Review – Hedda Gabler, National Theatre

A few weeks ago, on the Nothern Line, while Phil was running his fingers along the lines of type in the Metro he noticed he was sitting next to a woman concentrating on a script with all the “Mrs Elvsted” parts underlined. Suspecting it might be for the National’s Hedda Gabler he went off and did a bit of internet stalking and discovered that it was Sinéad Matthews who takes that role in the this production.

Perhaps Phil should have torn her manuscript into pieces, scribbled notes all over it so that she could piece it back together again to get a better understanding of her role. To explain that would need a SPOILER ALERT. Of course if it had been Ruth Wilson (who plays this Hedda) next to him he’d have torched it for her.

The 2012 Whingie Awards – the very worst and the not so bad

Inappropriately, since it was the Olympic year, we’re a bit late off the starting blocks with our highly-anticipated annual Whingie Awards.

Frankly we believed we might not need to bother. The world was going to end. Andrew had packed his onesie and headed off to Bugarach. Phil was left sitting around in his meggins self-medicating in preparation musing which shows would be the theatrical cockroaches that might survive the impending apocalypse.

The Mousetrap obviously, Phantom and The Woman in Black no doubt, though perhaps Viva Forever! should hunker in a bunker and pray.

Of course it wasn’t the end after all. The world continues and we must carry on going to the theatre. It’s a bit of a let down. But as we toast the new and possibly unlucky New Year of 2013 we’ve had our hands down the back of the theatrical sofa digging for the occasional treasure, copious amounts of fluff and the occasional best-forgotten unmentionable.

Review – Constellations, Duke of York’s Theatre

We caught this before its Evening Standard Best Play Award had had time to gather any dust and it was a treat to see the Duke of York’s full.

The latest transfer from the Royal Court Theatre, Nick Payne‘s Constellations is a romance between a beekeeper Roland (Rafe Spall) and a quantum physicist Marianne (Sally Hawkins).

It takes string theory (the existence of several extra dimensions to the universe that have been compactified into extremely small scales, in addition to the four known spacetime dimensions -gettit?) to imply that there are almost identical versions of us out there somewhere in the multiverse, living subtly nuanced variations of our lives in endless permutations. Think Sliding Doors to infinity and beyond.