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Letters Live


twiga
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Is anyone going to see Benedict and Louise in Letters Live in Covent Garden in a couple of weeks?

 

Has anyone seen the show in previous years? I've already bought my ticket but I'm curious to know if anyone has any first hand reviews of past years?

 

Thanks :-)

Edited by twiga
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I saw Letters Live as part of the Hay Festival last year, where Benedict and Lisa Dwan (Day 1) and Benedict and Louise (Day 2) read Chris and Bessie's letters, and Benedict read others too, memorably Captain Scott's last letter to his wife. Other actors and writers read as well - Patrick Kennedy, Michael Morpurgo, Chris Evans and several more, and Simon Garfield and Shaun Usher spoke between readings, introducing the subjects. It was a fabulous event, my favourite of the festival, and strongly recommended. I'm not going to the run in London as I have work in the way, but I expect it to be every bit as brilliant. Go if you can!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Phew! Just got home and have jumped into bed!

 

What can I say but brilliant. I was unsure what to expect on the whole, I've seen clips of previous years events and some of the released pre readings for this one but being a wholly literary event wasn't sure I'd enjoy the whole thing but was happy to give it a go even though, admittedly I was really going to see Ben performing live.

 

It really was superb, all the performances were fantastic and I really would recommend it to everyone. The letters covered a massive range of subjects from Che Gavara writing to his children, Marge Simpson to Mrs Bush, Matt Stone to the MPAA re the Southpark film, the family of a Lockerbie victim to the family who owned the land the body was found on to Jane Austin's sister to her niece after her death.

 

One or 2 of the letters didn't hold my attention totally but the rest were interesting, funny, sad, tearful and beyond and were a joy to hear. They were read superbly, especially Louise and Ben's reading of the Chris and Bessie letters.

 

Performer wise of the names I can recall off the top of my head, tonight we had Matt Berry (Renholm of IT Crowd fame) and Russell Brand - I've just seen on the Letter Live twitter page that Sophie and Ben parents were there but I didn't see them (I'm useless at spotting people though!)

 

Oh and the programmes were £5 if anyone is looking to buy one at the venue.

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I was lucky enough to attend the very first Letters Live; I was already on vacation in London when I saw a message pop up on Twitter about it. I scrambled for a ticket and got one just before it sold out a few minutes later. It was a stunning experience -- all the readers and letters were excellent, but Cumberbatch was phenomenal. If I'd known earlier about the current Letters Live event, I'd have tried to arrive in London early enough to attend at least the final night (yes, I'm greedy). It's probably just as well I didn't know, since I really can't afford to use up more vacation than I am already! I really shouldn't even be coming in April since I've had an August trip booked since last year for Hamlet. I have a feeling I won't be going on vacation anywhere next year as my fiscal penance, but it'll be worth it.

 

I envy those of you who can go to Letters Live this time. It was an evening I won't forget.

 

Anna

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Phew! Just got home and have jumped into bed!

 

What can I say but brilliant. I was unsure what to expect on the whole, I've seen clips of previous years events and some of the released pre readings for this one but being a wholly literary event wasn't sure I'd enjoy the whole thing but was happy to give it a go even though, admittedly I was really going to see Ben performing live.

 

It really was superb, all the performances were fantastic and I really would recommend it to everyone. The letters covered a massive range of subjects from Che Gavara writing to his children, Marge Simpson to Mrs Bush, Matt Stone to the MPAA re the Southpark film, the family of a Lockerbie victim to the family who owned the land the body was found on to Jane Austin's sister to her niece after her death.

 

One or 2 of the letters didn't hold my attention totally but the rest were interesting, funny, sad, tearful and beyond and were a joy to hear. They were read superbly, especially Louise and Ben's reading of the Chris and Bessie letters.

 

Performer wise of the names I can recall off the top of my head, tonight we had Matt Berry (Renholm of IT Crowd fame) and Russell Brand - I've just seen on the Letter Live twitter page that Sophie and Ben parents were there but I didn't see them (I'm useless at spotting people though!)

 

Oh and the programmes were £5 if anyone is looking to buy one at the venue.

 

Did you happen to notice if there was any kind of "stage door" type set up for snaffling autographs on the programme after the show?

 

Sounds like you had an awesome time. I really cant wait now. Should I be taking a box of tissues with me?

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I did tear up over the Lockerbie letter but don't know if they will be reading the same selection each night.

 

I don't know what door they exited via but got the feeling that it wasn't really the venue for auto's if you get what I mean. I wouldn't say don't try though if you want to. Why I say that is at the end the performers all came out to bow ect and I did see a lady go over to Ben with a bunch of flowers and a letter - It looked to me like he wouldn't take them and gestured to Louise who the lady then gave the flowers to, so to me it looked like he was basically saying this was Louise's event and it should be her gifts go to. That's my impression only though.

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I am just so sad right now. At least we have Sherlocked though!! There's still hope!!

 

Raylenth I am glad you got to see it!! I can live vicariously through your description!!

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I don't know how the other performances will be affected either - I work just of the road this happened on and we were operating off our emergency generator all afternoon. I don't even know if we will be able to open tomorrow, we have to go in and see but may be sent home to minimise the strain on the generator so the servers keep running and staff can log in from home.

 

Possibly it's not going to be a quick fix so may affect the local buildings for a couple of days, we can only wait and see what the damage assessments come back with.

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Oh man were you one of the two thousand evacuees today?

 

They've advised they can't reschedule any of the shows (which makes sense) but if it mucks up the 3 remaining ones then that makes you the luckiest person ever!!

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I kind of feel like that myself, that I was unbelievably lucky really but feel really bad as well that I got to see it when others haven't. There is a lady in one of the departments in our building who is a big Ben fan as well and I was telling her about Letters today and how much I had enjoyed it. She rushed back to her computer and managed to get one of the few remaining Thursday tickets before all this happened and i haven't had a chance to speak to her since then........ Hopefully it either won't be as bad as it sounded or they may be able to work something out.

 

Have you heard if you have been reallocated one of the spare tickets for the other nights?

 

The company I work for did send most staff home around 2/3pm as the police were going round advising this for the buildings that weren't immediately by the fire. I and a couple of my colleagues stayed as we are in the Facilities/Switchboard department so my boss was the one dealing with making sure the floors were emptied and all locked up and coordinating what was happening with the senior management. I stayed with a colleague in the department to be on hand to deal with other staff who needed help or information, like our ICT staff who were trying to make sure all functions were transferred over to our oversea's offices so people were able to work from home.

 

Fun times. :thumbdown: But hey, they let me finish an hour early as there was no point staying.

 

If you look at the local map infographic showing where the fire was pouring from, I work on the north side of the park, the buildings just below the first 'r' of the Underground. Freemasons Hall is the large building literally on the right of the right white edge of 'London'

_82065702_holborn_london_fire_map624-2.p

Edited by Raylenth
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For your colleagues sake then I hope it's all up and running again tomorrow. The last thing I saw in the news said it was expected the power would be back tomorrow morning so fingers crossed!

 

I wasn't allocated another ticket. Just given a refund and sent on my way. I'm travelling out of London tomorrow for the bank holiday weekend anyway so it wouldn't have made a difference.

 

Oh you were quite near to the action then! It was very strange walking from Covent Garden with power on one side of the road and blackout on the other. Hope you didn't need to use Holborn station!

 

It looks like it knocked out a few theatres in the area as well so plenty of evenings scuppered unfortunately! Sad times all round.

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Looks like they've got power back in the building and the show is back up and running! So just my show that was cancelled then :crying:

 

I am happy for everyone who gets to see the remaining shows though! :smile: Happy and bitter!! :angry:

Edited by twiga
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Looks like they've got power back in the building and the show is back up and running! So just my show that was cancelled then :crying:

 

I am happy for everyone who gets to see the remaining shows though! :smile: Happy and bitter!! :angry:

I really hope fate/karma/luck makes up for this for you sometime soon.

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