Finished watching theatre performances "London Tide" and "Prima Facie" using my National Theatre at Home subscription.
The former was a valiant attempt to adapt Charles Dickens's "Our Mutual Friend" into under three hours, but for me it was unsuccessful, stripping out too much of the plot, characters and themes, and changing the ending a lot. Some of the performances were excellent, especially Bella Maclean as Bella Wilfer, Tom Mothersdale as John Rokesmith, and a quite superb young Ellie-May Sheridan as Jenny Wren. But the songs by PJ Harvey and Ben Power were an overlong distraction, generally terribly dirge like, and I'd happily have done without them.
Prime Facie sees an ambitious defence lawyer finds herself on the other side of the court, as a rape victim. It's a one woman play, with Jodie Comer playing the lawyer, and also retelling and acting out the other characters. It is an utterly devastating performance, which is horrific to watch, and I marvel that she managed to play this night after night, without even a full interval in the middle. Unsurprisingly Jodie Comer won both the Olivier and Tony awards for best actress in this role. A quite astonishing 100 minutes of acting.
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