Ah - it seems we just fucked the internet

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews...

The Picture Of Dorian Gray : Theatre Royal Haymarket

I quite like a one person play if they're well done and I think Sarah Snook is one of the best things about Succession, so I booked to see this a looong time ago - she plays 26 different character, so I was very interested to see how that happened!  And it was a new theatre for me as well - and very swanky it is too!

Upon entering, the stage doesn't give you too many clues as to what's going to happen but the view was good from my comfy seat at the back of the upper circle, which was a relatively pricey (for me) £50 but the cheaper seats in the gallery are bench seating and I really don't get along with that at my advanced age.  Having said they were pricey seats, the few that are left in the gallery are now £60, where I was are now £75 and the top whack tickets are £289 - in my day that was a lot of money!  So - is it worth it?!?

When the lights go down, Sarah is on stage, but stood behind the video screen with several people videoing her with the feeds being transmitted to the big screen (and it is BIG!).  So the first way that multiple characters are portrayed involves her looking into a different camera to give us a different perspective on the big screen (whilst different accents are also used) - this often happens when the characters involved are having a conversation, so involves very precise timing.

As the play progresses, I'm pleased to say that she does emerge from behind the screen to indulge in some "proper" acting and here were see another method of giving us multiple characters where she has to interact with recorded footage of herself - once again very precise timing is required.  It also gives you an idea of exactly how big the video screen is because at one point she is sat at the end of a very long table having a meal with five other characters all of whom are displayed on the screen (which has been rotated through 90 degrees from the picture above).

As the play progresses, you also learn there are multiple screens up there (four or five - I can't remember which) and they whizz around all over the place and take multiple live and recorded feeds.  I really can't overstate the technical wizardry that's involved here - it's dazzling, but it heightens the performance rather than distracting from it.

And it really is a very fine performance (or performances!) indeed both for the proper acting that's on display and the technical craft involved in making the whole thing possible - she got a very lengthy standing ovation at the end (the play is two hours without an interval) and, for once, everyone joined in and I actually thought it was deserved (all performances involve someone standing up at the end these days and I often just roll my eyes at them).  She was also joined on stage at the end by the camera operators and dressers - there were eleven of them to just the one of her!

I knew the general outline of the play but didn't really know any details - thankfully I enjoyed it and I was impressed at the way it all wrapped up nicely at the end, although I was surprised to learn the timeline only covers twenty years (I think I'd assumed it would be about a hundred years or something).  If I had one quibble about the whole thing, I'd say that things did all get a bit overly melodramatic for my tastes in the last fifteen minutes or so but I do accept the source material is a Victorian Gothic novel and if that's not allowed to be overly melodramatic then I'm not sure what is.

I like to use quotes from the source material as my blog post titles, so you might be wondering how "it seems we just fucked the internet" fits in to the overall Victorian Gothic style - spoiler alert, it doesn't!  About halfway through the play one of the screens or the feeds just decided to reboot which must have resulted in a massive technical panic behind the scenes, but Sarah just acknowledged it out of character, waited for it to come back and then slipped effortlessly back into the play - she couldn't have handled it better.

The theatre is lovely - it's beautifully ornate both inside and out and my seat was indeed very comfortable (and surprisingly adequately sized for an old theatre).  I would say that the bar is impressively expensive though because it was £5.50 for a 330ml can of Estrella (it's £8.50 for six from Sainsburys!) and that was the only option available (I also fancied a packet of crisps but they only had Pringles - and who likes them these days?!?).  I appreciate that they have to make their money where they can but there are plenty better theatre bars out there - I'm pretty certain a pint at the Gillian Lynne theatre was about £7.50 and they offered some variety as well.

All in all though, it was a great evening with the acting and technology combined superbly - I'm very happy I got my £50 worth and I would certainly recommend you going along if you get the chance (a surprisingly number of tickets are still available).  Whether it's worth you spending £289 on a top price ticket is more questionable, but I'm certain there are plenty of worse shows which will allow you to spend that and more - this is the best thing I've seen so far this year.

An Enemy Of The People - Slightly disappointing
A Mirror - Enjoyable, but no more than that