Wasting an evening in a Martin Crimp world

Years ago BBC's TV dramas were played and transmitted live with no recording. Martin Crimp recreates those conditions in his Attempts on her Life, from 1997 and in a new production at London's National Theatre.

The audience was young, more multi-ethnic than usual, bopping away in their seats before the curtain rose. They probably even enjoyed themselves after that. Me, I was locked in at the end of a long row, the play running with no intermission so with no chance of an early escape from a loud, abrasive, meaningless run of cheap images, verbiage and noise. The actors and stage managers had a ball and performed wondrously, backs to the audience as they filmed each other. Martin Crimp was new to me so I wanted to see his writing, and instead got locked inside some sickness in his head. Years ago my nephew told me no-one wanted narrative anymore, character was unnecessary, a quick succession of graphic images all that was necessary. He might have liked the evening. I hated it. I yearn for a bit of beauty,

Enough said. Lanford Wilson never went out to the theatre, found the whole experience distracting, preferred to stay in his basement and write his own plays. Plays with character and narrative and sense. Hooray for him.