Fram: in short, no. I can see why they were offering free beer on top of 10 pound tickets to get people in the door. (If you’re interested: £10 tickets plus a free beer for performances from 10 – 29 April. Call 020 7452 3000 and quote ‘Free drink offer’. Be warned that the free beer is a small bottle of Carlsberg and not worth the price.) Inspired by the play itself and the writeup the WestEnd Whingers did, I’m going to work on my own rhymed review for later (I’m leaning toward a villanelle, couplets are inherently too comic) but I had to warn people about this show in case they were trying to figure out what to see tonight. It’s sad to think this play is by “Britain’s Foremost Theatre Poet” – I can only think the list of contenders for this crown is very short. I also have a theory that Fram is the Norweigan word for “Bollocks!” but have not yet checked this on Babelfish. (LATER: rhymed review here, using “The Raven” as inspiration – much more difficult than rhyming couplets!)
I also want to mention that there is a very misplaced ballet section in the first act which is choreographed by Wayne Macgregor, who was there last night. I let myself fangirl to him while he was buying ice cream at intermission and he was SO rude to me! I was going on about how great he was and how I saw his show last weekend and how I’d love to see his work at Pacific Northwest Ballet – and he looked me in the eye and said, “I’m really just not interested.” I stopped dead in my tracks and said (after a pause), “Well, I guess I’ll let you get back to your friends.” What a cock! I’m going to go back and delete my “Wayne Macgregor is God” and replace them with something like “Wayne Macgregor is an ungracious asshole who should spend the rest of his life laboring in obscurity,” even though I’ve already bought tickets to see his next little ballet at the Royal Ballet in May.
Anyway, poem to follow, but I need some time to let it cook in order to fully convey the horror.
Tags: Fram, Fram review, National Theater, no this is not a very elaborate joke, Tony Harrison, two men and one sleeping bag, Wayne Macgregor
Life in the Cheap Seats - Webcowgirl's London theatre reviews 
April 18, 2008 at 8:24 am |
That’s a nasty put-down by Wayne Macgregor. If one is not interested, the correct response in these situations is to say “Bless you for that, you’re so terribly kind to say so. Enjoy the rest of your evening.” and turn back to your friends.
But isn’t it great when some famous person (apparently) acts like a tosser to a blogger? These are moments to relish for revenge is sweeter than any celebrity encounter.
By the way, your kind link to us in the previous post actually links to the National. Surely some Freudian slip there…
April 19, 2008 at 10:12 am |
Dear webcowgirl,
Thanks for the blog and I actually agree with Andrew………………
But what I actually said was i wasn’t interested in making a work for the American dance company you (I thought) were promoting!
I appreciated the rest…….but I will continue to labour in obscurity nonetheless as penance for this misunderstanding!!!
April 19, 2008 at 11:08 am |
I was just saying I wanted to see Chroma done by Pacific Northwest Ballet, not that I’m associated with them or anything. They are the ballet from back home and I’m dearly fond of them, they have lovely dancers, and they love really great choreography, they’ve shone when given Forsythe and Duato and really challenging work – me saying that was just me wanting to see them have something great to dance (I fantasized about seeing Chroma with the dancers I know so well when I saw it, both times) and something I thought Seattle would love (they appreciate great ballet), though of course I can’t do anything about it, it’s like saying, “Wow, I’d love to have Oscar Wilde to dinner,” and my way of saying that I really like your work and would like to see the most brilliant dancers perform it (around the world) and have more people see it. I am seriously concerned about expanding the audience for ballet and drawing in new people and I feel like Chroma can accomplish that, and, by extension, I believe YOU have the possibility of saving ballet from collapsing under … er, the weight of its history and the perception that it (and modern dance) are for old people.
I’ll remove the tags, it’s harsh, choreographers tend to labor in obscurity anyway (compared to actors, for example) but please, don’t go crushing your fans like that! I normally won’t approach people at all to talk to them about their work but I thought since you were a choreographer and the work you do is very challenging you might actually enjoy having someone say something nice to you (and maybe help me figure out what was going on in “Entity”), but I felt slammed down. I’ll continue to see your work and review it (hopefully with great enthusiasm) but I can’t imagine ever saying a word about it in person again.
April 19, 2008 at 12:04 pm |
Sounds like one of those mundane misunderstandings with potentially hilarious consequences!
Glad I used the “apparently” cavil and full marks to Mr McGregor for putting his side of the story.
April 21, 2008 at 11:42 am |
So I can see how you got to this misunderstanding. I don’t know if you realise this, but your accent can be quite hard do decipher. I know a couple of times I have completely misunderstood what you were saying because you talk quite fast and in an accent I am unaccustomed to.
August 20, 2008 at 4:39 pm |
[…] McGregor, one of the dance world’s most iconic figures” – now, that’s going to make his head fat. I mean, is he up there with Balanchine and Merce […]
September 4, 2008 at 10:50 am |
[…] to Dorian – and might I add that when he later handed his own to the ballet dancer, I expected a Wayne Macgregor-like telling off, which made me giggle), and some of the dancing was … kinda fun (the man on man seduction […]
March 8, 2009 at 2:36 pm |
[…] when you try to use rhyming couplets as a medium for telling a show. Yes, I am talking about “Fram,” a play so bad that it’s become legendary, a point of reference for badness (the […]
November 18, 2010 at 12:30 pm |
[…] far freer to say what we think than print reviewers are – God knows theatrical staff and even art principles feel no reason to refrain from being rude to us, since we’re merely “members of the […]