61st performance of Hamlet (my 18th)
I work near the Novello so I popped out of work today at about 9.30am (the doors apparently opened at 10.00am) to see what the queue for day tickets / returns was like and there were about 15-20 very cold people waiting outside.
I left work at about 7.00pm and there was a massive crowd outside the theatre waiting to get in as they were only letting a few people in at a time. The theatre is a real warren of a place as to get to my seat in the stalls I had to go down to the bar and turn left, then down some more steps, up some others, around a corner and then down some more! At this point the people in front of me were joking that we were going to end up on the Circle Line!
We came out at the front of the stalls. I'd bought my seat through the RSC postal system so I was in Row E which I understood was going to be the 4th row as we were told that rows A and B would be removed but row B was there. Not that it mattered as I still had a good view. The stage is a lot higher than in Stratford but I think that even in the front row you would be able to see okay unless you were very short. There was plenty of leg room and the theatre was a comfortable temperature (plus the loos were nice!).
However I did feel that the stage was cramped, at least compared to The Courtyard Theatre. For example in Stratford they had 8 chandeliers and 6 panes of glass at the back but at the Novello there is only room for 6 chandeliers and 4 and a half panes of glass, plus there is glass around parts of the side of the stage. I also really miss (as I knew I would) the actors using the walkways through the audience. Other than that, they had staged it pretty much as I expected except that the thrones were lowered into position (the bed was carried onto stage). Also it limited DT being able to run off stage as there's not much room between the edge of the stage and the wall! When he threw the book, he had to just drop it as there wasn't enough room and when the gravedigger throw one of the skulls out, I thought it was going to roll of the stage!
It was another great performance and you couldn't really tell that they hadn't played in front of an audience for 18 days! I thought David Tennant was especially strong tonight in his first few scenes - his expressions when he was told that they had seen the ghost was just amazing as he changed from surprise to astonishment to wonder all in a few seconds! (In that same scene I always like to see how he says the "very like, very like" line as sometimes the words are close together and sometimes he pauses - tonight was a pause!).
Due to the stage DT spoke right at the front of the stage more than in Stratford but he addressed all the levels in the theatre at different times. A lot of his "Now I am alone" speech was at the front and he ran along the front of the stage for the "gives me the lie in the throat" part.
Hamlet's "Too, too sold flesh" soliquee was especially good (and emotional) tonight but it was marred slightly by the walkie-talkie of one of the theatre staff crackling into life at the beginning of the speech!
There were a few mistakes that I noticed (I love live theatre!):
In the scene where Hamlet is told about the ghost and he's asking if they will be armed tonight, Hamlet is supposed to say "From top to toe?" followed by Marcelleous saying "From head to foot" but tonight David Tennant got his line wrong as he said "From head to foot" too so they both said that line.
Another mistake was made by the Player King as he said a line wrong.
The third mistake was that Claudius was taking about Ophelia but said "her father has come from France" instead of "her brother has come from France".
David really struggled to get his recorder into his pocket tonight - in the end he guided it in with his hand! He also struggled to do up one of his buttons on his blue shirt as he was a lot further along in that speech before he had succeeded!
The bedroom scene was brilliant tonight. Both David Tennant and Penny Downie play that scene so well, and so differently each performance. I had heard that they were going to change it so that they had photos of the two brothers but they still used the newspapers.
The "In Heaven!" line when Hamlet is tied to the chair received the biggest laugh that I've heard tonight.
David Tennant sat down a few extra times tonight so it'll be interesting to see if that is how he's going to play it now (with the smaller stage) or whether that was just tonight. For example he sat with his legs out and his feet facing the audience for the speech about Denmark being a prison and again for part of the discussion with Osric.
Afterwards when they had bowed, Ryan Gage explained that this week loads of theatres were collecting for World AIDS Day and there were buckets at all the exits.
There's a new programme for the London performances with the photo of Hamlet with the crown on the front (£3.50).
As I had 25 minutes before my train home I went to the stage door. For some reason they had arranged it so that the fans were behind the barriers either side of the door (probably so that people could walk along the pavement okay). It was a good idea to put up the barriers but only about 4 people would be at the actual stage door entrance (with about 50 behind them) unless DT walked along the pavement so I couldn't see how that was going to work (but as we once accidentally went by that theatre after a matinee when some pop idol guy was playing there and there were fans all over the road, it seemed a good idea to try something). As I'm not into autographs (and I've previously met David Tennant) I just stood at the other side of the road to watch. However, in the end DT came out of the other door and it took a little while for people to realise that he was there! There were then a lot of people around him but there didn't appear to be any pushing.
I left work at about 7.00pm and there was a massive crowd outside the theatre waiting to get in as they were only letting a few people in at a time. The theatre is a real warren of a place as to get to my seat in the stalls I had to go down to the bar and turn left, then down some more steps, up some others, around a corner and then down some more! At this point the people in front of me were joking that we were going to end up on the Circle Line!
We came out at the front of the stalls. I'd bought my seat through the RSC postal system so I was in Row E which I understood was going to be the 4th row as we were told that rows A and B would be removed but row B was there. Not that it mattered as I still had a good view. The stage is a lot higher than in Stratford but I think that even in the front row you would be able to see okay unless you were very short. There was plenty of leg room and the theatre was a comfortable temperature (plus the loos were nice!).
However I did feel that the stage was cramped, at least compared to The Courtyard Theatre. For example in Stratford they had 8 chandeliers and 6 panes of glass at the back but at the Novello there is only room for 6 chandeliers and 4 and a half panes of glass, plus there is glass around parts of the side of the stage. I also really miss (as I knew I would) the actors using the walkways through the audience. Other than that, they had staged it pretty much as I expected except that the thrones were lowered into position (the bed was carried onto stage). Also it limited DT being able to run off stage as there's not much room between the edge of the stage and the wall! When he threw the book, he had to just drop it as there wasn't enough room and when the gravedigger throw one of the skulls out, I thought it was going to roll of the stage!
It was another great performance and you couldn't really tell that they hadn't played in front of an audience for 18 days! I thought David Tennant was especially strong tonight in his first few scenes - his expressions when he was told that they had seen the ghost was just amazing as he changed from surprise to astonishment to wonder all in a few seconds! (In that same scene I always like to see how he says the "very like, very like" line as sometimes the words are close together and sometimes he pauses - tonight was a pause!).
Due to the stage DT spoke right at the front of the stage more than in Stratford but he addressed all the levels in the theatre at different times. A lot of his "Now I am alone" speech was at the front and he ran along the front of the stage for the "gives me the lie in the throat" part.
Hamlet's "Too, too sold flesh" soliquee was especially good (and emotional) tonight but it was marred slightly by the walkie-talkie of one of the theatre staff crackling into life at the beginning of the speech!
There were a few mistakes that I noticed (I love live theatre!):
In the scene where Hamlet is told about the ghost and he's asking if they will be armed tonight, Hamlet is supposed to say "From top to toe?" followed by Marcelleous saying "From head to foot" but tonight David Tennant got his line wrong as he said "From head to foot" too so they both said that line.
Another mistake was made by the Player King as he said a line wrong.
The third mistake was that Claudius was taking about Ophelia but said "her father has come from France" instead of "her brother has come from France".
David really struggled to get his recorder into his pocket tonight - in the end he guided it in with his hand! He also struggled to do up one of his buttons on his blue shirt as he was a lot further along in that speech before he had succeeded!
The bedroom scene was brilliant tonight. Both David Tennant and Penny Downie play that scene so well, and so differently each performance. I had heard that they were going to change it so that they had photos of the two brothers but they still used the newspapers.
The "In Heaven!" line when Hamlet is tied to the chair received the biggest laugh that I've heard tonight.
David Tennant sat down a few extra times tonight so it'll be interesting to see if that is how he's going to play it now (with the smaller stage) or whether that was just tonight. For example he sat with his legs out and his feet facing the audience for the speech about Denmark being a prison and again for part of the discussion with Osric.
Afterwards when they had bowed, Ryan Gage explained that this week loads of theatres were collecting for World AIDS Day and there were buckets at all the exits.
There's a new programme for the London performances with the photo of Hamlet with the crown on the front (£3.50).
As I had 25 minutes before my train home I went to the stage door. For some reason they had arranged it so that the fans were behind the barriers either side of the door (probably so that people could walk along the pavement okay). It was a good idea to put up the barriers but only about 4 people would be at the actual stage door entrance (with about 50 behind them) unless DT walked along the pavement so I couldn't see how that was going to work (but as we once accidentally went by that theatre after a matinee when some pop idol guy was playing there and there were fans all over the road, it seemed a good idea to try something). As I'm not into autographs (and I've previously met David Tennant) I just stood at the other side of the road to watch. However, in the end DT came out of the other door and it took a little while for people to realise that he was there! There were then a lot of people around him but there didn't appear to be any pushing.
Next performance for me: Tomorrow (4th)!
