Tag Archives: CFT

She Loves Me – June 2011

6/10

Book by Joe Masteroff, Music by Jerry Bock, Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick

Directed by: Stephen Mear

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Thursday 16th June 2011

This was an excellent production of an above average musical. As we’re not great fans of musicals, I haven’t rated it that highly, but I don’t want to imply any lack of professionalism or talent on the part of the performers – they were all top-notch, and managed some amazing dance routines on a very cramped stage. The singing was excellent too, and other audience members were clearly enjoying themselves enormously; at the post show, several had seen the show at least once before.

The story is the familiar one of two people who think they don’t like each other gradually realising they’re in love and getting together. It’s done via letter-writing through a dating service, so although they work together every day, they don’t know who they’re writing to until an arranged meeting which leaves one of them still in the dark. Around all this is wrapped the story of a shop which sells all sorts of potions and creams to beautify women, and the characters who staff this shop. There’s some good songs, including one which uses Ravel’s Bolero as part of the tune, and a fair bit of comedy, although I found I didn’t laugh as much as the person behind me, who clearly loved the show.

Set: circular tiled pattern on floor, echoed by circular curved wheel structure above with globe lamps. The backdrop of a street perspective is screened by another curve, this time windows with a central door. The windows also have elaborate curved patterns on them, with bird images and coloured bottles on shelves creating a stained glass effect. The words above the shop door were “Maraczek, Parfumier”. The shop front was on a revolve, and there was another counter-revolve outside that, so the location could be changed pretty quickly, but from the post-show I gathered the cast needed a lot of practice to be able to walk on them. Most of the action takes place inside the shop, but we also visit a hospital room and Amalia Balash’s flat. The band was split between left and right balconies. The setting is an American version of a European city in the 1930s. The accents used were mostly American, as this fitted better with the dialogue, although the names were middle European and the prices shown were good old LSD! Such is the magic of theatre that we didn’t particularly mind.

I particularly liked Annette McLaughlin as Ilona Ritter, the good-time girl shop assistant who finds one man who’s disgracefully unfaithful and another who’s more the marrying kind, and Steve Elias as Ladislav Sipos, the only married shop assistant who has some of the best lines. His comment about the anonymous letter – next time, I’ll name names! – was really funny. But there were many good performances, though sadly, no more chances to see them as no transfer has been arranged. Shame. This was a good start to the season at the Minerva though, so if the rest are up to this standard we’re in for an excellent summer.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead – May 2011

Experience: 6/10

By Tom Stoppard

Directed by Trevor Nunn

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Thursday 26th May 2011

I’ve usually found Tom Stoppard’s work a bit cerebral for my taste, and this play was no exception. There are some good bits, and this is likely to be a very good production once it’s settled in, but I wouldn’t say it was one of my favourites.

Tonight’s performance had a ripple of understudies due to the indisposition of Tim Curry, so although I didn’t detect any significant fluffs, future performances are bound to come on a lot. I didn’t catch all the understudy names, and it was too recent a change for printed slips in the program, but I gather that the part of The Player was taken by Chris Andrew Mellon.[Oops, we’ve since found the insert – Chris Andrew Mellon confirmed, and his role as Player King taken by Stephen Pallister 3/6/11] Since they haven’t yet had their understudies run, the audience was suitably appreciative of his efforts, and he managed the part really well, getting across the swagger and bluster, and doing a particularly good death scene, I thought. All the best to Tim Curry, of course, for his recovery.

The set was quite beautiful, one of Simon Higlett’s best. The floor of the stage was covered in glossy black boards which followed the stage’s shape apart from two triangular cut-outs, one on each side, giving the overall effect of an arrow head. Above this was a similarly shaped layer of black boards, but with gaps, like a pergola. The back wall and surround were full of stars for the outdoor night scenes, and the central rear doors were flanked by two concealed doorways with false perspective arches, which gave a fantastic impression of a vast castle.

At the start, there was a tree centre back; this was removed when the players arrived with their cart (very Mother Courage), but it was done so well that I just didn’t spot it. After the players leave, R&G are transported straight to the castle, so the arches are on show for a major chunk of the play. There’s some set dressing for The Murder Of Gonzago – this time we’re seeing the dress rehearsal – which was mainly four tall candle holders, a rug and two small chests.

Once off to sea, part of a ship and three barrels are carefully positioned on the stage. The ship has an upper deck with a deckchair, screened by a large umbrella; it turns out that Hamlet has been snoozing there through the start of this scene. The barrels are large, which is just as well, as the players, scared by the hostile reception of their play at court, have stowed away by hiding in them. One of the best bits tonight was watching them all clamber out.

After the ship scene, I think the set was bare till near the end, when some of the Gonzago trimmings were brought back on for the very end of Hamlet itself, when the ambassadors from England have arrived to report that R&G are dead.

The play is certainly interesting, taking a sideways look at these two minor characters as they wend their short path through this famous play, and bringing up many philosophical ideas along the way. It’s those philosophical bits that tend to drag, in my view. It may be that Jamie Parker as Guildenstern (or was it Rosencrantz?) will find a delivery that brings out more humour in those lines, but I suspect they would be a bit dry for me regardless. Samuel Barnett as Rosencrantz (or ………?) was more down to earth, stupider and generally had the funnier lines, and his was the more assured performance at this point in the run. The constant coin tossing had some humour, though it went on a bit long, and the players were good fun, though also a bit long winded. I enjoyed the mathematical joke of the bet – that a date of birth, doubled, will be even – and it shows how wide-ranging this content of this play is.

With their arrival at Elsinore, the actual Shakespearean dialogue makes an appearance, and it’s to Stoppard’s credit that he manages to blend the two styles so well. Many another writer has incorporated chunks of Will’s work into theirs, only to show up their own inadequacies; Stoppard holds his own just fine, and although I wasn’t totally loving this, I didn’t find myself wishing I was watching Hamlet instead, a good sign. (Mind you, I did wonder if the actors having a go at a partial Hamlet were wishing they could do the full version.)

The dress rehearsal was nicely done, adapting the snippet we see in the regular version into a reprise of the Hamlet plot, with two new characters, looking uncannily like R&G, involved in this one. We even get to see the executions in England. R&G are troubled by the similarities for a while, especially when their doubles take off their capes and their costumes are so similar to the original R&G’s, but the pair soon reassure themselves that all is well.

There’s a string of pearls used in this section – I think it was presented by the usurping king to the widowed queen to persuade her to marry him – and tonight the string broke, scattering pearls everywhere. Presumably this was not meant to happen. The actors soon cleared up most of them, but a stray pearl travelled further than the rest, and it was Rosencrantz who did the honours and removed it in passing.

When the duplicate R&G’s are killed, and their capes placed over them, the lights go down – it’s after Claudius has stormed off – and when they come back up, it’s the ‘real’ R&G who are under the capes. These two are on stage all the time, with the action of Hamlet coming to them, so they can’t actually go anywhere to search for Hamlet, leading to an entertaining scene where they opt to go in different directions, then together, then one way, then another. There’s a short scene on the beach, where Hamlet encounters Fortinbras’s men, and then they’re on the boat. When Hamlet is saying his soliloquies, by the way, he has a tendency to drift to the back of the stage and mutter to himself.

In the process of figuring out what they’re going to say when they get to the English court, R&G role play that encounter, and as a result they open the letter and find out that Hamlet is to be killed. Much consternation. Then they go to sleep, Hamlet sneaks down from his deckchair and swaps the letters, and they’re on their way to oblivion.  The players emerge from the barrels, the pirates attack, and Hamlet disappears with them, leaving R&G with nobody to present to the king of England, so they redo the role play to get some ideas, open the letter again, and hey presto, they’re now the ones for the chop. That’s pretty much it for these two. We don’t see their executions, and the final scene shows their deaths being reported to the Danish court, or what’s left of it.

The performance showed signs of this being a very good production, once they’ve had time to bed it down. It’s not my ideal kind of play, but I hope it does well here and in the West End.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Capercaillie – February 2011

8/10

Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Sunday 13th February 2011

Another good concert from this group, preceded by an entertaining set from Richard Wood and Gordon Belsher, Canadians both from Prince Edward Island. Richard Wood is one of those pipe cleaner people, tall and thin with a mass of hair, a bit like Ian Anderson, and just as much of a showman. Apparently he started off as a youngster doing Irish dancing, and he treated us to a bit of that tonight along with some fireworks for their finale. His fiddle playing was pretty good too. Gordon Belsher had some interesting songs, and the two clearly got on very well. We bought the CDs.

Capercaillie were also on a mini tour (they just can’t take the long days on the road anymore), and gave us a good selection from their repertoire, several of which we recognised from the one CD we bought last time. Sadly, there were no more to buy this time, as they hadn’t brought any with them (shame!). Still, we had a good haul from the other acts, and although we were getting a bit tired by this time, we’d thoroughly enjoyed this mini-festival, and hope Chichester Festival Theatre can build on this for future years.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Froncysyllte Male Voice Choir – February 2011

6/10

Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Saturday 12th February 2011

The choir came out to do a few numbers at the start, followed by Allan Y Yn Fan, a Welsh folk group (yes, there are such things!), and then the choir did a longer stint after the interval. There were lots of chairs ranged in three rows at the back of the stage, with the microphones and usual kit about mid-stage in front of them, and a keyboard off to the left. The keyboard was for the choir’s accompanist, while the band had a range of instruments, as well as singing beautifully (their CD has a lovely version of All Through The Night).

I wasn’t so impressed with the choir tonight. I found the singing a bit on the thin side – I was expecting a richer sound – and the keyboard, set up to mimic a regular piano, seemed to be a fraction of a tone off-key with the singers, or vice versa, which grated with me a lot. The choir did a few songs unaccompanied, which worked ever so much better, as the balance was fine within the choir itself. I also wanted more Welsh songs from them, but they included a lot of modern numbers, including some I’d done as part of a choir in my schooldays, so I could make some direct comparisons and even  allowing for the mellowing effect of nostalgia, they didn’t come off best in my book.

However, the Welsh group, Allan Y Yn Fan, were much better. Their main singer has a lovely voice, and their blend of instruments was good, though I did get the impression they hadn’t been together long as they seemed a little rough to begin with. But they soon settled down, and had us well warmed up by the time we left the stage. And we bought several CDs of theirs.

For the second half, the choir actually used the chairs. Their leader did some patter between songs, to give the others a chance to rest their voices – his apparently could hold out for the whole evening without a break. His jokes concerned a couple, Dai and his wife (don’t remember her name), and kept us entertained in the gaps. Actually, they were the best bit of their section for me. They finished with a traditional Welsh song whose name I cannot spell, but which would be instantly recognisable to many, and rounded things off with the national anthems, British and Welsh. I can’t help feeling I’d like to learn the Welsh one sometime, though whether I will…….. We didn’t buy their CD, but I’m still happy to see another Welsh male voice choir in the future. I noticed the members of this one were mostly getting on a bit, so I hope they can get some new recruits to keep them going.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Celtic Footprint – February 2011

8/10

Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Friday 11th February 2011

Another great evening of music, and a great way to start the year. The opening act was Cara Dillon, whom we hadn’t heard live before, although we had heard of her. She has a lovely voice, and we enjoyed her set very much, along with the details of her personal life – new baby, wrecked house thanks to flooding, new kitchen on the horizon, hubby in the doghouse for criticising her cooking, etc. Her technique for getting one of her twins to accept the new baby was interesting – she kept telling him they would give the baby back, and then when they were leaving for this gig he got all concerned, thinking she might actually do it. Good work. And we bought the CD.

Second act was Anxo Lorenzo, the Galician piper whom we’d enjoyed very much last year. He had a couple of extra players in his band, including a double bass player with one of those very thin electric basses, and another guitar player, as well as the fiddler and guitarist we reckon were with him last year. Another great set from him, with lots more whistles as well as the pipes, and we clapped and clapped. And bought another CD.

Finally, there was Lunasa, an Irish band who were on a mini tour, this being the last night (I think, although I might be getting confused with Cara Dillon, who was definitely on her way home after the gig). They were another great band whom we hadn’t heard before, and again, the CD is now in the car. They were basically instrumentalists, and fairly taciturn on the whole, although their ‘front’ man – he was actually on the far left – had a great line in patter, with comments about a particular tune being about a battle in his home town, a battle between him and his wife, in fact. He didn’t tell us who’d won, sadly. So, a great night, three CDs, and another two nights to go.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Fairport Convention – February 2011

9/10

Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Tuesday 8th February 2011

This was an absolute stonker of a performance. Fairport were supported by Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts this time round, flushed with success from winning an award for best new song. They sang it for us as well, and fortunately, it was a good one – nothing like a big intro for inducing disappointment. CD already in the bag.

Fairport came on as their backing band for their last number, and then held the stage for their one opening number – a ‘brief’ version of the whole of Babbacombe Lee album. A mere forty-five minutes, and very enjoyable, if a tad long. I recognised the later songs, as Fairport have been doing mini-selections from the album for the last couple of years, and the familiarity helped with my enjoyment.

After the interval there was another good selection of songs, again dipping into the back catalogue for a number of them. Both Chris Leslie and Simon Nicol were in fine voice tonight, a considerable improvement over last year when Simon in particular sounded a bit rough. We may have caught them late in the tour last year, which can make a difference, or perhaps it was the much colder weather. Anyway, we enjoyed this even more this time, and didn’t stint ourselves when it came to the CD stall. Excellent.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Goodnight Mister Tom – February 2011

7/10

By: David Wood

Directed by: Angus Jackson

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Friday 4th February 2011

This was a sweet little story, with a surprising amount of darkness, and unusual in that it clearly worked for audience members of all ages. I hadn’t read the original book, nor seen the TV version (Steve had), so I came to this completely fresh. I enjoyed it more than I expected, and although this was early in the run (it starts at Chichester and then goes on tour), I felt that they’d got up to a good standard already, no mean feat given that there are three teams of children to cover the tour dates.

The play tells the story of young William, who is evacuated prior to the outbreak of WWII, along with many other London children. He’s billeted on an old curmudgeon called Tom Oakley (as William’s surname is Beech, I thought they were well matched). [Actually, it’s Beach, so not such a good match except sound-wise] Naturally, the child overcomes his difficulties which were due to the abuse he’s suffered from his mother, while the old man learns to open his heart again after many years mourning his lost wife and baby. In other hands, this could be sentimental schmaltz, but here it’s a moving tale, with many ups and downs, and a real feeling of the community that William ends up being part of. About the only thing missing was the grown-up William as narrator, and possibly all the better for that. There was a good balance between the two stories, with neither of the main characters dominating, and good support from everyone else, especially Sammy the dog.

Now, they say never work with children or animals. We’ve also seen that puppets can be a problem as well. So when we get animal puppets within a few minutes, we know we’re in for a good time, while the actors…… Well, the actors will just have to accept they’re being permanently upstaged. At the post show, Angus Jackson told us that he’d made a similar comment to Oliver Ford Davies during rehearsal, to the effect that he needn’t worry about how he said a particular line as there would be a dog on stage at that point, so no one would be listening to him.

Sammy was lovely. Laura Cubitt, who ‘played’ Sammy, was remarkable, even getting the dog to breathe while he was sitting or lying down, waiting for the next bit of action. In the post-show, she was asked if she’d done any ballet training, and she had, but even so, she found herself getting stiff sometimes with the awkward positions, so Sammy occasionally moved around a bit, sniffing things, to give her a break.

The set worked pretty well, although I felt it was one area which may improve with practice. There are a lot of changes, and occasionally the pace slowed a little too much for me in the first half, although the second half worked much better. The platform in the middle of the stage which served as just about everything from a train platform to a stage to Mr Tom’s house to a shop to everywhere else in the country, rose up reveal the dingy, grimy flat where William’s mother lives, and to which William returns, reluctantly, to find he has a baby sister. His mother is clearly a nutter – she’s obsessive about denying William any fun, and has rules forbidding any sort of normal life, although as she’s produced another baby she’s clearly a hypocrite where sex is concerned. She ties William up under the eaves and leaves him with the baby cradled in his arms, and when Mr Tom finds them (he’s come to London because he’s worried about not hearing anything from William for weeks), the baby is dead.

William ends up in hospital, and because his mother can’t be found, the authorities are about to send him to a special nursing home where he can be tortured by psychiatrists instead. Mr Tom helps him escape, and takes him back to Dorset, where eventually he adopts William as his own son. All looks good for the lad, until his best friend, ????, also returns to London when his father dies, and gets killed by a bomb. It’s a tough time for William, and for us, but overall, we manage to get through it with the help of Mr Tom and Sammy (especially Sammy).

This was a very good production, and I hope they have a great time on tour. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again if it comes back this way.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The History Boys – January 2011

4/10

By: Alan Bennett

Directed by: Christopher Luscombe

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Monday 24th January 2011

I wasn’t drawn to this play when it was on at the National; no idea why, it just didn’t grab me despite having an excellent cast, and being by a great writer whose work I usually enjoy. I was happy to go to Chichester to see it, though, and at least now I have some idea why I wasn’t keen to see it earlier. Some of the problems were down to this production, one was unfortunately in the audience itself, but some were definitely down to the play.

Firstly, the audience. The couple behind us were determined to have as many ‘chatter’ moments as they could. They cut it pretty fine at the start, almost talking over the dialogue, and they used every scene change to continue their not very quiet conversation, but it was at the start of the second half, when they did carry on over the first lines, that I turned round to tell them to shut up. In no uncertain terms. And thankfully, they kept quiet for the rest of the play, which is probably why I enjoyed it more in the second half.

The next problem was the delivery. I could hear some of the dialogue clearly, and the singing was fine, but I missed a lot as well, including some of the jokes. The accents didn’t help, but I got the impression that this was a proscenium arch production that hadn’t been fully adjusted for the wide thrust stage, and the actors may not have been prepared for how much more they would have to work to get the lines across.  Naturally, that ruined much of my enjoyment. Also, with the proscenium arch staging, I found it hard to see some of the action properly, especially the opening scenes of each half where Irwin, in a wheelchair, was mostly obscured by the furniture. I gather from Steve that the opening scene at least was done by video at the National, so presumably they didn’t want to tour with that level of technology, or else they just wanted to do it differently. Fine, but I wasn’t involved enough at the start because of it.

Then there were the performances themselves. Mostly fine, there were some weaker areas. Much as I love Philip Franks as an actor, with many fine memories of his work through the years, I felt his Hector wasn’t ‘strange’ enough to make sense of the role, and not entirely believable as the closet gay teacher who gropes his pupils’ balls while driving his moped with one hand and much too fast. I say ‘closet’ gay – this was one closet that had lost its doors. Steve reckoned Richard Griffiths was much more eccentric, and that worked better.

Likewise, I found some of the other characters weren’t well drawn enough. The female teacher, Mrs Lintott, while having some of the best lines, didn’t seem to have any particular character, Irwin was very weak, both in delivery and characterisation, and although the main boys were very good, there was a lack of depth in the ‘chorus’ that left me cold. I suspect we may have caught this production very early in its tour, and that it needs some time to get to grips with the play. [Not so; after checking websites, this tour started in 2010] At the moment, it feels like the actors are relying on Alan Bennett’s writing too much, and that just saying the lines should be enough. For me, I want to see more acting as well, and especially I’d like to be able to hear the lines they’re saying as well.

Finally, there’s the play itself. I’m not a boy, my education experience was very different from the one shown on stage, and I found I not only disagreed strongly with many of the opinions expressed, I also felt the thinking in this area seemed very shallow. I didn’t get any real sense of the different attitudes to teaching – Steve says this came across more strongly in the National production – and therefore much of the play seemed pointless. And what exactly is wrong with encouraging students to think for themselves and have a different point of view? I agree it can be used simply as a technique to make someone sound more intelligent and knowledgeable than they are, but it is also a valid way to make a point, and in general, I think it does history, as well as other subjects, no harm at all to have to tackle multiple viewpoints. After all, many of the cultures the British colonised for so many years have had opinions which differed from the accepted British Empire view of history, and these have been and are being assimilated into a greater world view – what’s wrong with that? I certainly agree that much of the TV history presentation is akin to journalism – naturally, since that’s what works on TV. And what’s wrong with journalism exactly? None of this was explained; it just seemed to be assumed that we would all agree on the ‘correct’ standards, and so find the jibes at one or other target to be funny. Well, some were, most notably the emphasis on league tables and the treatment of women in the academic professions. But a lot weren’t which is unusual for a writer of Bennett’s calibre. I can only assume that with so many parents concerned about their children’s education, this play touched a funny nerve, which is why it was so popular.

So not the best evening in the theatre, then. I’m glad I’ve seen it, and I wouldn’t rule out seeing it again, in a much better production. Steve reckoned he would have given the National version a nine or ten-out-of-ten rating, and this one only a six, so clearly there are problems to be sorted out from our perspective. Regardless, I do hope they have a good tour, as many people last night were clearly enjoying themselves more than we were.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

MasterClass – November 2010

6/10

By: Terence McNally

Directed by: Jonathan Church

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Tuesday 23rd November 2010

This was a rather weak star vehicle, still enjoyable but not the best writing. The setting is a master class by Maria Callas (Stephanie Beacham), during which she tells us her life story, goes into long reminiscences about her time with Aristotle Onassis, and critiques several wannabe singers, all young and optimistic until she rips their egos to shreds. The class bit itself was quite good, and we get to hear some of the wonderful songs she made her own, as well as enjoying her merciless ‘teaching’ of the young singers. I found the Onassis bits tended to drag, while the solo introduction was a bit too long and self-indulgent. However, the overall experience was good, and I hope they do well on tour.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

A Month In The Country – September 2010

4/10

By Brian Friel, freely adapted from the play by Turgenev

Directed by Jonathan Kent

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Tuesday 28th September 2010

My experience of this performance was affected by a number of factors. My knee was hurting from time to time which made it hard to concentrate, I nodded off during the ‘quieter’ bits, the audience weren’t the best – lots of coughing and other noises – and this very free adaptation lacked any real depth to keep me interested. No complaints about the performances, although as this was only a few days after the production opened, there may be more to come in that department. No, the main problem was that the story was very weak, and both Steve and I felt we were watching a soap opera on stage (and I don’t mean that in a nice way).

The set was unusual, in that the trees spread their canopy out into the auditorium, which made us feel included in the location, if not the action. The back of the stage was filled with the house and veranda, sloping diagonally back from our left. The rest was garden, including a vegetable patch and water pump. Very effective, but I did find myself thinking that with so much foliage cover, the lawn wouldn’t actually be in the sun very much, if at all, yet the dialogue suggested baking summer heat. Just one of those things, I suppose.

The story was very simple. At a country estate in Russia, the wife, Natasha, has fallen for her son’s new tutor, Alexis, as has her ward, Vera. Natasha also has a lover-on-a-string, Michel. These romantic entanglements all come to a head during the play, with hurt and disappointment all round. The only exceptions were those who hadn’t bought into the notion of romantic love, such as the doctor and the companion, and just about everyone leaves the place, or is planning to, at the end of the play. I enjoyed the scene of the doctor wooing the companion, especially his offer to wait for her reply for a month, six months, a year, to which she replies, ‘you’ll have your answer tomorrow morning’.

The post show started off OK, then paused while we acknowledged all the actors as they came onto the stage in dribs and drabs. Then it became a free-for-all, with many people talking and few listening – I’ve no idea what went on during this phase – and finally things settled down and we got a few questions and answers that were fairly interesting. Alexis’s Scottish accent was the actor’s own; the accents had been chosen to reflect the characters’ class and position. The actors had done an exercise early on in the rehearsal period, of describing each of the characters with a single adjective. Apparently all the women had described Alexis as fiery and virile, while the men had all described him as a selfish little git. This free adaptation of the much longer Turgenev play was first performed in Dublin in the 1990s. Very much an ensemble piece. Most of the cast liked their characters. Some of the audience much preferred this version of the play to others they’d seen; one chap commented that previously he’d left after a fortnight! In fact, there were more empty seats during the second half than there had been during the first.

I’m glad I’ve seen it, but equally glad we haven’t booked for another performance.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me