13 December 2009
Posted by Bonnie on 13 December 2009 at
04:17
Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of meeting Rachael Stirling, at last, after all these years of running the website! I've had the opportunity to say hello before, but have never really wanted to trouble her. However, since I know she's aware of the website, I thought it might be nice to introduce myself at last.
The play we went to see, The Priory, was excellent and we really enjoyed it. I think Rachael thoroughly deserved all of the great reviews and was, for me at least, the star of the show along with Jessica Hynes, who played the lead role. However I may be biased as I'm a big fan of both actresses.
Afterwards we went outside and Jessica was there. We spoke to her for a few minutes and she was absolutely lovely. I asked her if Rachael would be coming out, and she said to hang on for a few minutes and we would probably catch her. So we did, and sure enough, Rachael came out. Unfortunately she was on a phone call so although she was able to scribble a few autographs for some of the eBay autograph sellers (groan), she didn't stop to talk to them, but her call ended before she reached us. I caught her eye and she approached us.
She was absolutely lovely, and when I introduced myself as "Bonnie who runs the website…" she exclaimed "Holy shit!" and then gushed for a few minutes with all sorts of compliments and thanks. She said that this website has actually helped to get her a visa to work over in the USA, and that her agent had given the address to (presumably) the US Embassy for examples of the TV and film work she'd done. That really made me smile. 
She was so kind and sweet, and seemed genuinely happy to see me, which was wonderful. She also said that if I ever need anything answering for the site, or have any more questions, to just send them to her agent and she'd be happy to answer them. Wonderful! It was definitely worth hanging around to meet her at last. I wasn't really bothered about getting autographs and things, but just wanted to say hello and chat to her for a minute, which was what happened. I'm so glad I stayed to meet her.
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12 December 2009
Posted by Bonnie on 12 December 2009 at
12:00
I've had Christmas and New Year's Day already. And it was hell. Delicious, subversive, rib-splitting hell. There are still a few tickets left to Michael Wynne's wicked new play, The Priory, at London's Royal Court theatre, starring Jessica Hynes, Rupert Penry-Jones and Rachael Stirling (daughter of Diana Rigg) and I can't recommend it highly enough.
Set among a group of thirtysomething professionals who gather for a New Year bash in an Agatha Christie-style rural pile, it's part of the Court's current assault on the middle classes. And my God it skewers all our pretensions mercilessly — from the chunky single woman desperate for love to the techno geek who is almost physically attached to his iPhone, and the young gay man who has a choice of older lovers on tap at swanky Landmark Trust properties around the country.
The critics have been slightly sniffy about this production (too much fun: not enough substance is the subtext) but this is the very best sort of adult pantomime. You laugh, you cry, you scream. (There's definitely something behind you, and it's wearing a dark hood.)
Where else are you going to see a play where a Bafta-winning head of Children's BBC TV gets off her head on valium and cocaine. And, frankly, you're on her side.
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10 December 2009
Posted by Bonnie on 10 December 2009 at
03:44
I'm sorry that I haven't updated the site much recently. I've been quite busy, and there was a spell where we didn't really have much Rachael news, but that has recently changed with many new reviews coming in for the play The Priory, which is currently running at the Royal Court Theatre and has been extended by one week to 16th January 2010. Tickets can still be purchased from the Royal Court Theatre website.
I have added a large number of reviews to the site, which you can browse through here:
A fair few good reviews there, and not a bad word to say about Rachael's performance; unless a few rather negative-sounding adjectives describing her character, Rebecca, count (which they clearly don't, as it just means Rachael can play a nasty piece of work very well). I get the feeling her character in the play is not a particularly pleasant individual, if the following adjectives are anything to go by: the Independent described her as as "magnificently monstrous", the Financial Times called Rachael's performance "horribly good", BroadwayWorld.com went for "sparky", The Stage referred to her as "vivid, vicious", and the London Evening Standard's choice of words were "magnificently odious", while naming Rachael "the pick of the bunch". Similarly, the New York Times referred to her as "the night's standout performance". Fantastic.
I will be going to see the play this weekend, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be back after the weekend with more updates, I hope!
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Posted by Bonnie on 10 December 2009 at
12:00
If it's not quite the time of year to start making New Year resolutions, then it's not far off. Everywhere, you can read the signs: bright lights on the main shopping streets, merry cash registers ringing and the sound of Yule logs being felled in empty forests. Plus there are chronic gift anxieties and a grim foreboding about the coming general election year. In The Priory, Michael Wynne's new comedy at the Royal Court, a New Year's Eve party gives us a taste of what's to come.
And that taste is pretty astringent — a bit like Bombay gin laced with cranberry juice and topped off with the bitter aftertaste of impure coke. So here's the recipe: take one secluded former priory, all gothic arches and brash elegance, and hire it for a New Year's Eve party. Which is exactly what Kate, a 36-year-old writer who's had a bad year, has done. As she waits for the arrival of some old friends in order to see out the old and toast in the new, there's a definite sense of foreboding.
At first, her friends seem to be a typically bright collection of shiny, happy, smiley people. So there's Daniel, the gay architect, young trendies Ben and his new fiancée Laura, plus actor Carl and his wife Rebecca, a programme maker. Yes, we are among the status-conscious middle classes, power couples with their loud voices, successful careers and smug satisfaction instantly visible, like a pair of brightly-coloured earrings catching the bright lights of media world.
Yet, it soon becomes apparent, Kate doesn't quite fit in. Surrounded by her old friends, she seems distracted and lonesome. Amid all the ping-pong of Wynne's sharp satire and comic one-liners, she embodies a sad but profound sense of solitude. Gradually, as we find out why, we are reminded that it is among other people that we often feel the deepest loneliness and how rarely this condition, which is as contemporary as an iPhone, is the subject of drama.
In the second half of The Priory, as the revellers discover the dressing-up box and the surfaces become littered with empty bottles, the punchy jokes can't quite distract you from the play's bigger themes. Standing sober in the corner are all those ponderous questions about the nature of happiness, the definition of a good life and the search for love — all topped off by a sense of existential emptiness. Suddenly, you don't feel like laughing any more.
And, offstage, lurk the secret tyrants of the modern couple — the kids. Bigmouth Rebecca and diffident Carl's children are often referred to; Kate's ticking biological clock is nodded at; and even Daniel feels the social pressure to conform. Success cannot be complete unless you have kids; no kids means failure. Social suicide.
Clearly, the politics of happiness are complex: it's easier to denounce the shallow values of media folk and couples who try too hard to project a successful face to the world than it is to offer a credible cure. But the joys of Wynne's acidic criticism can compensate for his lack of a solution.
The play's inevitable revelations, deftly handled by director Jeremy Herrin, eventually pit Jessica Hynes's desperate Kate against Rachael Stirling's bossy Rebecca, with Rupert Penry-Jones's weak-willed Carl watching on the sidelines. As Ben and Laura, Alastair Mackenzie and Charlotte Riley deliver a shrill, up-tempo double act, while Joseph Millson gives Daniel a strong dose of dry wit. Yes, cheering in the New Year involves a lot of laughs, but when the fun is this hectic, can a hangover be far behind?
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8 December 2009
Posted by Bonnie on 8 December 2009 at
12:00
This comedy is about successful but unhappy thirty-somethings gathering on New Year’s Eve and all the underlying angst that suggests. In the wrong hands, this could have been twee nonsense that moves to a neat resolution. But this this is deftly handled: sharply written and directed, with a tightly co-ordinated cast. More importantly, it’s funny. All of the characters' lives have been interlaced but are now moving in different directions. Motivations, love, ambitions and locale are all fluid and up for grabs.
Rachael Stirling (Rebecca) and Charlotte Riley (Laura) are particularly appalling characters and loathsome house-guests. In context, of course, this gives them amusing lines to deliver and they inevitably unravel even more quickly than the others. Laura's potential to unravel is more evident from the start, although this takes a darker and more unexpected turn when it does come.
There are quirky elements, too: the mention of the dressing-up box near the start hints at masquerades to come. It never takes long for the men, in particular, to start dressing up and unburdening themselves while wearing dresses (lovely Rupert Henry-Jones spends some time doing this). The resolution is still neat, in a manner of speaking, when Kate (Jessica Hynes) declares to Daniel (Joseph Millson) about life: "This is it, and it's okay. This is it, this is it, this it."
First time to the Royal Court for me and we had seats on the Balcony (upper circle), in a similar position to those at the old Vic last week. Great stage set — I really liked it. Decent pub food and a couple of glasses of wine in the Duke of Wellington round the corner in Belgravia beforehand. An excellent night out.
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