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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: History Boys. Pass it on...

Finally caught The History Boys at the National. It was closing night of its extended run and it was another astonishing piece of theatre. As theatre goes, this has to be as good as it can get. At the conclusion, the audience gave a standing ovation to the cast and playwright Alan Bennett.

The play is described as "an unruly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form boys in pursuit of sex, sport and a place at university". But there is so much more going on here. Broader issues of Education are explored as just the starting point. This is a play that is full of witty barbs and sharp dialogue that surely will have a place in future dictionaries of quotations. A particular favourite of mine in the second act...

Mrs Lintott (a teacher): Our Headmaster is a twat. An impermissible word nowadays but the only one suited to my purpose. A twat. And to go further down the same proscribed path, a condescending cunt.

At a point later in the second act the actor playing this teacher lost the line and had to be rescued by having it called out offstage, which temporarilly broke the spell of the performance. But the cast as an ensemble worked so well together during the near three hours they were onstage, that this stumble was soon forgotten. Besides, there was so much memorable dialogue to take in.

The play is due to go to Broadway and tour Australia next year, but surely this play has even more future in it. I have an autographed hardcover script as well...

Overheard at the theatre after the play

Mahn #1: I think it is time tea...
Laaydy: Time tea?
Mahn #2: Yes it's the new talk for time to have some tea.
Laaydy: Oh yes well it is probably a good idea since look it's raining now...

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