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Buzz Buzz! Playwrights, Actors and Directors at the National Theatre
Interviewed by Jonathan Croall
Methuen Drama £14 99
224 pages
Dateline: 2nd January, 2009
Buzz Buzz! presents a kind of journalistic overview of work
at the National Theatre over the last fifteen years. It contains over
100 interviews with the main players who have helped to make this institution
what it is today.
The book is divided into three sections:Playwrights on Their Plays,
Adaptations and Musicals and Actors and Directors at Work.
It is obvious that when the average interview lasts only two pages,
Jonathan Croall can do no more than give a brief impression of the work
under consideration. That is both the strength and the weakness of Buzz
Buzz!
It works best by surveying so many productions. In this way, by going
through it from cover to cover, the reader can learn about the creative
imperative at the National Theatre in a period of transition and frequent
artistic and commercial success.
Jonathan Croall is good at investigating specific aspects of plays
and by doing so, giving a feel of what they are like or what an individual
production was trying to achieve. He does not go into any great depth,
most of his pieces being a kind of length that one would expect to find
in a relatively short newspaper profile.
The collection of interviewees is impressive to say the very least.
It starts with Alan Bennett, Tom Stoppard and Tony Kushner but includes
other writers such as David Hare, Patrick Marber, Michael Frayn and
Harold Pinter.
The directors inevitably include Peter Hall and Nicholas Hytner from
the home team in addition to the likes of Max Stafford Clark, Katie
Mitchell and Ian Rickson.
The actors do not lose out either presenting the kind of cast that
any director would love to work with including Simon Russell Beale,
Ian McKellen, Fiona Shaw and Diana Rigg.
Buzz Buzz! is a great read, ideal for short train journeys or
those few minutes prior to going to sleep. With its representation from
so many different areas of theatre and the practitioners' insights into
their work, it should prove popular even if the cover price is somewhat
prohibitive for relatively slim paperback.
Philip Fisher
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