Birmingham Stage Company

The Pain and the Itch at The Royal Court


13 July 2007

Acclaimed. Hyped. Sold out.

Sadly I can only talk about the pain. I do not know what the rehearsal period involved. I have no idea what the director Dominic Cooke was trying to get out of his actors (a cast that included one of my favourite actors) - but for the first 30 minutes he seemed to be pushing for insincere, glib, wholly unconvincing performances. I cannot report what he achieved after the first half hour because we left. The last resort of the despairing punter.

One performance in particular would be too big for panto - what on earth were they thinking?

Once again I am left feeling I am on a different planet to the majority of the theatrical world.


Back to Blog