Experience: 9/10
By Frank McGuinness
Directed by Michael Attenborough
Venue: Minerva Theatre
Date: Monday 5th October 2015
This was a fabulous revival of a very intense play. The performances were all excellent and the staging quite superb. It’s no surprise that even such a difficult subject was generating full houses, given Chichester’s reputation for putting on good work in the Minerva, and the only pity is that this production won’t be seen by a wider audience.
Experience: 9/10
By Phil Porter
Directed by Erica Whyman
Venue: RST
Date: Thursday 15th January 2015
We enjoyed this production so much when we saw it before Christmas last year that we decided to fit in another viewing, so here we are. Again we sat in the centre front stalls, the same seats as for the understudy run, so no complaints about our view. One young lad did a ‘wiggle’ dance to celebrate his success at the coconut shy, but otherwise the standard was pretty poor – Chris had to use his foot on one occasion or we’d have still been sitting there now waiting for the start!
Experience: 9/10
Understudy performance
By Phil Porter
Directed by Jane Moriarty
Venue: RST
Date: Friday 19th December 2014
This was even more enjoyable than yesterday’s performance. We were siting centrally in the front stalls, and had a great view of the action, plus, as it was the understudy run, we had the added benefit of the atmosphere that creates. We came earlier as well, though as it turns out we didn’t miss much yesterday, as the fun only started about fifteen minutes beforehand.
Experience: 9/10
Venue: Hailsham Pavilion
Date: 11th December 2014
Back again at Hailsham for a pre-Christmas treat – the Aggies were back in town! Another mix of old favourites, new songs, spoken pieces and lots of warmth, humour and charitable activities. The stage was dressed as before – I took some pictures this time – and a table at the front held the prizes for the raffle, which included items made by the people helped by this year’s charity. (I fancied the elephant, but no luck this year in the draw.)
Experience: 9/10
aka Much Ado About Nothing
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Christopher Luscombe
Venue: RST
Date: Wednesday 29th October 2014
Brilliant. We’d heard from one or two sources that this version of Much Ado had been altered to make it fit into the Love’s Labour’s Lost mould, and that it was less enjoyable as a result. Not a bit of it. We realised early on that the impact of the Great War was being completely ignored, and that the play’s lightness and jollity were intact, even if the text had been well trimmed. The set was basically the same, although there were some different locations, and with the passing of four years, the style of the costumes had altered to fit.
Experience: 9/10
By Alan Ayckbourn
Directed by Adam Penford
Venue: Olivier Theatre
Date: Saturday 5th July 2014
Nice to see this one again. We saw the original National production in 1987, and the revival at Chichester in 2000; both were good, but this was probably our favourite. The individual performances were all excellent, and with several Ayckbourn regulars in the cast they brought out the humour perfectly. Overall I felt this was a lighter version of the play; the story became a bit darker towards the end, but it wasn’t as dark as either of the earlier productions.
Experience: 9/10
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Elizabeth Freestone
Venue: Swan Theatre
Date: Thursday 26th June 2014
We saw this same production three years ago and were keen to see how they were doing it now. We had contrasting opinions this time: I didn’t think the production had changed much (although the performances had naturally developed) while Steve felt it was very different and preferred this performance to the previous one. To be fair, he didn’t rate our first viewing as high as I had, a fact which, in the glow of a wonderful evening, I seem to have omitted from my notes.
Experience: 9/10
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Gregory Doran
Venue: RST
Date: Thursday 7th November 2013
Prime seats tonight, looking straight down the centre aisle. As we suspected, the production had shifted up a gear, and tonight’s performance was a huge improvement on the preview we saw. The imbalances we’d seen before had gone, with strong acting all round and more detail in the performances, and they also brought out much more of the humour in the play which usually indicates that the cast have settled in. Richard’s hair seemed to be behaving better – David Tennant looked uncomfortable with it last time – and Bolingbroke had toned down his barrow boy accent to a sensible level. There were no significant changes to the staging that I saw, but I was reminded of several details which I hadn’t noted last time, so here goes.
Experience: 9/10
By William Shakespeare
Directed by David Farr
Venue: RST
Date: Thursday 15th August 2013
The Prince is now in the building! After our earlier visits in March and May had left us wondering if Jonathan Slinger would ever get his performance together, I’m delighted to report that his Hamlet is now alive and kicking until the final seconds of this splendid production. With the rest of the cast putting their all into the show, this is one of the strongest versions of Hamlet we’ve seen. Tonight we sat by the right hand walkway, with a good view across the stage diagonal. Some extra aspects were clearer from this angle, and although there were one or two minor changes to the staging, on the whole the production was as I noted it up before. The strength of the central performance was the main difference, and it changed the standard tremendously.
Experience: 9/10
By Thomas Middleton, edited by Sean Foley and Phil Porter
Directed by Sean Foley
Venue: Swan Theatre
Date: Wednesday 12th June 2013
This was absolutely fabulous. I didn’t hear all the dialogue and missed a few bits of the action, but by the end of the evening my hands were sore with clapping and we left the theatre with happy hearts. One to see again (and again).
ilovetheatre 