Tom says:

I think it may have even been through site that I first came across
news of the play. In any case I was fortunate enough to get hold of
tickets, albeit in the back of the hall. None of which diminished a
second of the wonderful enjoyment of the event.

It was a fabulous evening, the sun setting over London and us enjoying
a last glimpse on the balcony before rushing to our seats.

The whole performance was treated with much applause, the audience
excited as the turn of ever scene. So much so that the actors of Hope
Leaves the Theatre had to come back for a second curtain call.

Sawbones finished all too quickly. It was a pleasure seeing all the
cast and musicians on stage and especially trying to see which musician
or foley artist was making the current sound effect. It took a bit of a
feat to follow Sawbones, by the time you had settled in and
familiarised yourself with the characters it drew to a close.

I thoroughly enjoyed Hope Leaves the Theatre. All the actors gave an
immaculate performance, Kaufman's elliptical plot was great to engage
with and even the rapport between the actors, the musicians and the
audience was light and highly engaging.

Davis's soliloquy and mumbling moaning was a thrill. Dinklage and
Streep threw in a great performance when they switched to portray to
British characters (one of the having supposedly found Hope's mobile
phone). It would be interesting to hear what voices they put on for the
New York performance. While Streep was a joy as ever it was great to
see Dinklage be so game.

I think every one of the audience would be delighted to see it again.
Time passed far too quickly.

About that curtain call, apparently Meryl was gesturing for everyone from “Sawbones” to come out and join them, but for some reason none of the “Sawbones” gang went onstage.

Spotted in the audience: Paul and Heather McCartney “being wisked to and from the VIP area during interval.” Jean-Philippe tells me that the duo went backstage to chat with Joel Coen. J-P also met Frances McDormand with Joel and Carter Burwell at the Tate the next day, so she was probably somewhere in the Hall, too. And Vern says that his wife swears Bob Geldof was in a box seat, but Vern is unconvinced. I suggest that maybe it was a Festival Hall squatter.

Nobody seems to have seen Charlie around.

If it's your first time here and you're looking for more “New Ear” reports, scroll through some of the updates below, read this article and check this thread in the BCK forums.

I just noticed there's a weird little coding glitch on BCK (in some browsers) that makes the header load up in the body of the page, if you click “Back” to return here from some other page. I have no idea why. I'll look into it. “Refresh” fixes things up.