3 posts tagged “comedy”
What prevents your city/town from being the best place in the country to live?
Submitted by Cherney.It is the best place to live - in the world. It's London for goodness sake. I mean just on my way to work everyday I get to see this unique and stunning piece of architecture
And this
It has the best theatre, cinema's, restaurants, pubs, architecture, comedy, music, museums great open spaces and a public transport system that kinda works. What more could you ask for?
But then I am biased because I can't imagine living anywhere else.
After a self-imposed virtual drought during May, June's theatre visits kicked off in fine form with a bit of Shakespeare at the National Theatre accompanied by adam, who likes a bit of the Bard.
As a result it is quite a strange story but if you don't worry about that too much and view it more as a fairy tale then it's an entertaining romp with Shakespeare flexing his word play muscles.
The first half is the set up: girl falls for boy who's socially above her, she helps out the King who in return promises to let her marry whomever she chooses. Guess who she chooses? Boy, Bertram is his name, rejects her saying he'll only be her husband if she gets a ring on him he can't remove and has his baby.
He then buggers off to war in Italy. End of part one.
The second half is basically how she does the seemingly impossible. There is a Falstaff-type character thrown in for extra comedy value and hey presto there you have it.
And while the story didn't exactly float my boat, the production and acting more than made up for it. The set designers definitely went for fairy tale with castle turrets almost appearing like gnarly old trees and projections of spiders and bats on the back drop. Clever lighting picked out sparkles and sequins against quite a dark backdrop.
Notable performances came from the wonderful Oliver Ford Davies as the King (last seen doing a brilliantly comic Polonius in the RSC's Hamlet) and Conleth Hill as Parolles.
It's not going to be my favourite play of the year but it certainly dazzled and for £10 a ticket in the Travelex season you can't complain that it wasn't worth the money.
Here's what a few reviewers thought:
Independent
Time Out
Guardian
Eagerly awaited by one reader (thanks Jane!) here are my humble views of this weekend's stage and screen entertainment.
First Elling.
Based on a Norwegian novel the play revolves around two psychiatric inmates (Elling and Kjell Bjarne) who are released into the community. Put into a flat and assigned a social worker they have to prove they can live in the real world or face returning to the institution for the rest of their lives.
Elling is the fastidious, agoraphobic mummy's boy and Kjell has never lost his pubescent girl-obsession and doesn't like wearing clothes.
It is witty, amusing and down right laugh out loud funny. The clever script ably-assisted by the acting talents of the John Simm (Elling) and Adrian Bower (Kjell).
The former was a revelation proving he has the credentials to be a comic as well as a straight actor. His timing was impeccable and his ability to create humour from a mere look or tilt of the head reminded me of the likes of Eric Morecombe.
It's only on for another week but if you are in London and can get a ticket, I'd highly recommend it.
Michael Clayton
It is the story of a top lawyer (Tom Wilkinson) who goes spectacularly off the rails in the middle of a long litigation case against a huge chemical company. Clayton, played by Clooney, is the law firms janitor, the guy who fixes difficult and tricky situations and he's sent in to sort the mess out before the whole case collapses uncovering all sorts of skulduggery along the way and putting his life at risk.
What is there to say? An excellent cast, brilliantly acted, nicely shot. Mildly intriguing plot, few twists and turns along the way. Felt a little too long. George Clooney was gorgeous.
