Family Night at NT Live

I don’t know where the night went weird. Maybe at the beginning when the family stopped at the 7-11 to get their treats for the movie. Alex bought 4 cans of Rock Star Monster Drink and was happy to have so much liquid cheaper than he can buy it at the concession. Steve and I stayed in the car and shook our heads as the candy lovers gave themselves 3 minutes to get in and out of the store, and that included going through the till.  I told Steve I had stopped in there earlier to find something to keep me awake in case the show got too long.  But I went up and down the candy isles and couldn't find a thing I wanted.  Steve doesn't have a sweet tooth so he doesn't understand what happens to the rest of us when we need sugar.

Steve and I went into theatre 8.

Rebecca, Alex, Duncan and Ben went to theatre 10. They were making a good guess but not looking at their ticket stubs. The NT Live show is always there in theatre 10. Steve and I looked at the marque and staked out good seats in the correct theatre. I began to wonder if I was wrong but Steve mentioned, “No, the table with the handout was outside our theatre as well as a table cloth and a bouquet of flowers.  They always set it up that way.”

 He was right, for the last time I was there, I even checked out the flowers to see if they were real or silk. When that group finally made the connection that they were in the wrong theatre, and consequently joined us, that is when I could see our group breaking up into different groups – Steve going to a place where he could stretch out his legs, Rebecca and the boys taking the back seats high up in the IMAX, and I staked out a position four fifths of the way up.

Donmar Warehouse production of
Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Les Liaisons Dangereuses – a wonderful film but we hadn’t told anyone much about the story line. In fact, sometimes it is a sheer act of will to get everyone into the car. I watched as the men walked along: Steve now shorter than all three of the boys. At the end of the night, when we had come home, critiquing film on the ride back, I thanked Rebecca for a lovely evening.  A little weird for it took us some time to just get to the same theatre, and then we parted company and all sat in different places.

“I don’t know how lovely it was. Hey kids, lets go see a film about sexual impropriety. Don’t think I can call that one Family Home Evening” she said, shaking her head.

In an interval interlude, Christopher Hampton, the playwright, mentioned that the original book was originally written in an epistolary novel. I can remember reading Pamela and Clarissa, both of which are written in that form, as well as Dracula and The Color Purple. But I haven’t read this book.

One of the joys of this performance is that there is a free audiobook of extracts from the original novel by Choderios de Lacios. Produced by Audible the recording features members of the cast of the Dnmar Warehouse production. Download the free audiobook by visiting audible.co.uk/donmar.

Coming next is As you Like It on Feb 25 and then Hangmenby Martin McDonagh on March 3.

Do you know what is curious to me? Again the theatre was not even one-fifth full. Strange how the opera packs the theatre full but there isn’t a taste for theatre here.

Arta