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Carole's Neil Pearson Fan Pages, brought to you by Gushoneybungirl Many thanks to Carole Goble for the content of these pages. Carole no longer has time to maintain the content and has kindly given me permission to host them on her behalf so that the information will be permanently available for Neil's fans and her hard work will be preserved. Thanks, Carole! |
The award winning play written and directed by Patrick Marber moved from the National Theatre to the Lyric Theatre. Neil has took over the part of Larry in the transfer. Previews were from 19th March, opened 31st March. Originally planned as a 12 week run, it proved so popular it was extended to the 11thJuly, and then a new cast took over on replacing Neil and Frances Barber. I went on the 28th March and my Mum went a couple of weeks later after my rave reviews! Call 0171 494 5045 for tickets.
Closer is a modern
London love story for the Nineties. The play is about the obsessional love, the
conflict between honesty and love and the gulf between men and women. There are
four players: Larry, an unreconstructed doctor (played by Neil); Anna, a
thirty-something divorced photographer (played by Frances Barber); Dan, a
journalist and aspiring novelist (played by Lloyd Owen) and Alice, a young
stripper (played by Liza Walker, and the only member of the original NT cast).
These four, strangers at the beginning, find themselves trapped in a tangle of
besotted courtship, betrayal and hate. Its funny but is it also grim and
heart-breaking. As Neil and Frances have been saying in their promotional
interviews its about SEX. There is no actual sex, there is no actual violence,
but the language is very sexually explicit and aggressive. Not suitable for
children or priggish adults!!
For all us computer nerds,
Closer has the first on stage internet sex (see right). Dan and Larry have an
internet sex chat session where Dan is pretending to be a woman. Its very well
done...two machines on either side of the stage, both actors typing and a huge
display showing the screen (of course this is pre-set up and controlled by the
stage manager). The language and net-etiquette is completely accurate. Patrick
Marber, the writer, must have been in an internet chat room! When I went to see
it Neil told be that the screen hadn't worked in the afternoon and they had to
speak the lines. As the language is a bit rich that would have been interesting,
esp. faking the orgasm :-)
The really interesting thing
about Closer for us Neil fans is that Neil was required to play some very
intense scenes with Frances Barber, who he lived with for 5 years (see left).
They separated in about 1992, and Frances had been a bit bitter about it.
Frances reported on a Radio 2 interview with Debbie Thrower that it had been
difficult, but they were slapping themsleves and each other on the back for how
they have dealt with it, and all the history they have does show on stage. It
certainly gives the acting some depth. Frances also mentioned this relationship
on the Jack Docherty Show, but Neil was silent about it on the Clive Anderson
Show.
The timing of Closer meant that it clashed with the World Cup, and Neil was pretty pissed with this (the dates changed on him after he signed up). He joked that no-one should be surprised if in July he had a "sore throat" :-)