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Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

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The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...
Theatre: Alas thou has misconstrued everything... Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar last night at the Barbican was a marathon effort. First half ran for two hours, then half an hour intermission, followed by another hour. F thought there were a few places they could have cut, but with things falling onto stage, loud explosions, huge crowd scenes, and an updating of the production to a Bush-like era, there was plenty to take in.

Sitting in second row, Ralph Feinnes as Marc Antony was particularly engaging. Of course he could read the back of a cereal packet and have had the audience hanging on to every word. But the rest of the cast was just as good.

Being a preview there were a few little odd bits, such as a very bright torch falling on stage and pointing out to the audience. The effect was that half the audience in the stalls had to squint for five minutes until an actor picked it up.

Given the star power of the cast, it seems like it will be a popular blockbuster production. Whether everyone will buy the updating to the Bush era - complete with battles fought wearing desert fatigues - may be another matter.

It all happens during interval:

A woman brushes by Paul.

Paul (to F): Did you see that woman rub her breasts up against me?
F: Yes... Complete waste of time for her wasn't it...

Actually, the audience was much better looking at the LSO concerts... But anyway...

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