UK Theatre Network

7 Comments

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  by ALAN SHARE 1 year ago

  Oliver Valentine sees fit to criticise Tom Scott's direction of my play Death of a Nightingale, describing his production as "pedestrian" and finding fault with his scene changes. He clearly did not appreciate that Tom had just over four weeks to show me how to cut the play by a third in length making it a much better play, finding a brilliant cast including pupils from Oak Lodge Special School and rehearsing them - not easy, and bringing the whole to the New End Theatre. A miracle man. And so far 14 scene changes on a small stage without a curtain, did he really want the whole action to take place on Japanese Tatami mats? Alan Share
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  by ALAN SHARE 1 year ago

  I am uncharitable. Oliver Valentine at least turned up, and said a good word or two for the play and its actors. Despite the topicality of the of the play in the context of the Government's Green Paper and the involvement of pupils with special needs alongside professional actors The Times, Times Educational Supplement, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, the Express, the Evening Standard and Ham & Hi were all absent from Press Night. Sarah Ebner of Times-on-line, who I met on Twitter, did come to prove there actually was a Press Night. Alan Share
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  by ALAN SHARE 1 year ago

  Oh, I almost forgot. A Guardian reporter left at the interval, but Death of a Nightingale scheduled to start at 7.30pm could not start before 7.45pm because the New End Theatre scheduled 74 Georgia Avenue to start at 6.45pm and this did not end until 7.25pm. Of course this may have influenced Tom's scene setting and choice of props. Oliver Valentine might not have realised that either. Alan Share
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  by ALAN SHARE 1 year ago

  PS Kerra Maddern gave a full page to the Rehearsed Reading of Death of a Nightingale at the New End Theatre in November 2009.
  Two full boxes of undelivered flyers under the stairs the New End Theatre and none where you would expect them, and an incompetent telephone booking system.
  Is there something here I do not understand? Maybe the world has just gone bonkers.Alan Share
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  by ALAN SHARE 1 year ago

  While I am writing here I should give you my response to this: "The music scenes are far too repetitive, and the main one involving every religion seems to go on forever." The music lesson looks at faith through prism of music and at two issues: Terry v Emma - Is there a God and,if so, why didn't God stop the killing in the Holocaust? and Paul Robeson at Peekskill - Must God be a tribal God in a Global Age? The issues will go on for ever. Maybe Oliver Valentine didn't quite get this. Alan Share
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  by OLIVER VALENTINE 1 year ago

  Hi Alan,
  
  I felt your unwarranted comments needed answering.
  Firstly I write my objective professional opinion. It is not a personal attack, and not
  meant to be agreed with by everyone. Indeed I would be disturbed if
  this was the case.
  Despite your condescending comment, I perfectly 'got' the music scenes. I crit the repetition because they added little to the progress of the drama. From the first scene the teacher's message was clear, and lost it's power and impact by
  repetition. Less is more - if u really want to get a message across
  dramatically.
  Secondly 4 weeks is more than enough time for an
  experienced dir like to Mr. Scott to get a play together. Professional
  (and unpaid fringe), companies do it all the time.
  As I said in the review, the pupils from Oak Lodge Special School were brilliant.
  Quite frankly I found your response astounding. It was quite personalised and
  a little childish. It is interesting that u focused on the crits rather
  than all the positive comments I made, which made up the majority of
  the writing.
  The Guardian reviewer was not the only one to fail to
  write a crit. My companion that night was also a reviewer, and decided that
  as he would find it hard to write anything terribly constructive about
  the play he would write nothing.
  He felt that despite a lovely performance by the main young actress, that u had made her character too self-pitying and 'Disneyfied,' to be real. He also understood that while your play might be didactic it was also occasionally patronising
  with the subject matter, and also to the audience.
  I know that was not your intention.
  U r in the professional world of theatre now and it is
  not easy. As they say in showbiz 'everyone's a critic.'
  
  All THE BEST
  
  OLIVER VALENTINE.
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  by Carolin Kopplin 1 year ago

  A dramatist needs to get used to the idea that his or her work might be criticized once put on stage. Nobody in the (paying) audience cares whether there were problems editing the play or a lack of rehearsal time. The end product counts. I thought Oliver Valentine's review was very fair. He tried to emphasize the good points.
  
  Carolin Kopplin