14 August 2018. Allelujah at The Bridge

I went along with high expectations of this new play by Alan Bennett and came away rather disappointed. It struck me as more of a pleasant evening out than a particularly provocative / thought-provoking piece of writing, despite its potential. The play is set in a geriatric ward where the award-winning matron turns out to be the administrator of early terminations for patients who become incontinent. Although various sins of the Tories are mentioned, the play does not seem to take the audience anywhere new. Bed-blocking, efficiency-savings, immigrants' status are not novel and are not given any new twist.
The fact that the cast burst into song from time to time only added to my curmudgeonly attitude. Surely we were well away from the reality of the geriatric ward and suffering a ruse to create a feel-good factor and send us home happy? For me this was not worth the £65 and I was only glad I hadn't splashed out £90m on a super seat. With these prices, the WestEnd needs to deliver.

6 August 2018. The Lehman Trilogy at the National.

This was something of a tour de force for the three actors who occupy the stage for three hours (with to intervals). The play charts the story of Lehman brothers from the arrival in the 1840s of Henry, the first, eldest, brother in America to the downfall in 2008. Henry is joined by Emanual and Mayer to run the general store in Alabama in the heart of cotton-growing country. They soon evolve the business into one of cotton trading - buying and pooling local harvests and selling to New York where they also set up offices. Then we have the next generation who take the firm forwards as an investment banks, relying on shrewdness to spot opportunities like the railroad. Finally we come to the post war era and the firm's undoing. The trading arm is shown as a less-than-understood cash cow run by outsiders that eventually brings the whole firm down.
It is a fascinating evening that is successful because of an excellent story, fabulous acting by Simon Russell Beale, Ben Miles and Adam Godley and an incredible production by Sam Mendes.

3 August 2018. Julie at the National.

I did not find this the most memorable piece of theatre. It is presented as an update of Strindberg's work, set in a large house near Hampstead Heath. Here we find a party in full swing, complete with cliches. Julie is the troubled rich kid who has hangers on rather than true friends and who seeks solace in the servants' quarters where she flirts with Jean, the driver from Cote d'Ivoire. He succumbs all too readily to Julie's  seductions, readily forgetting his partner Kristina who also works in the house. He immediately suggests Julie fund a venture that they can share in the Cap Verde islands. Before they run off, she feels obliged to kill and liquidise her bird - an event so theatrical as to be ludicrous, though I heard one or two members of the audience wondering if it had 'really' happened. Of course, all does not end happily but I wonder what we are meant to be left thinking. It all felt a bit obvious. Nonetheless, the staging was terrific with a very dramatic set revealing from time to time the party in full swing in the background. The night I went, Julie's part was taken by her understudy - she carried it off very well and I don't think Vanessa Kirby would have allayed my doubts about the play itself.

1 August 2018. Lies at the Almeida

A theatrical event rather than a play, Lies sought to put the ticket-payers into the role of bankers and participant-observe as chaos unfolds. It didn't really work for me as it quite failed to makes any lasting insightful point about how the recent crash - or any crash - happened. All I was left with was the generalised notion that banks are prone to increase their level of risk-taking as time without a crisis goes on, using systems under which they can't lose until they do. This point was made by dividing ticket payers into groups who played at casino-style tables, engaging in pure dice-rolling. I was unconvinced how this extrapolated in any authoritative way to the real world and felt I'd have been better off reading up on the subject - or, indeed, going to the Lehman trilogy. The end when some 'banks' got into trouble happened too quickly and with too little explanation as far as I was concerned.
All in all. I find myself agreeing with the Evening Standard far more than the Guardian - though a subsequent review in the latter mirrored my views better.