Blog: Mudlarks in Shepherds Bush

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On Saturday lunchtime I set off to an Actual Theatre to see an Actual Play for the first time in YEARS - I've seen bucketloads of plays in various Edinburgh pubs, and gone to a few West End Shows, but (apart from a visit to see Woody From Cheers in a [not very good version of a] Tennessee Williams play when my American Cousin came to visit) I've not been to THEATRE to see a play on purpose since the early 1990s.

Last week our course leader had told everyone on my MA course to go and see "Mudlarks" by Vickie Donoghue at The Bush Theatre, so we could talk about it in class this week. I dutifully got booked up for the MATINEE, and so TREKKED across town to Shepherds Bush for 2.30pm. Inside the theatre it was like a proper old fashioned STUDIO theatre, just as I remember at the old Leicester Haymarket, with even the SAME lightly padded BENCHES rather than seats.

The play was AMAAAZING - it blew my tiny mind, in fact! I've come to this course with SEVERAL TONNES of Mental Baggage, and so was expecting the play to be BORING, STAGEY, and Just Worthy. I'd got it into my head that there's no point at ALL in doing Naturalistic Theatre, as you can get that on telly... but this was fantastic! It was EXCITING, also TENSE and MOVING and FUNNY and dead dead good. It's all about three Essex teenagers who've Done Something and come to hide out on a mud beach where, as you'd hope, All Manner Of Issues Are Raised.

It was fantastic - I couldn't believe quite HOW much I enjoyed the whole experience, having been DREADING this part of the course for ages. Maybe... maybe now that I'm TWICE as old as I was when I last went to the theatre regularly, maybe that means I have more patience to sit and pay attention? Also: more life experience and sympathy for more characters on stage? In a funny kind of way it was like going to The Football - when I was younger it felt like FOREVER, now 90 minutes just flies by!

I got a copy of the TEXT (apparently you can USUALLY get a copy of the full script of a play when you go to see it - i never knew that!) and started reading it immediately on the way home. The most exciting thing of ALL, though, is that Vickie Donoghue is a graduate of MY COURSE, and my BRANE started to think "Hey! Maybe this is a VIABLE course of action after all! Maybe this really COULD lead to something!"

Who knows? Whatever happens it was an ACE afternoon out - i would HIGHLY recommend!

posted 1/10/2012 by MJ Hibbett

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