Top Posts Tagged with #gary carp

#The evacuees

#Jack rosenthal

#play for today

#Single play

#alan parker

#maureen lipman

#Gary Carp

#Steven Serember

#margery mason

#Ray Mort

#Paul Besterman

#Barron Casenov

#Margery Withers

#aubrey edwards

#Ian East

#Ivor Roberts

#Laurence Cohen

#Classic Rosenthal in its gentle examination of particular life experience (of being northern of being Jewish of being poor)

#And in that wonderfully authentic ear for very real very funny very devestating dialogue. Unusual Rosenthal in both its scope

#(being set over a comparatively long time span when compared to much of his single day or even less work as well as the numerous locations)

#And for being so directly biographical: Jack always drew from the well of his own life experience but rarely so openly and so nakedly.

#Lipman gives one of her quietest and most dignified performances and her challenge is met by the wonderful Margery Mason whose cruelty and

#Prejudice is so deeply rooted and layered so thoroughly that she is convinced of her own kindness and innate goodness. Two powerhouse

#Performances but where this falls down is in the wider casting. The boys are all very good (the two leads as well as their various

#Classmates) but in casting non Jewish actors in vital Jewish roles the production team make a vital (and easily avoidable) error. Ray Mort

#Was a fine character actor but he simply doesn't convince here and his uneasy delivery of typically Jewish mannerisms and speech patterns

#Grinds his scenes into stilted unevenness. Margery Withers goes too far the other way and becomes caricature. It's deeply frustrating and

#Really quite inexcusably lazy casting (and something Jack himself was deeply unhappy with per Lipman's intro on the dvd).

#Still this is a writer very near to the top of his game (his best work for my money would follow in the second half of the 1970s) and there

#Is a lot of joy to be taken from a now familiar narrative told from such a unique and under represented point of view

#gary carp