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Theatre listings > Look Back in Anger. - Tour. This play was first performed on 8 May 1956 at The Royal Court Theatre, London. Playwright - John Osborne. Director - Richard Baron. Designer - Trevor Coe. Costume Designer - Monika Nisbet. Lighting Designer - Jeanine Davies. Company - Royal Lyceum Theatre Company in assoc with Theatre Royal Bath. Cast - here . Scottish Venue - Royal Lyceum Theatre www.lyceum.org.uk Grindlay St Edinburgh 0131 248 4848. Dates and times in Edinburgh and Bath - Here. Run Time - 2 hours 40 mins with an interval. Reviewer - Thelma Good. Intriguing and powerful.
A recent "new university" graduate Porter is angry at a world he sees as lacking in strong causes and the changes it needs. David Tennant, in a most welcome return to the Scottish stage, imparts a fierce, febrile energy to Porter as he berates the awfulness of a British Sunday prior to colour supplements, 24/7 opening and our present day highly mobile world. He's a young, bitter cynic about the world retreated to his small universe - wife, job running a sweetie stall and his life in a one-bedroom attic flat. He rages at those around him but does nothing to make things change. Not quite as fragile as her upper middle class background would suggest, his wife Alison in Kerry Reilly's heart aching portrayal is a young woman teetering on the edge of anguished tears. Arriving in the second act is Alison's seemingly tougher friend Helena, who Jimmy refers to as his enemy, played by Alexandra Moen with a steel so we particularly relished her exchanges in the first half with Tennant's Porter. Almost sharing Jimmy's life if not his jaundiced view of the world is Welshman Cliff, part buffer between Jimmy and those he attacks and punchbag when he needs a bit of male rough and tumble, Cliff's different more stolid and wry comic attitude are well attuned in Steven McNicoll's performance. In a single scene, Gareth Thomas as Alison's father Colonel Redfern is both tender and wise. At all times the interactions between each of the characters are finely and effectively detailed in this production, and the human theme of love makes us ache for them all. Well worth recommending, what makes the play particularly rewarding to see, 49 years after it first came to life, is its resonances today. Jimmy Porter's angst echoes uncomfortably in our modern souls. For today our new elite increasingly behaves like the old order we thought we had banished, new graduates find themselves unable or unwilling to take the jobs they're notionally qualified for, and those who thought they might bring a new world order face their sixties knowing they failed to design new horizons. The cruel irony of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger is that, nearly 50 years on, many of us are just starting to face that there are good reasons to look now and be angry but will we do any more than that? Or at best, are we railers against the way things are like Porter? Hoping that in our agony someone will give us occassional magical escape from the inescapable mire. © Thelma Good 15 January 2005. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com Cast - Jimmy Porter - David Tennant, Cliff Lewis - Steven McNicoll, Alison Porter - Kelly Reilly, Helena Charles - Alexandra Moen and Colonel Redfern - Gareth Thomas. Trumpet - Colin Steele. Tour Dates - 15 Jan - 12 Feb at Edinburgh Royal Lyceum 0131 248 4848. Times and Performance Days Tuesdays - Saturdays at 7.45pm. Matinees: Wednesdays 19 & 26 January and 2 February; Saturdays 22 & 29 January and 5 February at 2.30pm. No Perfomances Sun or Mon. 14 - 19 Feb at Bath Theatre Royal 01225 448844. Times and Performance Days Mon-Weds at 7.30pm, Thurs-Sat at 8pm & Mats Weds & Sat at 2.30pm. Theatre Editor, Thelma Good's e-mail is thelma@edinburghguide.com Although every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information presented in these pages, no responsibility can be accepted for any errors or omissions. Theatre listings >
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