LOVE at the NATIONAL THEATRE ...

[Bruce Wall]

I stumbled across LOVE - a play at Rufus Norris' National Theatre .... Please GO IF YOU CAN ..

 

Simply LOVE is an EXTRAORDINARY achievement.

 

I have felt uncertain by much of what I have seen of late at our NT. This is the exception that proves our Nation's rule - and will I know continue to sociologically rise in its far from simple 'doing so'.

 

I stand - mouth gaping - in my admiration at this 2016 nativity play whose incumbent manger offers the one real shred of meaningful hope we have.

 

It is not easy viewing - far from it - but then, I suspect, it was never meant to be - as is SO much of the world around us. LOVE, however, offers a searingly humane experience and says MUCH more about Xmas in our climb than any number of Cinderella stories or Puss in Boots fantasies could ever relate.

 

Throughout this is sublimely accomplished.. I, myself, came close to losing it when the family at hand - and, my, those child actors are every bit as potent as their revelatory adult peers - were simply left to consume the tinned tomato soup they'd garnered from one of our nation's ever burgeoning Food Banks. The huge salt content our Government allows to be contained therein was only EVER going to make them MORE hungry than when they started. It was slow murder by any other name.

 

Certainly LOVE made me ravenous for more exemplary theatre such as this - but that REALLY would be asking for TOO much of a GREAT thing.

 

In 2016 there can be NO question - NONE - THAT THIS STANDS ALONE.

 

IT SHOULD; IT MUST; ... and I believe MOST crucially - IT WILL.

 

A simple thank you cannot here begin to express my extreme appreciation.

 

Bless ALL concerned.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Bruce Wall

[alison]

The Evening Standard has just decreed this play to be the play of the year, I see from yesterday's paper.