"Hour forty five straight through." There it is again, the glorious prospect of a theatre production without interval.
Conventionally, there's an artistic reason - such as a compelling narrative - that persuades management to pass up a plump drinks tab.
But Love And Information by Caryl Churchill is perfect for multiple divisions. The production is all bite-sized chunks, one-set mini-fragments that could be stopped any time for a pinot and a puff.
Maybe it's Churchill - she has the clout to call crunch time on the Pringles. Either way, to the rest of us it's a blessing.
The cursed faff of disassembling the quantum packing of the seat set-up, the stand-up-sit-down bob-o-rama, the buffeting queues at bars and the tyranny of the toilet question.
We do it in the cinema, two hours without the need for a stretch, so why in theatres? Especially in the Royal Court which has the plushest seats in theatre-land.
The biggest challenge for theatres is the suspension of disbelief - why hobble the fantasy with an obtuse anachronism from the era of The Potter's Wheel.
giles.broadbent@wharf.co.uk
Sunday 23 September 2012
Film review: Killing Them Softly (18)
FILM
Killing Them Softly
(18) 97mins
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Andrew Dominik's impressively slow-burn tale of Mob retribution gives room and rope for the sleazeball characters to go hang themselves.
REVIEW
It's 2008. US election time. Barack Obama is preaching hope and George Bush is throwing money at the banks to keep the economy, and the American dream, alive.
Far from this slick, high falutin' phrase making, a pair of scuzzy, bumbling Keystone crooks figure they're on to a sure thing, taking down a Mob game because they know Markie (Ray Liotta), who did the same thing a while back, will take the heat.
This is capitalism, red in tooth and claw, says director Andrew Dominik. You have a buck, I take a buck off you.
Where's the honest deal, he asks. In a credit default swap, or down in Louisiana where the truth is brutal and comes with a beatin'. Who are the real crooks? Greedy Goldman Sachs or Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) and Frankie (Scoot McNairy), the artless, sweaty hoodlums poking the hornet's nest for an easy dime.
Chief hornet is Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt playing sleazy chic) who has to sort out this mess and restore order.
He calls on Mickey (James Gandolfini) to give him a hand. But Mickey is a sozzled mess, facing jail, a divorce and a glass that empties too quickly and fills too slow.
We know this because Mickey tells us. This is a talkie. There is violence, slayings - uncompromising, poetically shot grubby headshots - but the director (who took us into deadbeat minds in The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford) is more interested in the hopes and fears of pitiable sleazeballs trying to make a dishonest day's living so they can get the hell out.
Jackie doesn't like the touchy-feely stuff. He prefers "killing them softly, from a distance" but he still gets dragged in, taking Mickey's miserable, martini-sodden confession and giving Frankie some options.
Elmore Leonard's in there, in spirit, with the rhythmic street slang and the code of machismo. Tarantino too, but if you put two crims in a car tossing dialogue to and fro ahead of a job, Tarantino is inevitable.
And don't forget Guy Ritchie for the arch, stylised direction although Lock, Stock is gloss and varnish compared to this rain-beaten, noirish dinge-fest. Says 2008 on the pack, yes, but the browns and oranges and rusty GTOs suggest the '70s, home of the source material - George V Higgins' pulpy Cogan's Trade.
Dominik does a great job for a film with little plot. He builds character, tension and is happy to let the screen shift to slow-burn to give the druggies time to find their high.
The script is crackling: brimful of one-liners and mordant, slapstick wit, and the cast show they know how to give their blunt-toothed schmucks heart, or at least, purpose.
But, in the end, this is just business pal. Nothin' personal.
Killing Them Softly
(18) 97mins
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Andrew Dominik's impressively slow-burn tale of Mob retribution gives room and rope for the sleazeball characters to go hang themselves.
REVIEW
It's 2008. US election time. Barack Obama is preaching hope and George Bush is throwing money at the banks to keep the economy, and the American dream, alive.
Far from this slick, high falutin' phrase making, a pair of scuzzy, bumbling Keystone crooks figure they're on to a sure thing, taking down a Mob game because they know Markie (Ray Liotta), who did the same thing a while back, will take the heat.
This is capitalism, red in tooth and claw, says director Andrew Dominik. You have a buck, I take a buck off you.
Where's the honest deal, he asks. In a credit default swap, or down in Louisiana where the truth is brutal and comes with a beatin'. Who are the real crooks? Greedy Goldman Sachs or Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) and Frankie (Scoot McNairy), the artless, sweaty hoodlums poking the hornet's nest for an easy dime.
Chief hornet is Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt playing sleazy chic) who has to sort out this mess and restore order.
He calls on Mickey (James Gandolfini) to give him a hand. But Mickey is a sozzled mess, facing jail, a divorce and a glass that empties too quickly and fills too slow.
We know this because Mickey tells us. This is a talkie. There is violence, slayings - uncompromising, poetically shot grubby headshots - but the director (who took us into deadbeat minds in The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford) is more interested in the hopes and fears of pitiable sleazeballs trying to make a dishonest day's living so they can get the hell out.
Jackie doesn't like the touchy-feely stuff. He prefers "killing them softly, from a distance" but he still gets dragged in, taking Mickey's miserable, martini-sodden confession and giving Frankie some options.
Elmore Leonard's in there, in spirit, with the rhythmic street slang and the code of machismo. Tarantino too, but if you put two crims in a car tossing dialogue to and fro ahead of a job, Tarantino is inevitable.
And don't forget Guy Ritchie for the arch, stylised direction although Lock, Stock is gloss and varnish compared to this rain-beaten, noirish dinge-fest. Says 2008 on the pack, yes, but the browns and oranges and rusty GTOs suggest the '70s, home of the source material - George V Higgins' pulpy Cogan's Trade.
Dominik does a great job for a film with little plot. He builds character, tension and is happy to let the screen shift to slow-burn to give the druggies time to find their high.
The script is crackling: brimful of one-liners and mordant, slapstick wit, and the cast show they know how to give their blunt-toothed schmucks heart, or at least, purpose.
But, in the end, this is just business pal. Nothin' personal.
Stage review: Top Hat, Aldwych
STAGE
Top Hat
Aldwych Theatre
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Sumptuous settings and silky dancing ensure Irving Berlin's classics are serenaded in style.
REVIEW
There's so much corn at the Aldwych a small heatwave could start a tasty explosion, or a cinema concession.
Sweet or salted? Sweet, of course, as this effortlessly classy musical turns a slight boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl hiccup into two-and-a-half hours of delightful hoofing, non-stop action and money-on-show costumes.
Here's the plot precis: "Jerry Travers (Tom Chambers), the famous American tap dancer, arrives in London to appear in his first West End show. Travers meets the irresistible Dale Tremont (Summer Strallen), the girl of his dreams, and follows her across Europe in an attempt to win her heart."
That makes it sound like complex psycho-drama compared to the slender reality. But that's not the point. The point is the succession of sumptuous Irving Berlin numbers (Puttin' On The Ritz, Top Hat, Lets Face The Music), the clackety-clack chorus line, the screwball romance and the top hat and tails.
The whole lot is played as farce ably assisted by the 'Allo 'Allo Italian manglings of Ricardo Afonso's dress designer Alberto Beddini and the hen-pecked shenanighans of Martin Ball's impresario Horace Hardwick - not forgetting the hen herself, Vivien Parry.
To emphasise the sheer silliness of the story, the script is a succession of groaners. To wit:
"What's this power you have over horses?"
"Horse power?"
Strictly winner Tom Chambers plays Fred Astaire playing Jerry Travers and Summer Strallen plays Ginger Rogers playing Dale Tremont without entirely recapturing the chemistry of the 1935 RKO classic.
The former is ostentatious and charming, the latter, feisty and game and between them manage to convince that a small case of mistaken identity is worth the fuss that ensues.
In fact, by the close, you would only cheer more if it were Bradley Wiggins and Jessica Ennis who had donned the taps and were dancing Cheek To Cheek.
Now booking to 2013. Go to aldwych.official-theatre.co.uk
© Images: Brinkhoff and Mogenburg
Top Hat
Aldwych Theatre
★★★★✩
IN A NUTSHELL
Sumptuous settings and silky dancing ensure Irving Berlin's classics are serenaded in style.
REVIEW
There's so much corn at the Aldwych a small heatwave could start a tasty explosion, or a cinema concession.
Sweet or salted? Sweet, of course, as this effortlessly classy musical turns a slight boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl hiccup into two-and-a-half hours of delightful hoofing, non-stop action and money-on-show costumes.
Here's the plot precis: "Jerry Travers (Tom Chambers), the famous American tap dancer, arrives in London to appear in his first West End show. Travers meets the irresistible Dale Tremont (Summer Strallen), the girl of his dreams, and follows her across Europe in an attempt to win her heart."
That makes it sound like complex psycho-drama compared to the slender reality. But that's not the point. The point is the succession of sumptuous Irving Berlin numbers (Puttin' On The Ritz, Top Hat, Lets Face The Music), the clackety-clack chorus line, the screwball romance and the top hat and tails.
The whole lot is played as farce ably assisted by the 'Allo 'Allo Italian manglings of Ricardo Afonso's dress designer Alberto Beddini and the hen-pecked shenanighans of Martin Ball's impresario Horace Hardwick - not forgetting the hen herself, Vivien Parry.
To emphasise the sheer silliness of the story, the script is a succession of groaners. To wit:
"What's this power you have over horses?"
"Horse power?"
Strictly winner Tom Chambers plays Fred Astaire playing Jerry Travers and Summer Strallen plays Ginger Rogers playing Dale Tremont without entirely recapturing the chemistry of the 1935 RKO classic.
The former is ostentatious and charming, the latter, feisty and game and between them manage to convince that a small case of mistaken identity is worth the fuss that ensues.
In fact, by the close, you would only cheer more if it were Bradley Wiggins and Jessica Ennis who had donned the taps and were dancing Cheek To Cheek.
Now booking to 2013. Go to aldwych.official-theatre.co.uk
© Images: Brinkhoff and Mogenburg
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