Brief Encounter stage/cinema show, Haymarket, London.

[PADDY]

Has anyone been to see this yet? It's a show of the famous film, BRIEF ENCOUNTER, and I understand it's theatre mixed with some of the actual movie!!
With tickets at £30, I'm deliberating about whether to go or not when I'm in London at the beginning of next week. Anyone seen it and is it worth the price? (I'd dress up for it of course!! ).

http://www.seebriefencounter.com/index-google.php?gclid=CLaKts675ZQCFQYaEAoda3K2RQ

QUOTE:
In 1946 the classic film Brief Encounter premiered at the cinema on the Haymarket. Now the Kneehigh Theatre production of Noel Coward's Brief Encounter is back at the cinema on the Haymarket, this time Live on Stage!

Switching seamlessly between theatre and film using a combination of Coward's original stage play Still Life and the screenplay of Brief Encounter, Emma Rice, Kneehigh's Artistic Director, takes you back to a bygone age of romance and the silver screen from the moment the commissionaire opens the doors.

The lives and loves of three couples are played out in the famous station tearoom using the words and songs of Noel Coward to create a breathtaking, delightfully funny and tear-inducing show.

The cinema at the Haymarket will take you back to an age when cinemas had chandeliers, champagne, tea served on trays and a big organ.

ps - they're the comfiest theatre seats in London!
End Quote:

 

[PADDY]

Loved it SO MUCH that I've been again.

Except this time, in the Provinces, as it's touring around the country. Just seen it in Newcastle and it's as wonderful as ever. So, if you are in the UK and have a chance to catch it...well catch it when you can!!:eusa_clap

It's a rollicking rollercoaster of absolute laughter, tears and just old fashioned theatre!!

Must dash...the train for Waterloo has just pulled into the station..!!!!

 

[Miss Sis]

Paddy, Ben and myself, along with several of our chums went dressed up to see this in London.

IT WAS FAB!!!!! Highly recommend to anyone debating whether to go or not. Bit different from the film - more light-hearted overall but still very moving.

Of course, being dressed vintage, we got lots of 'Are you in the play?' comments!

 

[H.Johnson]

I have seen it also. I didn't enjoy it as much as Paddy did, perhaps because the film version has always been my favourite 'movie'; thanks to its superlative screenplay, scenery and cinematography.

For me, what 'makes' the film is the tension that is produced by a social situation that would nowadays go unremarked. The characters are continuously on the edge of a precipice of trust and marital breakdown. In WW2, this meant something. Now it means little. I also admire the way the tension is lifted in the film by the cameo scenes in the buffet and the way the lights and steam of passing trains are used as metaphores for the leading lady's fears and confusion. Coward is 'doing a Hitchcock' but in a much more subtle way.

The film is (IMO) a masterpiece and I think it's asking a lot for any company to convey this in a stage production - maybe I was asking too much. As with the stage production of 39 Steps I came away disappointed. I suspect it is staged as a 'period piece', to show modern audiences the quaint, funny way in which those 1940s people behaved... As a 1940s person myself, I may be sensitive to this.

I must say, however, that I recommend anyone to see it to form their own opinions.

 

[Miss Sis]

Johnson, I disagree about it not having tension. The actors who played the main parts when I saw it (well over a year ago) played it very well and I felt the 'moral dilemma' was foremost.

Yes, the cameos were overplayed, deliberately in contrast to the quiet struggle of Laura and Alec regarding their marriage vows and love for each other.

Perhaps we just have an old fashioned view compared to other audience members but I didn't feel 'mocking' the social mores of the time was the angle the theatre company were taking.

 

[H.Johnson]

Miss Sis,

I respectfully stand corrected, as I am no theatre critic. I have just had coffee with a work colleague who is a Professor of the performing arts, playwright, actor and film producer of considerable reputation. He expressed his appreciation of the production of the work and his admiration for the acting, staging and stage direction. I concede to his (and your) superior knowledge - if Ray says it's good, it's good...although he did say that it he felt it was 'camp and over the top' at times.

I agree - it was this that caused me to lose identification with the production. Unfortunate, but some members of the audience when I saw it 'picked up on' this 'camp' aspect of the production and were clearly determined to 'take a rise' out of the mannerisms and attitudes of 1940s middle class British people. I agree that many aspects of the era (e.g. the accents and responses to apparently ordinary situations) seem risible to some people today, but that's no reason to mock them. Perhaps they mistook it for a production of 'Singalong Sound of Music'. This spoiled it for me, I'm afraid, but I wasn't criticising the cast for that.

Just my opinion, of course and I encourage others to see it for themselves.

 

[H.Johnson]

Just to observe that my 'Laura' and I (our 'Brief Encounter' will have lasted 44 years this summer) will be visiting Carnforth Station by steam train at the end of this month. The refreshment room has been expensively restored to its condition when young David Lean filmed those iconic scenes there in 1945. There is also an exhibition of photographs and props from the film, which is shown continuously.

http://www.refreshmentroom.com/

Oh, and you ascend Shap Summit to Carlisle on the 'Royal Scot' behind a Princess Coronation Class Pacific!

 

[dhermann1]

I've always thought Celia Johnson was exquisite in that film. Does the new one stand up to her standard?
Trivial question: In the original, she asks for a "buttered bath" a couple of times at the lunch counter. Now I know this means a buttered bath Bun, not a luxurious way to bathe. But I'd like to know if a theory my mother had on the subject is correct.
When she was in Bath, in the 1970's she had a buttered Bath bun at the Royal Pump Room. She said they were very much like what we call English Muffins here in the US. Now Mr Thomas, inventor of America's "English Muffins", came originally came from Bath, about 1880 (or earlier?).
Can anyone tell me if this is true? I've been told by some people that a buttered bath is not at all like an American English muffin. I've never had a buttered Bath, so I don't have a clue. Thanks.
BTW, I totally loved the American version of The 39 Steps.

 

[H.Johnson]

It's a Bath Bun, a rich 18th Century confectionary invented by the ingenious Dr. Oliver, who also concocted the Bath Oliver biscuit. Both may still be enjoyed (to chamber music) in the Pumphouse. Very civilised.

The other confection given to the world is, of course, the Sally Lunn, which is earlier in derivation (late 17th Century) and rather plainer (and never to be confused with the above).

It has occurred to my ageing memory that the refreshment room scenes in the original film were partly filmed in the studio as the station couldn't do without the real one!

A remake of BE was made in the early 1970s with Richard Burton and Sophia Loren. It's awful (in my opinion) and a let down to Miss Loren. Celia Johnson was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the original. The actress in the stage production (coming to the USA in Autumn) works hard (IMO) but er...she isn't Miss Johnson.

I am perhaps a little more suited to theatre criticism than I thought, as the Guardian generally agrees with me:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/feb/18/theatre1