NT LIVE: The Fifth Step at Olympic Studios

While a play staring Martin Freeman and Jack Lowden was tempting it was not tempting enough to get me to pay west end prices so I skipped the run at Soho Place but it was tempting enough when it transferred to screen under the NT Live umbrella.

I chose my usual cinema, Olympic Studios in Barnes, where central seat F6 cost a modest £18.5.

The timing worked well with a matinee performance at Bush Theatre I was able to stroll down slowly to Barnes pausing for coffee and cake along the way before arriving at Olympic in time for an unhurried soup and a beer,

By chance, both plays were about therapy sessions though this one was framed around alcoholism and the AA 12 Step Programme where Step 5 is "Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.".

For me, The Fifth Step failed almost immediate in comparison to the earlier After Sunday as these sessions seemed contrived and unnatural. I also found it hard to care for either character.

Jack Lowden initially played the alcoholic going through the programme with a lot of nervous energy but as he went through the multiple sessions he gained composure and almost became his Slow Horses character.Martin Freeman play the session leader as a man who was never in control of the process with lots of hesitations and mumblings. It was almost as if he had not learned the part fully. 

The staging tried to stir some life into the production with some light effects and rearranging the chairs(!) between scenes but these were more of a distraction than an enhancement.

The Fifth Step was a disappointment with only Jack Lowden's acting in the early stages leaving a good memory.

NT Live: Prima Facie at Olympic Cinema

Like many people I was tempted when I saw that Jodie Comer would be appearing on stage but the pricing quickly put me off.  This happens quite a lot and I though no more of it until it was broadcast in cinemas as part of National Theatre Live where paying £20 was a much more attractive prospect, as was a comfortable and wide seat in Olympic Cinema Barnes.

My almost non-existant research told me that Jodie Cromer was staring in the play but I had missed that she was the only actor in it. I had also avoided any clues as to the story.

Jodie Cromer plays a young rising barrister who understand well how to get witnesses to say what she wants them to say to get the outcome she wants. She narrates her story directly to us and while there is quite a bit of movement and a few props there is little need for either other than to lift it from a story to a play.

All is going well in her life until she is raped which gives her the role of victim in a judicial system she knew so well. The play makes the good point that victims have a hard time in rapes cases as there are usually no witnesses and the victim's sex life can be used to suggest that the incident was consensual. A good point but one which I think is well understood and it did not need a play to make it.

To make that point, and to contrast her role as barrister then victim, this case went to court but, as is also well known, the vast majority of cases do not and there was not enough evidence in this case to justify a court hearing.

With the story compromised, the play relied on the performance of Jodie Comer and while this was good it was severely constrained by the narrative style which took a lot of the emotion and drama out of the story.

I though that Prima Facie was good but not great and I was glad that I had not paid West End prices to see it.

Good at Curzon Richmond

I have been lucky enough to see David Tennant on stage a few times so when he returned to do Good with much publicity I was happy to avoid the west end prices and give it a miss. When it came out on NT Live a few months later that was a very different matter and it went from missable to mandatory.

The NT Live website was not as helpful as it could be in showing me possible dates for local cinemas as it was missing the dates for Curzon Richmond that were on their site. To be sure it was on I took the unusual step of booking in person. The confusion helped me because while other cinemas I had checked had all but sold out this one had sold very few seats and I was able to go for on in the primary position, F11 for £19.5.

I have mixed feelings about seeing films of staged plays as the two media are significantly different but in this case I was glad I had gone for the screen rather than the stage as the play was mostly three talking heads and so the ability to zoom in on the speakers was very useful.

Those three heads were David Tennant as John Halder, a German professor, Elliot Levey as his Jewish friend and Sharon Small as several women in his life including his senile mother.

The story, a fairly simple one, showed how John Halder, a good man, gradually got dragged into Naziism and how he rationalised his decisions along the way, including the abandonment of his friend.

Of course there was a lot more to it than that and the story two engrossing hours to tell.

Obviously the key message was to show how easy it was for a good man to become engulfed in evil but the darker message was to compare the first steps with what is happening in Britain today. When Gary Linekar, and many other, point out the similarity between us and 1930's Germany they are exactly right. 

All three actors were very good and Sharon Small impressed most because of the different rolls she played.

I am still not convinced on films of staged plays but I will keep giving them ago when it lets me see shows like this at a reasonable price.

Young Marx at Michael Frayn Theatre was a successful experiment

Young Marx was something of an experiment for me as it was my first time at an NT Live broadcast. For some reason I had never been tempted to go to the local cinema to see shows but going to Michael Frayn Theatre, part of Kingston Grammar School's relatively new Queen Elizabeth II Performing Arts Centre, seemed more appropriate.

£10 was a modest price to pay for the experiment and that got me seat G3 which was more or less in the middle vertically and at the edge of the screen (not beyond it) horizontally. It was a perfectly good seat and the decent raking meant that the people in front of me were well clear of my sight line. In that respect the experiment was a complete success even before the show started.

Young Marx was broadcast live from the new Bridge Theatre. I had already booked to see a couple of shows there but Young Marx had not quite appealed enough for me to fork out theatre prices to see it in Central London. That was despite it coming from the team behind One Man, Two Guvnors and it starring Rory Kinnear. That combination was more than enough for me to pay cinema prices to see it locally.

Michael Frayn Theatre also had the advantage of being within walking distance though the early, 7pm, start time meant leaving the house around 6:25pm and walking briskly. That early start was to allow time for an interview with the director, Nicholas Hytner, to be broadcast before the show started. That was an interesting feature and it was also good to see a little of Bridge Theatre before my first visit there.

Young Marx was set in 1850 when a penniless Karl Marx and his family and maid were living in Soho. He was supported financially by Friedrich Engels but still hid from his many creditors, usually in a cupboard. Each welcome visitor to their small lodgings had their own distinctive knock that gave them access. These many visitors included their son's doctor and a syncopathic follower. Engles was keen for Marx to write but Marx was more interested in a visiting the eighteen pubs on Tottenham Court Road.

The story continued with lots of humorous dialogue and a fair smattering of slapstick. It was consistently funny if not outrageously so being constrained by historical facts from taking too fanciful liberties with the situation. The politics at times was used as a source of humour, such as in the opening scene where Marx questions the meaning of the word "value" with a pawnbroker, and at other times it was used to give us serious insights into Marxist philosophy, e.g. a worker is paid 1s but creates 3s value giving the exploitative capitalist 2s (he is right, of course). The accurate historical and political context gave the play an intellectual backbone that made it more satisfying than a simple comedy.

Young Marx was a lot of fun and and my experiment with NT Live was a great success. Future visits are being planned.