#peter forbes

[actofgrace]

National Theatre Live: Follies (2017) - Waiting for the Girls Upstairs

[too-antigonish]

Churchill in Moscow: A Very Belated Review...

I had a thoroughly enjoyable time watching Churchill in Moscow. I heartily second what @phoenixflames12 said in her review and @jessieren said in hers about the excellence of the cast and the production itself. I especially enjoyed the rapport between Roger Allam and Peter Forbes.

I saw the production streamed and not live. As with Here In America, the filming was very well done—something that is not always easy with theater in the round, even more so in a space as small as the Orange Tree. 

It's all spoilers below...

The play itself had interesting things to say about the nature of power and extremely powerful men and did so with a surprising amount of humor. Even more so, it deftly explored the nature of communication across cultural divides when the stakes are very high—when the fate of the world is literally hanging in the balance.

The play gives a set-up of three pairs: the two men in power (Churchill and Stalin), their two advisors (Ambassador Archibald Clark Kerr and Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov), and their two translators (Sally Powell and Olga Dovzhenko).  Churchill and Stalin are the focus with the other two pairs serving to add a running commentary to the main action.

The setting is Churchill's August 1942 trip to Moscow. He made the journey to personally break the news to Stalin that Britain would not be opening a second front in Europe and that they would instead be starting against the Axis with Operation Torch in Africa with the goal of then eventually moving up through Italy.

The two great leaders are initially set up as opposites in every way. You have Churchill the intellectual capitalist aristocrat and Stalin the "simple" uneducated communist peasant. Each despises everything the other stands for and their only common ground  is their mutual hatred of Hitler and desire to defeat him at almost any cost.

It doesn't take long, however, for the similarities to surface. Both men are larger than life with egos the size of continents. They are both passionately patriotic and ridiculously sentimental at times. They are men of huge appetites and crude senses of humor. Both are extremely vain and entitled. Both live in constant fear of potential betrayal. Most of all, both men wield power over life and death with a terrifyingly casual ease.

We know from the outset that both sides share the same fear—that the other will make a deal with Hitler—and is there for the same goal—to ensure that doesn't happen. The problem is one of trust. Both sides have numerous reasons to suspect the other of being less than honest—to in fact know that they have been less than honest on many occasions. How then, do you convince each other that in this particular instance you are being genuine?

It all becomes a matter of communication, of each man saying, "This is what I truly mean and this is why you should believe this time that I truly mean it." However, neither speaks the other's language and neither knows the other's culture. The rest of the play is then an exploration of how they come to an understanding nevertheless.

The translators, of course, serve a crucial role. We hear that their role is to serve as "windows"—clear windows, not coloring or changing what is said in any way as they interpret the other language. The political advisors are to serve a parallel role, translating and distilling the nature of the greater political environment for their bosses.

But of course it's not as simple as "just translating." Various attempts at communication are stymied  by misunderstandings both personal and cultural as well as by ego. Brenton shows the realities and difficulties of this by regularly changing the way speech is delivered and heard by the actors.  We also get a sense through Churchill and Stalin's direct commentary—each knowing the other cannot understand him when he speaks aloud—on what they are actually "hearing" at any given time. 

As the situation becomes more and more desperate, we see the translators dutifully stick to translating the exact words they hear up until a crucial point where the ambassadors convince the two women to make a leap. They then begin instead to give each leader the words they think Stalin and Churchill want and need to hear—the words that will get them to an accord. It would seem to be the advance that's needed, but ironically it's not. They still do not fundamentally trust one another.

What does the trick in the end is getting rid of all of the middlemen. In a round of late night debauchery involving copious amounts of alcohol and a suckling pig, the two finally communicate directly via sign language and what is basically an elaborate game of charades. And in what is perhaps the most absurd twist, it is bonding via their shared sense of crude humor that leads to the final breakthrough. You wouldn't subtitle this play "Saving the World Via the Universal Humor of Drunken Farting," but you could make a case for it.

There is a final epilogue given by the only character in the production I haven't yet mentioned, Stalin's daughter Svetlana. She briefly describes her life—one that was lived very much in the shadow of decisions made about the world by her father and Churchill.  There is a great deal of tragedy in her younger years but also, as she grows older, there is the chance to make choices might lead to a happier life. This, it is implied, is the legacy these men left—not a perfect world, but at least one in which there was still the opportunity for people to change and improve—to ultimately have their own shot at making things better.

[phoenixflames12]

So after a time of travelling- never travel to Richmond on a 6 Nations match day at Twickenham, I managed to see Churchill in Moscow at the Orange Tree. After coming home and collapsing on the beanbag that's serving in lieu of a sofa, I'm going to try and get my thoughts in order.

Allam's Churchill is WONDERFUL! Witty, dry, terrifying, desperate, a complete aristocrat who is utterly lost when Stalin's Georgian peasant roots come to the fore. What's absolutely hilarious is Peter Forbes really hams this up and plays Stalin with a West Country/Cornish accent- it's absolutely wonderful.

The hilarious moments of Alan Cox who plays Archie Clerk Kerr the Russian ambassador and Jo Herbert who plays Sally Powell, the translator from the RAF, trying to nanny him and Churchill going 'NO! I WANT A GRAMAPHONE THAT WORKS! I WANT TO DRINK VODKA AND TALK!' whilst Allam is all the time channelling the underlying authority and gravitas needed to play the great man. The Orange Tree is a tiny space, theatre-wise. Allam fills it so completely.

Another two moments I loved were Churchill signing Svetliana Stalin's copy of David Copperfield (her monologue at the end will break you, it broke me) and the friendship (comradship) between the two translators (Sally Powell and Olga Dovshenko- played by Elisabeth Snegir). They are just trying to do their jobs- trying to give all the information they can to these two great men, but all the time they're having to play by the goverment line and then at the end, they're thrown out. It's up to Allam and Forbes to try and figure out just how these two men from completely different worlds would communicate when the fates of their countries and the western world is hanging in the balance and the diplomats look on in despair.

Do go, if you can. Or buy a ticket to the livestream. God bless you Orange Tree for continuing to stream your shows and making them accessible for those who can't make it to London. God bless you.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Good Omens Audiobook - A Full Cast Production

The Good Omens Audiobook with Michael Sheen as Aziraphale and David Tennant as Crowley is now available in a lot of countries! :) It’s absolutely glorious! ❤

Cast:

Narrator: Rebecca Front

Aziraphale: Michael Sheen 😇

Crowley: David Tennant 😈

Anathema Device: Katherine Kingsley 

Newton Pulsifer: Arthur Darvill

Shadwell: Peter Forbes

Madame Tracy and Agnes Nutter: Gabrielle Glaister

Adam: Louis Davison

Pepper: Pixie Davies

Wensleydale: Chris Nelson

Brian: Ferdinand Frisby Williams

Ensemble:  Adjoa Andoh, Allan Corduner, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Josh Hopkins, Lorelei King, Matt Reeves and Lemn Sissay

Availability:

The audiobook has been available in the US and Canada since November 2021.

14.01.2022 it came out more worldwide. It can be bought through Google Play Books, or Amazon UK (or local Audibles if they have it - it seems that on some local Audibles it is and on some it’s not but then it’s on available through the UK link or Google Play) in these countries and hopefully more: UK, Australia, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Italy, The Czech Republic, Argentina, Chile, Germany, Spain, Brazil, New Zealand, Sweden, Japan, Poland, Peru

If you don’t see your country in the list, have a look at Google Play, local Audible, Amazon UK link or your local shop - and please let me know if available so I can add the country to the list :).

Unused Concept Sketches

The other concepts that could have been the cover art by Henry Sene Yee :) ❤.

Happy listening! :) ❤

[watchingroger]

I highly recommend watching Churchill in Moscow whilst it's available, which is only until the end of tomorrow (Friday 14th March). Hopefully there will be another opportunity to see it for those who can't get to it by then. It's £15, or you can pay more if you like.

It's very funny. The other characters do get involved, so it's not just about two old men getting drunk and arguing, although it is very much about that too. The translators are excellent. I liked that the ending focused on Svetlana.

I will say that for those of us who live in terraced houses or flats, I had to keep my fingers on the volume control. Very rousing and effective in the theatre no doubt, but possibly rather too effectively rousing for my poor neighbours.

[autumncottageattic]

Berkeley Square 1998, British dramatic television series

Part I

[subtilitas]

Peter Forbes - Family house, Great Cranberry Island ME 1987. Scans via, and ofhouses, photos (C) Tim Hursely.

[forevercaroline]

I’m back with a new chapter. This chapter has so much, you see the final pieces of Caroline’s emotional state sliver away and the breakdown that has been coming for some time, Everyone moves into the new mansion, and Katherine has a menage a trois while in Paris. Everyone goes to Paris fashion week, for the clothes but also Caroline has a model in the show. You finally get to meet uncle Sawyer.

Tagging: @iamcarito, @misssophiachase, @karinanic, @crazychicke, @dumb-bitchculture, @honestlydarkprincess, @delenastvd, @destellolunar

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12491246/25/Beautiful-dirty-rich