Posted on November 6, 2010 by Darren
Jumping The Shark is the moment when an established show changes in a significant manner in an attempt to stay fresh. Ironically, that moment makes the viewers realise that the show has finally run out of ideas. It has reached its peak, it will never be the same again, and from now on it’s all downhill.
– tvtropes.org
Jumping the Sharks is a small, quirky play. Essentially a one-man one-act play following the triumph and decline of a Hollywood big shot as he waits in what must be limbo while outlining the seven core stories, it banks a lot on the central performance of Don Wycherley. Wycherley, an actor you might recognise from Perrier’s Bounty or Sweeney Todd, gives the play his all as former television executive and now dearly departed Nick Cross, managing to seem a convincing and charming conversationalist on a sparse stage. His delivery is truly impressive, inviting the audience to overlook some of the sleight of hand the play uses, and helping the hour breeze by.
Swimming with sharks...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: Aaron Sorkin, arts, blood in the alley, don wycherley, dublin, dublin theatre, Fonzie, Happy Days, Jump the Shark, jumping the sharks, nick cross, popular culture, smock alley, smock alley theatre, Theatre | Leave a comment »
Posted on October 23, 2010 by Darren
The Abbey is very much selling Frank McGuinness’ adaptation of Henrik Ibsin’s John Gabriel Borkman as a timely piece of work. Set during a recession and focusing on a former banker who has managed to avoid squalor by assuring his property ends up in the hands of his sister-in-law (though she bought it at auction rather than the fact he assigned it to her), it is an easy enough sell in modern Ireland. However, the play’s themes are much more universal than that – it’s a story about our attempts to live vicariously through others and attempt to define ourselves contrary to whatever plans those around us might have, a reflection on how easily and readily we construct elaborate cages for ourselves (but cages that we insist are actually throne rooms). However, the main draw to this theatrical run – and perhaps the factor behind its near-constantly sold-out status – is a lead performance from Alan Rickman as the eponymous banker-turned-outcast.
Cool...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: abbey theatre, alan rickman, dublin, dublin theatre festival, Fiona Shaw, Frank McGuinness, Henrik Ibsin, John Gabriel Borkman, John Kavanagh, Lindsay Duncan, review, Royal National Theatre, the abbey, Theatre, Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival | Leave a comment »
Posted on August 24, 2010 by Darren
A Dream Play is regarded as one of the defining moments of surrealism on stage. It’s not so much a play as wide variety of clashing ideas and scenarios, which overlap and bleed into each other as if reality itself is bleeding. The net effect quite wonderfully evokes the idea that the audience is somewhere very strange indeed – where characters and archetypes seem just on the verge of making sense before morphing and merging into something new and strange yet strangely familiar. The National Youth Theatre have staged a production at the Peacock Theatre, working off the version of the play “edited” by Caryl Churchill. I put “edited” in inverted commas because – despite not having an annotated version – I can offer a pretty confident guess as to which parts of the play came from her more modern (and vastly less subtle) perspective.
A "dream" cast...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: a dream play, abbey theatre, caryl churchill, dream play, dublin, feminism, jimmy fay, national youth theatre, peacock, peacock theatre, politics, review, surreal, surrealism, theatre review | Leave a comment »
Posted on June 17, 2010 by Darren
Arcadia is great. It’s a wonderfully dense, witty work from writer Tom Stoppard. The Gate production is, as one would expect, top notch, and the play seems to suit the surroundings of the theatre, with its lavish set design and production values. Whether you’re looking to wrap your head around something stimulating, or simply looking for an entertaining night at the theatre, you could do a lot worse than Arcadia.
Don't worry, he doesn't lay the maths on too hard...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: arcadia, dublin, gate the gate theatre, gate theatre, play, review, stoppard, the gate, Theatre, tom stoppard | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 7, 2010 by Darren
Michael Gambon is great. He really is. I’d pay to watch Michael Gambon sit on stage for an hour. Hell, I’d pay to see Michael Gambon eat a banana, he’s that good. And, thanks to the Gate Theatre and Samuel Beckett, now I can.
A name like "Krapp" just invites punning...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: beckett, dublin, gate, gate theatre, krapp, krapp's last tape, michael gambon, samuel beckett, the gate, the gate theatre | Leave a comment »
Posted on April 24, 2010 by Darren
Myself and the better half had the pleasure of taking in a show in the national theatre last night. Director Jimmy Fay has brought Shakespeare’s MacBeth, the play known in the industry as “the Scottish play”, to the stage. I studied MacBeth in secondary school, as one of the big four tragedies. I would have rather studied Othello or Hamlet, but at least it wasn’t King Lear. We had high hopes in settling into our seats for the full performance – Fay had brought The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui to the stage only last year in a show that remains perhaps my favourite of all the plays I have seen at the Abbey. Did MacBeth live up to those expectations?
"Something wicked this way comes..."
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: abbey, aidan kelly, dublin, eileen walsh, jimmy fay, macbeth, macbeth at the abbey, play, review, shakespeare, the abbey, the abbey theatre, Theatre | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 3, 2010 by Darren
Mark O’Rowe wrote a play that I had the pleasure of seeing last year called Terminus. The piece, featuring four characters narrating sensational events occurring in and around the city of Dublin in thick Northside accents and with distracting amounts of elloquence, obviously became something of a cult hit – so much so that it returned to the Abbey (our national theatre) earlier this year. I mention this purely because O’Rowe has very much fashioned the script for this Irish film from the same cloth as his theatrical success. The same elements which I enjoyed in Terminus I enjoyed in Perrier’s Bounty, and the same elements I didn’t enjoy were just magnified by the transition to film.
Parting shots?
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: brendan gleeson, Cillian Murphy, cinema, dublin, films, Ireland, irish, jim broadbent, mark o'rowe, Movies, non-review review, perrier's bounty, reviews, terminus | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 20, 2010 by Darren
Yes, we occasionally do high-brow stuff here as well. I had the great joy of taking the better half to a performance of Swan Lake by the Russian State Ballet at the Grand Canal Theatre last night. It’s the first show to perform at Dublin’s newest and largest theatre venue and it was a great opening for the 2,100-capacity location. I’m still more than a little skeptical about the venue’s longterm prospects – is Dublin large enough to sustain a theatre of that size? – but there’s no denying it is simply jaw-dropping.
Just Swanning Around...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: arts, ballet, dublin, grand canal dock, grand canal theatre, Ireland, national theatre, russian state ballet, swan lake, tchaikovsky, Theatre | Leave a comment »
Posted on January 20, 2010 by Darren
This is just a short post about a fairly exciting piece of news that’s broken (seemingly out of nowhere) over the past few days about the developement of a massive Omniplex Cinema at St. Stephen’s Green. It’s interesting that the southside hasn’t really had a ‘big’ cinema – the Screen is a landmark, but three screens isn’t really massive – and it’s something I’ve noticed (I live on the northside, but I work on the southside). I guess we’ll have to wait and see how the idea works out, but something occurs to me: how come we aren’t getting an Imax screen?
Remember the metro plan?
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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: cinema, cineworld, dublin, imax, movie-going, new cinema, savoy, st. stephen's green | 2 Comments »
Posted on November 20, 2009 by Darren
Myself and the better half had a very… theatrical evening last night. First we stopped by Trinity to check out the up-and-coming talent during their “directors’ debut” season (running for the next three weeks, if you feel like taking a chance with your theatre-going) and then we went on to catch a performance of the HMS Pinafore playing at the National Concert Hall from the Rathmines & Rathgar Musical Society (the people behind The Producers at the The Gaiety earlier this year). It’s rare that we get a Gilbert & Sullivan musical performed in full, so was it worth it?
Yes, this is the only photo we have...
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Filed under: Theatre | Tagged: dublin, gilbert & sullivan, HMS Pinafore, musical, National Concert Hall, pinafore, R & R, Rathmines & Rathgar Musical Society, Rathmines and Rathgar Musical Society, Theatre | Leave a comment »
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