NT Live: All About Eve

I try not to be negative about stuff I go and see but it’s really hard to find anything positive to say about this. I like Gillian Anderson, that’s not changed. With the way this show uses video elements I think they way it was then filmed and broadcast could have been done better. A lot of the time it looked like someone was doing a bootleg of a film on their phone. I know it’s a theatre piece so not designed for broadcast, but I felt the lighting was terrible. Admittedly the screen I saw it on could have had a negative effect, but I don’t remember having a problem with A Streetcar Named Desire in the same cinema. When it comes to the play itself, I didn’t like any of it. The accents were universally poor, it was overacted, the script and plot were eye-rolling at times, I honestly though about leaving. Somehow they ended up labouring relatively straight forward elements of the plot whilst then also glossing over stuff that could have benefited from more time being devoted to it. It’s hardly a complicated plot, but for a two hour show it felt both thin and bloated at the same time. Very, very disappointing. Show 2019.051