Free stuff to do in London this weekend!
Friday: This blog is becoming increasingly biased toward stuff that’s near my house… and continuing that trend, here’s an event on Commercial Road. Let’s all celebrate five years of piracy and mayhem at the RampART. There’s bands, DJs and other excitement, and it’s free entry.
Saturday: More Shakespeare! God I’m predictable. The Pantaloons are performing Romeo and Juliet at The Scoop, the open-air amphitheatre on the Southbank (by City Hall, not far from The Globe in fact). It’s on at 2pm and 6pm on Saturday and Sunday, and it will be lovely because the weather’s going to be gorgeous.
Sunday: The weather’s going to be gorgeous again, so why not go for a Sunday Stroll with the charming people behind the London Friday Night Skate. It is in fact rollerskating, not strolling, if you’re unfamiliar with it. Meet at 2pm in the south east corner of Hyde Park.
Have fun!
Peer Gynt at the Barbican
May 26, 2009, 8:52 pm
Filed under:
Theatre 
It’s normally best to post reviews of a play BEFORE it’s finished it’s run, but I’m breaking with tradition. Or, in fact, inkeeping with my own tradition of posting reviews to my blog far too late.
I saw Peer Gynt at the Barbican as part of A Night Less Ordinary, an Arts Council funded project that provides free theatre tickets to people under 26. So it couldn’t really fail to be worth the ticket price.
But I can’t quite agree with the girl next to me who stood up at the end of the performance and announced, ‘THAT was the BEST thing I have EVER SEEN’, which is almost always going to be hyperbole and so I don’t think really even counts as having an opinion on a piece of theatre.
Overall, I thought it was inventively and cleverly staged, using bold sweeps of fantasy and unreality to skim over the most awkward parts of the play, always circling just beyond lucidity. It was over the top, with a tendency to take things too far, but then so’s Peer.
There were bits of it that I found mesmerising, particularly the performance of Keith Fleming as young Peer. I’m not sure if this is a compliment, but his performance as a delusional, self-destricutive alcoholic was so vivid that I could swear that at times I could smell his sour breath. However, I felt that Peer’s sheer insistance on fantasy should have a sort of charm, which is what continually attracts his mother and Solveig, and I didn’t feel that from Fleming.
The performance was characterised by it’s energy; it’s an explosion of a play and I hate to say it but I felt it could use just a bit of reigning in. But it was great for the price and for pure spectacle it’s definitely worth seeing. If you have a choice between getting free tickets for this or seeing the new Terminator film for £10 a pop, there’s a lot more going for this.
Here’s a list of places you can still see it:
Dundee Rep
His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen
Eden Court, Inverness
Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
Theatre Royal, Glasgow
Just a few ideas for the weekend…
No money? No plans? No problem!
Here’s what’s on this weekend that will cost you absolutely nothing.*
Saturday:
Record Store Day: If, like me, you were crazy enough to miss Marianne Faithfull’s one-off performance at Rough Trade, never fear! Today is Record Store Day, and to celebrate, you can see a whole bunch of bands for free. It’s also going on at a load of other record stores in other places. What? I’m not doing all the work for you!
Loose Cannons’ Social Club: It’s at The Social, near Oxford Circus, and it’s just one of the best free night’s that’s on anywhere in London. Or possibly, the world, I wouldn’t know.
Sunday:
Shakespeare’s Birthday: What? I’m into Shakespeare! Seriously, the fun, free activities going on at the Globe include a “world-record sonnet attempt”. Do you want to miss that?
Rock n Roll Jumble Sale: If Shakespeare’s not yo’ thang, maybe you’re more into rock and roll and… jumble sales. It’s fun! And it’s at 21 Phoenix Road, near Euston.
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: No, not the musical, that’s bloody expensive. BUT- a free screening of the classic film, plus free popcorn. Head on down to The Castle in Camberwell.
* Umm… until you add in the cost of drinks, records, jumble and the like. Sorry.
