02 May 2007

That Face by Polly Stenham

Martha - Lindsay Duncan
Alice - Abigail Hood
Mia - Felicity Jones
Henry - Matt Smith
Izzy - Catherine Steadman
Hugh - Julian Wadham

Directed by a plonker called Jeremy Herrin
Designed wonderfully by Mike Britton

seen in it's premiere run at the Royal Court Uptsairs


A really interesting piece of new writing but my experience was spoilt by a selfish, self-important idiot sitting next to me who I later discovered was the director! What he hoped to gain by annoying the people around him I don't know. If he had not had a couple of wonderful actors in the form of Lindsay and Matt he would have floundered completely. The scenes that didn't include them were the weakest and the Julian Wadham's character should have been a little more ambiguous but Julian is such a vile smug git that he didn't work for me either. So writing good, direction bad, couple of performances wonderful and Felicity Jones was fine too. Sadly, Lindsay did not make it to the after show talk.

Celebrity in the audience: Nicholas LeProvost