War Horse

I've been hearing about the play, War Horse, for years (I think it has been on stage for 6 or 7 years, now), but have never got around to seeing it. 

I still haven't seen it on stage, but on Thursday evening, I was able to see it at my local cinema as part of the 'NT Live' programme.

I love the NT Live broadcasts.

I love going to the theatre, and I'm lucky that I manage to see a fair few shows, both locally and in London, but the broadcasts make it possible to see shows I wouldn't otherwise see, (or to see shows I enjoyed, again ) and of course it gives so many people the chance to see things they wouldn't otherwise be able to (and generally for much less than the cost of theatre tickets, particularly once you factor in travel!) 

I enjoyed the show. The initial scenes are set in Devon, and I did find it slightly distracting that the actors accents ranged from actual Devon, to 'generic yokel', with a smattering of Irish, but fortunately it didn't throw me completely out of the story.

The puppets, which are made by the Handspring Puppet Company of Cape Town, are astonishing - the puppeteers are always visible, and the horses (and other puppets) are very obviously puppets, but at the same time they are completely convincing as horses - even while you can see the puppeteer moving the cogs and rods to make their ears move, or their flanks heave.

The plot isn't a complex one, but it manages to be gripping, and I admit that I may have been a little teary when Albert and Joey are finally reunited!

Well worth seeing if you have the opportunity!

She Stoops to Conquer

I have been a bit slow to blog about my theatre going. Last week, I was due to go to London, to meet up with my oldest, best friend and her partner, and to see  a live performance of 'The Comedy of Errors' with Lenny Henry. I was also due, on the Thursday, to go to the cinema to see a broadcast performance of 'she Stoops to Conquer'. Only one of those plans worked out...

On the Thursday evening I went to Bath, to the little theatre cinema, to see She Stoops to Conquer. I was a little underwhelmed. the comedy is fairly broad, and in this production I felt that many of the performances spilled over from 'exagerated for comedic effect' into over-acting. Mrs Hardcastle, for instance, (the archetypal Hyacinth Bucket) puts on so affected a 'posh' voice as to be almost incomprehensible, and both she and the other characters come across as being such exaggerated characters that I was left wondering whether I had stumbled  to a pantomime instead of a 'real' play. I suspect that this was attributable to the director, rather than the actors, but I was left rather disappointed by the production.

As a result of this being somewhat disappointing, I was looking forward even more to seeing 'Comedy of Errors', especially as I had seen Lenny Henry as 'Othello' 2 years ago, and knew how good he was in that. Sadly, on Friday morning I woke up with a stomach bug, and although i was starting to recover by Saturday morning, I was far from well enough to go to London. I was so eager to go that I did try - I went to the station to catch the train, but when the effort of trying to walk up the stairs to cross to the platform caused me to almost black out, I was forced to admit that I could not go to  London. I ended up returning home and going back to bed for 2 days, and it was a week before I was back to normal, but it was all Very Disappointing.

The only small mercy was that as it was my BFF, not me, who booked the tickets, she did have them, so at least my being ill did not stop them from seeing the play. Sadly, the performance we had tickets for was the last performance but 2, so there was no chance of my being able to re-book and see it once  had recovered.

*sigh*