Top Posts Tagged with #jeremy steyn

#play for today

#Bar mitzvah boy

#jack rosenthal

#Single play

#Modern drama

#BBC

#1976

#Michael Tuchner

#Jeremy Steyn

#Maria Charles

#Bernard Spear

#Adrienne Posta

#Jonathan Lynn

#Cyril Shaps

#Jack Lynn

#Pamela Manson

#Harry Landis

#Kim Clifford

#Mark Herman

#Harold Reese

#absolutely one of Jack's warmest and wittiest scripts. having been frustrated by the casting of non jewish actors in his previous PfT The

#Evacuees‚ Jack put his foot down on this play and it benefits from collecting some of the best jewish character actors then active in uk

#stage and screen into one play. particularly wonderful are Spear and Maria Charles as the parents intent on making their son's bar mitzvah

#a day to remember: her sporting a truly awe inspiring helmet of hair‚ he willing the day to have come and gone so that everything can

#return to normal. there's a sharp satirical study of middle class aspirationism and the inadequacy of bar mitzvah as a standard of manhood

#(all the adult male characters display various immaturities throughout the play) but it's all done with a very deep and very real affection

#special mention to perennial fave Cyril Shaps (adorable as the doting if slightly air headed grandfather; actually Shaps was younger than

#Spear‚ his onscreen son‚ but had always appeared older than his years) and Posta in a finely judged performance as the older sister whose

#sharpness and short temper doesn't mask her love and sense of responsibility for a younger sibling who's quietly terrified about the

#prospect of growing up. the dialogue is pin sharp and often laugh out loud funny‚ but there's some nice background stuff going on as well

#jeremy steyn