after seeing him in the Caretaker I thought; "bet Jonathan played it exactly like that." He'll be big in the theatre now I reckon, it's an ensemble piece but he was the one you watched.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2011 part one

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Dexter, season 4

I had my tonsils out last week and since then I have been watching some of the boxsets that are kicking around my folks' house. My dad likes Dexter because my dad wishes he was Dexter (though my dad also says stuff like "I don't understand why he doesn't just kill his wife and kids!" proving Dexter, the deranged serial killer, is more developed as a human than he is.) I started with Season four even though my dad has season three as well, I did this because John Lithgow was on the box.
Love John Lithgow.
Remember when me and Alison went to see him do his one man show at the National, it was wonderful! Such joy! So I wanted to see him be a bastard, and not just a Cliffhanger or Santa Claus bastard, a proper, hammer weilding bastard. And hey, with the normal image I have of him, staring into a mirror and shouting "God, I'm gorgeous!" it was at first an amusing idea- especially as the first time we see him he kills a girl while looking into a mirror. But it's suitably horrifying straight away for you to say, wait a minute, I don't like seeing him like this! This is horrible!! He was a good bastard. (And rather too attractive in this publicity shot- pin up! Ha!)
Anyway, I liked Dexter and the other characters enough to want to watch the other series now, much better than the cop crap on British TV.

Verdict (Grand Opera House, York)

I went to see the Agatha Christie theatre company perform Verdict tonight, my main reason for going was that a couple of weeks ago I opened up the shop where I work to find a load of leaflets thrown all over the floor, printed on slippery cheap paper they had slid from the desk overnight. When I picked them up I saw Robert Duncan's grimacing old face staring back at me. Drop the Dead Donkey occupies I'd say 30% of my brain space, the character of Gus, played by Robert Duncan, occupies 80% of that 30% (the rest is Henry). So of course I had to see it! Even though plays I've seen starring Rob in the past have been abysmal I had to see it- plus Neville from the Harry Potter films was on the flyer too and he's quite cute.

Neville, go to school. And if you want to be an actor, go to acting school. Yeah, not the best of the bunch. And what a boring, predictable play full of ugly fourth rate actors. The main thing I took from it is where a buttonhole is on a man's lapel. Which is good, because I'd been getting it wrong on drawings all day. I still like Robert Duncan, he always plays Gus whether he's a confident fop, a hideous demon or a conflicted professor. Good old Andy Hamilton!

Old Reviews 8: The Letter (an Edinburgh Theatre, Feb 2007)

So into the theatre where we scoffed our sandwiches too quickly, and hundreds of old people joined us. I forgot about these wednesday matinees, they're like pensioner days. That's what happened when I saw Nigel Havers a couple of years ago, I was on my own in a sea of grannies. Same today. But you know how it is, pensioners are so well behaved, they've been to the theatre before they know it's not their living room so they won't talk... UNLESS they're sitting next to me, they're then guaranteed to talk. "Ooh, is that Anthony Andrews? No. That's a much younger man. Is that Anthony Andrews? Yes, yes it is. Hasn't he aged?" I stress, this was NOT a conversation this was a commentary by one mad old woman.
Anyway, the play was The Letter starring Antoine and Jenny Seagrove. The first scene was Seagrove overacted and forgetting her lines, it was cringeworthy, I actually thought "Oh my god.. this is amatuer dramatics. This is so terrible." And I actually found myself thinking I could do a better job!! She was dreadful and I thought the whole play was going to be a dead loss, but luckily for us most of the play was just Anthony Andrews talking to himself or his amusing clerk. What started out a horrible attempt at drama soon turned into humor and the day was saved by Double A! The man who I've now seen most on stage out of all my favourites! (thrice)
We had ice creams in the interval and old people did embarrassing things but not as embarrassing as Celia's slip falling off somehow from under her dress. She blamed the old people. I was in hysterics. Anyway, not a bad play. Didn't like Seagrove, she had a one-tone voice that cut through me and she couldn't act.

2011 Author's Note: Me and Celia were so drunk on our trip to Edinburgh we could have been watching anything.