The Play’s Not The Thing

Tomorrow, my wife and I are going to a play at the Old Vic Theatre in London and I will be focused on getting ready for that. The play is Mary Page Marlow and I am really looking forward to seeing it.

A number of years ago we decided to start going to the theatre together because the children were older and we could choose what plays we wanted to see. The issue was, how to choose? Did we go for a certain type of play, did we read the synopses of each option or did we stick a pin in the West End?!

The answer came quite unexpectedly from our first two plays. In 2014,Angela Lansbury returned to the stage as Madam Arcati in Blithe Spirit. If she hadn’t been in the play we would not have gone, but the chance to see such a legend was too good to miss. She was outstanding and when she was on stage it was as if no one else existed in the scene. To this day it is one of the most electrifying pieces of acting I have seen on stage. A few months later we went to see Bill Nighy in Skylight with Carey Mulligan. He was quite simply the best male lead I have seen on stage and, along with Mulligan, made it one of the best two hours I’ve spent in a theatre. The decision was made, we would be drawn to the actors rather than the plays themselves.

Since then, we have seen so many amazing performances from so many amazing casts that we would never have been drawn to otherwise. Standouts have included Nicole Kidman in Photograph 51, Eileen Atkins and Jonathan Pryce in The Height of the Storm, Anthropology with Dakota Blue Richards, Unicorn with Nicola Walker, Stephen Mangan and Erin Doherty and, most recently, Anne Reid and Caroline Quentin in By Royal Appointment.

Tonight, was a play I got tickets for as soon as they went on general sale, because Susan Sarandon was the big name star. Along with her, there are Andrea Risborough, Eleanor Worthington Cox and Alisha Weir in an exceptionally high powered cast. Neither my wife nor I have a clue what to expect, but that has never yet left us feeling as though we had wasted our time and money. It was a close run thing on one occasion, but even that was an interesting baseline measure.

Who are our next star turns? Before the end of the year, Anna Popplewell in The Wanderers and Nicola Walker, for the third time, this time in The Unbelievers. To be fair I would go to see Nicola Walker reading a telephone directory! Why not try it for yourself? It has expanded our horizons and the range of plays we have seen so much and long may it continue to do so.