The Shrine & Bed Among the Lentils review – silent screams from Monica Dolan and Lesley Manville
almost 5 years in The guardian
Bridge theatre, LondonThe wide-open space of the Bridge is commanded with riveting intimacy in one of four Talking Heads double bills
The sheer success of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads makes them easy to underestimate. The monologues were praised when first televised 32 years ago, and again when broadcast, recast, in June. They are studied in schools. They seem to be institutionalised. But they have always been rebels.
The title is a rebuke to the entrenched assumption that audiences want to goggle, not to listen. The idea that a not-young woman in a not-fashionable frock might deliver an intricate chronicle is still rare. Nicholas Hytner, one of several directors in this season of four double bills starring the new television casts, defies another rule: proving that intimate pieces can, without gee-ing up the theatricality, be absorbing in a large space. Continue reading...
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