Review – Here Lies Love, National Theatre

So, to the new Dorfman Theatre (née Cottesloe) for its opening show.

We oft whinged about its previous incarnation, but we are happy to report that the foyer is more spacious and though there’s a sense of déjà vu in the auditorium – which seems only slightly different – the seating is more comfortable, but there are still some fairly crap sightlines.

Too be fair, our seats were sold and marked as “Semi Restricted View”. We’re cheap and weren’t prepared to pay a load more money to stand and be herded around the unseated area below, or as the website off-puttingly states, “Dress comfortably, and come ready to dance!” Oh no, not us. You wouldn’t want to see us busting our grooves.

For this was The Public Theater’s Here Lies Love, a hit rock musical from New York; the glittering love child of David Byrne*, Fatboy Slim and Evita which tells “the astonishing journey of Imelda Marcos, First Lady of the Philippines, from her meteoric rise to power to descent into infamy and disgrace” in an auditorium reconfigured as a “pulsating club”. Why? Byrne’s inspiration came when he found out that Imelda loved the night life, she got to boogie on the disco ’round, oh yeah. Apparently. A regular at Studio 54, she installed a disco ball in her New York apartment and built a dance floor on the roof of her palace in Manila. Who knew?

Review – The Effect, National Theatre

People ask us why we go to the theatre so much. Often we ask ourselves why we go at all.

Lucy Prebble‘s first post-ENRON play The Effect provides an answer: it’s a distraction from the fact that we’re all going to die. Everything is.

Review – The Holy Rosenbergs, National Theatre

Your favourite son is being buried tomorrow. Do you:

a) Spend the evening worrying about the day to come

b) Spend the evening with your family reflecting on your loss / celebrating his life

c) Invite someone round for dinner to discuss a catering contract

Review – Earthquakes in London, National Theatre

Andrew’s excitement was palpable. “They’ve turned it into a bar!” he trilled as he took his seat in the auditorium. “They’ve finally found a use for the Cottesloe!”.

And indeed it seemed at first glance that they had. Designer Miriam Buether has transformed the National Theatre‘s ghastly Cottesloe space almost beyond recognition. How astute and splendidly cunning of her to turn it into the place in which the Whingers would feel most at home.

A long, orange S-shaped bar-cum-stage snakes around the groundlings, some of whom are perched on natty red bar stools while others stand (and later slump) behind them in holding pens.

Less limelight-hugging patrons such as the Whingers sit in galleries surveying the proceedings from above.

Review – …some trace of her, National Theatre

Andrew will go to any lengths to avoid visiting the Cottesloe Theatre.

Claiming rather grandly that he would be “flying back from a business trip to Hamburg” Phil was forced to fly solo with his first ever visit to a Katie Mitchell production: …some trace of her.

So elaborate was Andrew’s ruse that he even phoned Phil from the “departure lounge” just to add to the veracity of his story. “Airport noises” could be heard in the background, the bing-bong of a tannoy, a screaming child, and Andrew’s own weary “I’m at an airport” irritation all helped his painstaking fiction. Was Andrew actually still at home twiddling around with the knob on his wireless?

So …some trace of her then, but no trace of Andrew…