Sunday 7 May 2017

Theatre: Northanger Abbey.........



A Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Production, on tour.
A delightful stage version of Jane Austen’s earliest novel

Catherine Morland loves a good novel and the more ‘horrid’ it is the better.
At 17, she is taken by her aunt to Bath where she encounters the social whirl denied her at home. When Catherine accepts an invitation to the Tilney’s country seat at Northanger Abbey, lurid images from her favourite gothic novel Mysteries of Udolpho threaten to overwhelm her. However, all misunderstandings are eventually resolved and, as in all the best Jane Austen novels, the young heroine finally gets her man…


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A brilliant performance we thoroughly enjoyed, my friend applauded standing!
The leads were amazing, especial Eva Feiler who gave us the wonderful Catherine, funny, naive, fanciful, polite, caring and a little forthright all in one. And she was very ably supported by the other seven actors who had to swap around to cover many more characters.

My only criticism is of the use of dry smoke (or whatever it's called) which I absolutely hate. Unless there is need to walk through thick fog hiding Jack the Ripper, or misty graveyard to be confronted by zombies, which this play didn't, then I don't think it adds to the atmosphere and for us in the very front row it rolls off the stage at face level!
But of course that is a totally personal thing which I'm sure didn't spoil this for anybody else, they probably didn't even notice it.
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2 comments:

Michelle said...

I don't like the use of dry ice either. Makes me cough. Then I worry I'm disturbing actors or audience so try to suppress which never works and I end up having a hacking fit which can be really embarrassing :-(.

MumB / @mumbosh said...

Spent most of the time with my hand over my face so thankfully didn't cough. Was worried though that the chap sitting next to me may have thought he had he had a body odour problem.