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PREVIEW REVIVAL
NOISES OFF
King's Theatre, Glasgow, Mon 22- Sat 27 Sep
Bringing farce to the fore, Michael Frayn's 80$ parody is touring once again, revealing the merry antics of a second-rate theatre company both on and off stage as it struggles with its ludicrous sex comedy. Nothing On.
Nestling at the core of this frantic play-within-a-play is the contrast between the reality revealed to the audience and that which normally remains hidden. as star Ben Hull (pictured) explains. ‘If you've been involved in theatre at any level, even a school play. you recognise the back- stabbing and bitching. It's a traditional farce. and because it's a form people know. they're in on the joke.‘
Despite their complicity. a well-timed wink at the audience is unlikely to transpire. as Hull reveals that it‘s straight acting that brings the most laughs. 'When we started I was playing it like a parody. but what you actually have to do is play it straight. because the characters are just ordinary people doing really extraordinary things. That's the key to it all.’
Hull insists that despite its age, the laughs are still guaranteed. ‘Michael Frayn re-wrote it for the revival in 2000. changing the more dated details. and he's been quite active in this production at rehearsals. It's
s' 'l'xflA'EgpgwoplleOVE mother, until her life takes an unexpected twist. ‘lt’s set in the Irish middle classes which is not a world Tron, Glasgow, 26 Sep-11 Oct , you see that often on stage, says Anderson, whose
tremendous fun and if we can simply The Scottish Government’s Homecoming site-specific play You Are Here opens in the Dublin
do what‘s in the script then it should programme is not until next year, but Ioanna Festival just days before the first night of Six Acts of
be a terrific show.“ (David Laing) Anderson is getting in early. At the age of 38, she’s Love. ‘You think of Irish plays as a certain type - the planning to move back to her native Edinburgh after country plays from the west and the gritty urban spending the best part of 20 years in Ireland, where plays — but you don’t usually get the middle classes.‘ she was a student, a theatre administrator and, She says it’s about ‘Iove, marriage, home and latterly, a celebrated playwright. To herald her arrival, death’ and, unusually, focuses on older people. ‘I the Tron’s artistic director Andy Arnold is launching suppose it was a reaction to me getting older and his inaugural autumn programme with the world what you think about your parents getting older and premiere of Six Acts of Love, a bittersweet comedy worrying about them being gone,’ she says. ‘I hope she developed for Dublin’s famous Abbey Theatre it’s funny and a good night out, despite the fact that only to find it lost in the muddle of a financial crisis it involves old middle-class people! It's probably a bit and a regime change. sad - a sad comedy. As I get older, I don’t want it all
Ireland’s loss is Scotland’s gain as Arnold fields a to be terrible when I leave the theatre, the cinema or,
crack ensemble, including Una McLean and Barbara indeed, the dinner party. I wish there to be some Wilshere (pictured), to perform this play about a hope; not an artificial happy ending, because I don’t woman whose prospects look bleak, what with believe in endings apart from death, but a bit of having to cope with an errant husband and an aging optimism.’ (Mark Fisher)
PREVIEW REVIVAL HUMBLE BOY Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, Fri 26-Sat 27 Sep
Following its 32-week sell-out nationwide tour of Abigail's Party. London Classic Theatre returns to Musselburgh with Charlotte Jones' award-winning Humble Boy. Artistic director Michael Cabot has mixed memories of his last visit to Scotland: 'Our Laurence collapsed on stage during the heart attack scene in Abigail's Party and there were lots of newspaper headlines about it — Our next performance sold out two hours afterwards. We're hoping for a more low-key visit this time.‘
The ghost of Abigail's Party's success clearly haunts the director. He freely admits that Humble Boy — which debuted at the National Theatre in 2001 to wide critical acclaim — was chosen largely to attract the same sort of audience. Like Mike Leigh's classic. the play focuses on a dysfunctional family and comically dissects the relationships between them. as 35-year old Felix Humble returns home to grieve his father‘s death and console his overbearing mother.
But this new tour isn't just about commercial success; Cabot is clearly a passionate director. enthusiastic about his cast and Jones' script. ‘They‘re quite extreme characters — the audience will watch and identify. not necessarily with the people. but with the situations they find themselves in because they're just classic family dilemmas.‘
And though Humble Boy's original cast included actors of the standing of Simon Russell Beale and Diana Rigg. Cabot is unfazed by the large boots his production has to fill: 'You just have to clear your mind and go back to the work on the page. If we can just get the audience to really engage with it. that would make me really happy' (Yasmin Sulaiman)
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