As it turned out, the experience was similar, a little flat and tired, the play needed a bit more sparkle and brio than it got. There were differences though. This production made much more of a feature of the butler, with the same person doing the town butler and the country butler, a nice trick but a little overdone and not quite pulled off. It also made a game of people being of very different heights. But it made much less of a feature of smoking, with none on stage on this second occasion; perhaps the luvvy fad of indulging their stage smoking privileges for all they are worth is wearing off. The staging was much less elaborate, as befits a touring production, but they did well with not much more than a horseshoe arrangement of mixed chairs and the odd tea trolley. But I think that the more elaborate staging at the Rose does help to bring the thing to life; the rather thin dialog needs a bit of help.
We were impressed by the impressive schedule illustrated, a not very orderly progression around the four kingdoms. I suppose the agents just have to do the best they can, with the result that the cast have a punishing first half of 2013. Do they still stay in theatrical digs? Do they still stay up half the night drinking, smoking and carrying on with each others' partners after the show?
On their travels, the cast will get to see the Hirst monstress at Ilfracombe (see, for example, August 30th 2012) when they play the Landmark Theatre there. Then there is the oddly named Wyllyotts Theatre of Potters Bar, the railway station where I had the misfortune to drop my toolbox. A misfortune which the rather heavy box (of my own construction) survived, albeit a bit dented, with the dents being visible to this day. A station also notable for my having cycled there after work at Watford one day, consuming a giant Mars Bar, or perhaps two regular Mars Bars, to keep me going on the way. I remember that I was almost overcome by the sugar hit and have not attempted such a thing since. I may possibly not have consumed any Mars Bars since, certainly not recently anyway, our favoured snack of that sort being the heritage version of the Bounty Bar.
Returning to the odd name, Professor Google turns up a Richard Wyllyot with the claim to fame that the inventory made on his death in 1559 has survived at http://www.winslow-history.org.uk/, where we can read about his various carpets, candlesticks and ploughs. But Winslow is a long way from Potters bar so I am left wondering what the connection is? It seems probable that I have got the right Wyllyot.
No comments:
Post a Comment