THEATRE REVIEW: The Magistrate

The Magistrate

The National Theatre

During a residential trip to London, we watched The Magistrate at The National. It stars John Lithgow and Nancy Carroll, who we got to have a Q&A with her before the play, where she said that her favourite genre to play was Comedy and because she was slightly dyslexic she found that to learn lines she would just keep writing her lines over until they would go in. After this we had some time to spare until we then went in to watch the show. 

The play is set around a Victorian farce. It centres around a widowed woman who lies to her new husband, who is a magistrate, about the age of herself and of her son, taking 5 years off each, making her one thirty and her son four ten. I have to a admit that the play did not do much for me as its not usually my type of show, but there was certainly some funny parts throughout that had myself and the audience laughing at.  The best part for me from the whole production was the set and the time and effort that had gone into making them. 

The National use a revolving stage for their shows which can rise above level to reveal a different scene set. I thought this was used really well and what they also did was split the centre circle into two halves, so there was two different scenes on either half and that was used really well, for a jail scene and a bar.

Overall, The Magistrate was a good play but not one that I would chose to watch willingly.

Comments