Around the Blogs: Number 2
Once again taking the lead from The Clyde Fitch Report to take a tour around what all those theatre bloggers in the UK are going on about.
At A Hectic Phase In The Life there was a reflection or two on Howard Barker.
At A Younger Theatre Jake revealed why he really, really doesn’t like one man shows.
At Carousel of Fantasies Matt brought some urban decay to the BAC.
At Confessions of a Playwright our attachment to the idea of the lone genius was questioned.
At The Corner Shop Blog it was almost time for opening night (plus a rather spectacular to-do list)
At Fin Kennedy Fin broke his hiatus to tell us his blog was going on hiatus.
At HannahNicklin.com Hannah blogged about apathy (or rather the myth of apathy), something which after the reaction to that edition of Question Time seems even more pertinent.
At Helen Smith Helen had her second dream about Playwright and one-time blogger David Eldridge.
At John Morrison The Power of Yes proved that it was continuing to underwhelm bloggers.
At Killing Time Dave Windass stepped into Annie Hall. Well, almost.
At Life in the Cheap Seats Webcowgirl saw rather a lot of one of the stars of Silence: The Musical, and rather liked what she saw.
At Miching Malchio it was the proliferation of reviews which was up for discussion.
At Nabokov NewsBlog there was some rather impressive packing going on.
At Paul in London Paul suffered for his art and went back in for the second half of Carousel: The Songs of Jacques Brel at the Barbican
At Pirate Dog Alex Sierz responded to Matt Trueman’s thoughts on liveness and in his effortlessly concise way maybe hit the proverbial nail on the head.
At Russell’s Theatre Reviews it was all about the touring production of Beauty and the Beast. I saw UK Production’s version when it was last doing the rounds 18 months or so ago and would rather have my fingernails pulled out while watching Waiting For Godot than repeat the experience. But, with the brand behind it, it seems like there are many more regional audiences to traumatise before it dies.
At Shenton’s View Mark Shenton had a timely reminder about the problems of buying theatre tickets.
At That Damn Yankee Jason Ferguson continued to explain British Theatre to Americans, this time with the aid of a fire curtain.
At The Guardian Theatre Blog Andrew Haydon considered his relationship to (man of the week) Howard Barker and, subsequently, the terms by which we judge theatre. My (limited) experience of Barker in performance has done nothing but leave me cold – though the other half of Write By Numbers would say the opposite of that – and as anti-intellectual as it might sound for me theatre is at its most compelling when it engages my heart as well as my head. In that way the title of Haydon’s piece is a no-brainer: yes, of course we should watch plays for pleasure because I can stay at home, save my money and read dry critical theorising on the internet for free.
At View From The Stalls the task was to puzzle out what actually happened in Memory Cells with even its Director getting in on the action…
At West End Whingers it was a trip to the almost universally adored Enron which which was on the cards and, perhaps inevitably, it just couldn’t live up to the hype.