No Frying Tonight

Phew! We came close a couple of times but, luckily, we escaped being fried by the lighteningbolts that can fly from the Galactic Emperor's fingertips when he's in one of his moods. Know what I mean?

I made the mistake of watching 'Star Wars' episodes 1-3 on Easter Sunday, watching the mere senator becoming president and taking over as the evil emperor. And, of course, he's played by Ian McDiarmid who was also playing the title role in this evening's entertainment, 'John Gabriel Borkman' at the Donmar Warehouse.

I was told 'JGB' was good, that I'd enjoy it, that the evil emperor was in it along with Penelope Wilton and I thought, 'oh, that sounds ok...'. What I didn't quite realise was that this was by Ibsen. I must've been told but it didn't quite go in, if you know what I mean. Now, I like a good song'n'dance routine with a bit of stand-up but you tend not to get many of them in Ibsen.

The first act was all that I feared, doom, gloom, despondency, despair, claustrophic niggling by sisters who loved the same man and same son ... not a barrel of laughs. But it was nice seeing the snow fall through the set windows (remembering the rain on Mary Tudor I can only conclude that the Donmar likes 'weather'). And I waited for the wolf to appear (the play's motif).

The second act introduced Ian as JGB and he injected a nice note of cynicism, humour, self-centredness and downright arrogance. A pleasure to watch his character unfold. And watching Penelope and Ian work off eachother was excellent, especially when she shouted at him a mere couple of yards in front of me (the Donmar is compact) and I thought, 'that's a good shout, that is!'.

I won't go any further since there's bound to be a far more objectively critical review appearing in a blog near you soon. Suffice to say, I enjoyed it, it wasn't at all what I expected, the acting kept me enthralled most of the time but I didn't have an emotional attachment to it. A good night out! The only downside was that the actors didn't leave footprints in the snow when the snowy white carpet was unrolled - us snow people notice things like that.