About that Gone With The Wind…
London Critics Love It (To Be Over?)
It is inevitable that there would be the temptation to pun a-plenty over the new Gone With The Wind;everyone knows the story, sceptics have doubted its stage-ability, and some critics love to be clever and pounce when the chance is there. So, amid the slew of negative reviews about the London production there must be a silver lining? Tomorrow is another day for this production? Who knows? The story is iconic, and perhaps a total re-working is not unwarranted. Some critics found some things positive…most others did not. Samples and links below:
“Trevor Nunn’s production achieves the kind of paradox normally only found in the baffling field of quantum mechanics. It feels interminable, but moment by moment it also seems ridiculously rushed, so that incidents that really make a mark in the film go for almost nothing on stage…”- Charles Spencer, The Telegraph
“Frankly, my dears, I did give a damn but not as big a damn as I had hoped. To put it another way: fiddlededee to some but not all the things that are occurring in a piece I wasn’t always sure should exist. ” Benedict Nightengale, The Times
“Trevor Nunn’s Achilles heel is always the length of the heel in question. Having adapted the book he has left it in loquacious long-windedness. He unsuccessfully reprises the style of his Royal Shakespeare Company Nicholas Nickleby, making the actors serve as redundant narrators.” Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard
“Three-time Tony-winning director Trevor Nunn has delivered a long-winded show with rushed scenes, dull music and lyrics so banal that Rhett Butler is unlikely to be the only one who doesn’t give a damn.” Ray Bennett, Reuters
Tags: Gone With The Wind, London, Reviews
