Saw Never So Good at the National last night.  Now, many of you won't need to read past "Jeremy Irons as Harold Macmillan" to decide that you don't want to go, and you might be right.  I found it dull and undramatic, and Jeremy Irons pretty hammy (and constantly fluffing his lines; I mean, for Christ's sake, it's hardly Shakespeare).  My other half liked it a lot, so there you go, two opinions, but I have a bone to pick with three things:

1.  Let's call them excessive special effects.  Everything's trundling along quite slowly and quietly and then there's just this absurdly huge explosion, enough to give half the audience (most of whom were old enough to have served in Macmillan's Cabinet) heart failure.  As ploys to wake up a dozing audience go, it's pretty cynical.

2.  Non-period dressed stagehands.  The bleeding ensemble is HUGE.  Surely some of them could have moved the park benches in and out, rather than jarring-looking men in black t-shirts and phone headsets?

3.  The Jeremy Irons ego-fest.  Okay, fine, he's the lead, a big star, Oscar-winning actor, blah blah blah, but Pip Carter plays the young Harold Macmillan and shadows him for the entire play.  Surely, then, when the curtain call is made, Irons and Carter should come out together?  But no, we've got the ensemble bowing, then the main cast (including Carter), and then Jeremy all on his own, getting rather too much special praise, in my opinion.

Actors, can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em.