Last night I went to that internationally famous centre of artistic excellence - er, Yeovil Cineworld and I was, to use the jargon, quite blown away! A truly wondrous, magical, marvelous evening. Ah, I hear you ask, was it a film? Was it a play? No - it was both! (Get a grip, Duff, and just tell them what you saw!)
OK, last night I went to the Cineworld complex and saw a filmed live performance of London Assurance. It was sensationally brilliant, not just the production itself which was a master-class in comic acting, but in the superb melding of film and stage. Unlike the disasterous David Tennant Hamlet in which they took the original production and then filmed it in a new location, this was filmed in situ at the National Theatre during the penultimate evening performance before a live audience. 'Ain't never gonna work', I hear you mutter because I said much the same thing myself - and thus, the astronomically long list of Things I Have Been Wrong About grew another inch. The filming had obviously been carefully planned and rehearsed but this was a live performance and so very occasionally the camera and the actors became slightly out of synch but oddly enough that actually added to the immediacy of it all. It was better than sitting in the front row of the stalls because you actually felt at times as though you were on stage with the actors. You could count the sweat drops on Simon Russell Beale's brow!
I don't know who thought of this idea but he, or she, is a genius. These transmissions now go to most of the English-speaking world - especially 'over there' - and I do urge you all to go to http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/45462/home/nt-live-homepage.html and find out if there is a cinema near you which has signed up show them.
Of course, London Assurance was a good, if lucky, choice for me to try out this experiment. It is a play of little or no intellectual merit but has the outstanding advantage of making you nearly fall out of your chair laughing, especially when it has the likes of Simon Russell Beale - still my most admired actor - and Fiona Shaw, although I must add that there simply was not a poor performance from anyone. Comic acting is hideously difficult but this cast, all of them, showed how it should be done. In an aside to the audience, Beale wonders, rhetorically, if "anyone here is a peasant?" and then holds the pause long enough to slowly raise his eyes to the cheap seats in the upper gallery, another slight pause until the penny dropped, and then the audience fell about.
I really do urge you all to go to the website and check out if there is a cinema near you which is signed up for these transmissions, and if so, book early for the next show. There is a Hamlet on its way and also The Cherry Orchard. Not to be missed.
My wife did likewise in Huntingdon. Thought it a brilliant success.
Posted by: dearieme | Wednesday, 30 June 2010 at 23:25