'Radiant Vermin' - Play review

Wow, my 13th play review. This blog's really going somewhere now. Did you know it's been 40 days since the last day with no viewers? Even when nothing gets posted, astounding. Many apologies for the something of a hiatus that's occurred since my last blog post. In the past six days I've made over 300 revision cards for biology - hard work, y'dig. Last Thursday, almost a week ago, was a nice break from all that, a trip up to London with a friend to see Phillip Ridley's new play at the Soho Theatre in London. Now I'm not one for laughing at theatre - I can appreciate things are funny and be amused by them, but I'm much less inclined to actually vocalise it - not one for crying at theatre either. Not that 'Radiant Vermin', a play about a horrendously ethically-challenged couple who realise that killing homeless people magically furnishes their new dream home however they wish it, made me cry at any time, but dear lord did I laugh.

Hm, it matches the colour scheme of my blog quite well.

One of the main reasons I'm fixated on going to drama school in London specifically is the vividness of the theatre scene in London, and the three London theatre trips I've been on in the last three weeks (this, and school trips to see Ivo van Hove's 'Antigone' at the Barbican and 'A View from the Bridge' at the Wyndham's) have really helped to cement that impression. The Soho Theatre is just such a great venue, for quite the opposite grounds that the Barbican and Wyndham's theatres are - it's such a modern venue that it has no pretences about being anything other than a theatre.

Reading and the Riptide

Spring is here! A-spu-ring is here! Life is textbooks and life is highlighters… okay that doesn't quite scan actually. I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring - I do - don't you? 'Course you do. Tom Lehrer references aside, spring is lovely, and spring is most definitely here, as I can finally sleep with the window open, after so long of being unable to over the long and vicious winter we've had. As the Easter 2-week holiday finally arrives, it's time to revel in the new pleasantness replacing the horribleness, time to take something of a breather from the tumultuously busy last few weeks of the 'spring' term and put one's feet up in the only way A-level students know how to:

Yay.

Ruminating briefly on George Orwell's essay 'Thoughts on the Common Toad', which argues that the innate joy of witnessing nature reincarnate itself at this time of year can be enjoyed despite human goings-on, it seems this new seasonal refreshing burst of life has some joy to offer, even with the triple-threat of looming A-level exams, the looming decision of which HE path I want to take, and the looming possibility that in a month's time the votes will swing in UKIP's favour and the whole country will be bolloxed up and I'll likely have to leave the country. Not because I'm of foreign birth and would be deported, mind, it'd just be too awful to stay here.

Now there is this well-earned break, during this period of reincarnation and rejuvenation, it's possible to reflect on what has been and what is to come.

'A View from the Bridge' (Ivo van Hove) - Play review

Sorry the writing of this review is somewhat delayed, I was in my college's 48-hour film competition so didn't have the time until today - luckily with some jigery-pokery of my blog's schedule I could queue in a few reviews I've already written to give myself enough time. Phew. It's been a busy week, after an equally busy week which was last week, when I saw Ivo van Hove's 'Antigone' on Tuesday, and a few weeks ago I saw another version of 'A View from the Bridge' at the Cheltenham Everyman Theatre. I recommend reading at least the latter-mentioned review for comparison. But without any further ado…

A grainy image looking down on the Wyndham's Theatre from the Grand Circle.

I've never actually heard of the Wyndham's Theatre before, which is probably a bad thing for an admiring actor. I've seen it referenced in The Stage before, but couldn't relate the place to the name - anyway, it's a lovely building. Hugely ornate the point of decadence - but in a building of culture, why not have decadence? As with a lot of London theatres the raking of the seats is exceptionally steep to get as many patrons as possible into the space allowed, so, a word to the wise, don't choose a seat in the Grand Circle (or God forbid the Upper Circle or Balcony) if you have vertigo, as the drop is sickening. Well, do, just don't look down, as the perspective on the stage from up there is, while slightly alienating due to distance, certainly remarkable, and the emotion transmits across the space just as well in this production in any case.

'Antigone' - Play review

I studied 'Antigone' last year for my Drama and Theatre Studies AS. Studying something in a vacuum makes it disgusting. There were no productions of 'Antigone' on while we were studying it, or it least no trips organised, so I was disgusted by 'Antigone'. Shortly after my exam there was a production of it on at the Theatre Royal, Winchester, but again, I was too disgusted, I couldn't go. I didn't fail my exam or anything, I got an A, it's just that the play became a piece of educational material and no longer a work of literature. So when a trip was organised for a group of ASs to go and see Ivan van Hove's 'Antigone' at the Barbican I immediately signed up - I'm going to see 'A View from the Bridge' on Tuesday* so I'd like to see what the director's style is and how his works compare. Oh my, I wrote 8 pages of notes.

I couldn't get a picture of the set. Here is a ticket.

The first thing to discuss would have to be the venue. In December I went to the Barbican with a friend to watch the RSC's 'Henry IV Part One', and decided that getting a seat in the front row of the circle would be better than a back row in the stalls for the same price. The view was good from up there looking down on the action, and being at the front, however having that cavernous space (for the Barbican theatre is cavernous in size) in front of you when watching a play is somewhat isolating, you feel very much separate from the action, no matter how good it is. The stalls however are an entirely different story. Even row P, where we were sat, felt intimate to the stage. It's a sensation almost unique to the Barbican: the stalls sweep around in such a way that you feel almost deindividuated in the vast space, part of one body which is the audience as opposed to one that is yourself, it's a truly magical theatre, the effects created by the architecture are fabulous. Entering at ground level and descending two flights of stairs to the stalls, then looking up to the circle, upper circle and gallery above you, you feel very much the scale of the theatre space, like a theatrical ant's nest, or underground beehive, again, magical. I've been reading a lot of Nietzche's tragic theory recently and the Barbican seems the perfect place to stage a tragedy, as you are immediately swept up into another world, that being the world of the story.