To the National Theatre to see Every Good Boy Deserves Favour by Tom Stoppard & André Previn on the recommendation of Chris who happily went to see it again with me. Brilliant. You have to call it a play because it’s in a theatre, but it’s a concert, a dance, a play, and a collaboration that doesn’t have a name yet.
There were so many coups de théâtre it made me think the piece is a justifcation for theatre itself, and to give any of them away would be to spoil the experience, so go and see it. It’s only on til Feb 25th, and not often performed.
Well, all right, I’ll give one away. At the beginning, the on-stage orchestra all start playing very quietly, and an eery, almost supernatural sound emerges. Then you realise they’re not playing, the violins are just moving bows in the air. But you could swear you can hear music. And as the play is about a schizophrenic in a prison cell who’s convinced he has an orchestra, this has already unsettled your own sanity before anyone’s spoken a word.
