Reviews

• Higgy

  Mar 29, 2018

  Brilliant play that had you captivated from start to finish. Wonderful characters and poignant for today’s audience. Very thought provoking .... stays with you long after leaving the theatre.

• Sharon Burrows

  Mar 25, 2018

  Brilliant . No interval sitting for nearly 2 hours time just flew by. Brilliant topical story superbly acted .

• Neha Malhotra

  Mar 23, 2018

  Loved every bit of it ! Only wish I get a chance to watch again . Beautifully done !

• Stephen Parfitt

  Mar 23, 2018

  I am pleased there was no interval,and that the Ambassadors took this play after the Dorfman,and gave more people a chance to book.I loved Laura so much it hurt,and having met my own wife at a party,it all seemed familiar.A very clever,sorrowful,and happy play, containing some good insights and original versions of familiar themes.(being lonely,having plenty of imagination and lots to offer,but wishing you could find someone to share that Sunday with.)Powerful,and memorable.

• Mo

  Mar 21, 2018

  Great casting, funny, cringful

• Anna S.

  Mar 20, 2018

  Excellent acting! Have some mixed feelings about the content of the play, although it did seem very real. Enjoyed the experience overall.

• Mary Cripps

  Mar 17, 2018

  I thought this was a brilliant play, brilliantly acted. Cried with laughter but very sad as well. So true of today's society. Will definitely recommend it to friends and family.

• s v l

  Mar 16, 2018

  Great script, great acting, funny, dark, depressing but so representative of our modern dating issues!

• s v l

  Mar 16, 2018

  Great script, great acting, funny, dark, depressing but so representative of our modern dating issues!

• s v l

  Mar 16, 2018

  Great script, great acting, funny, dark, depressing but so representative of our modern dating issues!

• s v l

  Mar 16, 2018

  Great script, great acting, funny, dark, depressing but so representative of our modern dating issues!

• s v l

  Mar 16, 2018

  Great script, great acting, funny, dark, depressing but so representative of our modern dating issues!

• s v l

  Mar 16, 2018

  Great script, great acting, funny, dark, depressing but so representative of our modern dating issues!

• Kim Dallison

  Mar 11, 2018

  Absolutely excellent - it’s very hard for two actors to keep the attention of the audience for that length of time but this did ! Just the right mix of comedy and heartache . Would thoroughly recommend and hope this show goes on to tour .

• Sofia

  Mar 11, 2018

  Awful

• MRGC

  Mar 9, 2018

  This one keeps you wide awake - some super lines and moments. Great play.

• Allie O

  Mar 8, 2018

  Faultless acting, some classically awkward moments in the play that many could relate to. Touching.

• Poppy

  Mar 4, 2018

  Brilliant acting from two people - happy and sad and so true to life!

• Zari

  Mar 4, 2018

  Not another clichéd love story, not another anti - romance either. It was a raw, stripped back look at the layers that men and women hide behind to protect themselves and the beautiful fragile possibilities when we reveal ourselves. The staging suited the at times claustrophobic intensity with the familiar remnants of the party like so many discarded dreams. It could have been our living room and perhaps this forces us to confront our own lives.

• u2fancat

  Mar 4, 2018

  It's a one-act play, two characters - to give you some backstory, she (Justine Mitchell) has just thrown a housewarming, and that same day, she was wining and dining a client, mentioned the party, and the client asked whether he could come, and bring a friend. This is the friend - and the last to leave. The entire play features the back and forth between them, as (almost) every obstacle you could reasonably think of arises in conversation to prevent them beginning a relationship. It starts really slowly. Like, really. Five minutes or more of them just kind of staring at each other. And once they did start to speak, honestly, the audience found it far funnier than I did (what a surprise). However, I got into the pace after a while - and there's a lot to like here. It's quite true to life - except that, in real life, he'd have left a lot quicker in such an awkward situation. (Warning - expect swearing and adult themes.) The staging is great - it all takes place in one room; this is obvious from the start, with so much attention to detail. Still, it doesn't deserve some of the glowing reviews I've seen - or do they do that for anything with mass appeal? Steep ticket prices, too. Nah, I think you'd be better off at The Mousetrap, next door.

• Jane

  Mar 2, 2018

  The audience braved the snow last night and were rewarded with an excellent evening at the theatre. Beginning is a play that feels very fresh and relevant to today’s society. It’s very well directed and both actors are superb. Good to see so many young people there too. Catch it while you can!

• Michelle

  Mar 1, 2018

  Not a fan of the play - it felt uncomfortably slow in many parts. Awkward content and lack of humor made for a very slow show.

• Theatregoer

  Mar 1, 2018

  Excellent show and outstanding performances.

• Miriam14

  Feb 25, 2018

  I was gripped by "Beginning". The two characters were really believable and the development of their relationship verged between incredible, very funny and sad. The play covered all sorts of topical themes from strong women, to class system, to cliches about educational background. It was very well acted and totally absorbing.

• Jacquie

  Feb 25, 2018

  I thouroughly enjoyed the gently humour and the tenderness of the acting. Loved the way the stories of the protagonists slowly unfolded. And for once I felt the high price I had paid for the seats delivered a very good view.

• Jane Myles

  Feb 24, 2018

  Poignant, hysterically funny, moving, profound. It says all there is to say about relationships.

• Yasmine

  Feb 22, 2018

  Amusing insight into being single in London. Ironically, the play started off well with a good beginning but was tediously implausible by the end.

• Katerina

  Feb 22, 2018

  From the first minute you realise that you will have a great night. Great performances! Highly recommended it.

• Kate

  Feb 22, 2018

  Moving and entertaining in equal measure, the play swings between poignancy and humour at just the right pace. A really great show.

• Becky

  Feb 22, 2018

  Late 30 something ‘couple’ at the end of a party- and a two hour conversation follows. Great intensity and really emotionally engaging Performances. Laughed a lot- and they held the audience in their intensity and their moments of silence. Brave and real.

• Numb Bum

  Feb 17, 2018

  Here is a link to my review (you may need to copy and paste it into a browser) https://numbbumblog.wordpress.com/2018/02/17/beginning-it-all-starts-here/

• Jonathan.

  Feb 16, 2018

  Amazing script Amazing performance Relentless energy ! Wow

• Patricia

  Feb 16, 2018

  A nearly two hour discussion on whether or not to have a shag was just too boring... definitely not for me.

• Emma

  Feb 13, 2018

  Sensitive and joyous portrayal of the first few hours of a new relationship - highly recommended.

• Matt Smith

  Feb 11, 2018

  Enjoyed it enormously because it was so different - a glimpse into the life of si many looking for love !

• Susana

  Feb 10, 2018

  The theatre is beautiful and the actors are very good. However, the theme of the play is quite predictable and the characters are rather like cardboard cut outs, airing their problems: broken past, missed opportunities, despair, loneliness. We found it quite long and dull at times.

• Gill Swain

  Feb 4, 2018

  I understand why this play is popular and has garnered such glowing reviews and there was much about it I enjoyed. However, I would like to offer an alternative view. My friend and I left the theatre with the depressing feeling that we had been present at a Daily Mail article brought to life. Also wondering whether feminism had ever actually happened. The Daily Mail has spent years running articles “proving” that all that pesky career women really, really want is a hubby and 2.5 kids and a house in suburbia, just as this play portrays. Of course it is true that some women in their thirties are desperate for a baby, as some men are desperate for a family life. I knew a woman 20 years ago who told every man she had casual sex with that she was not using contraception because she wanted a baby and it was up to him to use it or not, as he chose. She would raise any resulting baby herself without expecting anything from him. But this play seemed to suggest there could be some kind of ongoing connection between these two characters, or else why didn’t she just go to a sperm bank? So I spent the first third of the play wondering what on earth the woman saw in the man because he was so unattractive - paunchy and as nervous as a 16 year old. It would have been perfectly possible to portray a man wary of her advances without having him jiggling about like a teenager. Also, he was so feeble. He didn’t see his child because his ex-wife had moved to Truro. That is five hours away by train; it’s not Timbuctoo! So then it was revealed, ah, she’s desperate for a baby. There followed a partial examination of the ethical and emotional dilemmas involved in her using him as a sperm donor, which was fine as far as it went (not very far) but then we got her speech about wanting, not just the baby, but to post photos of herself and his Nan on Facebook, to buy a people carrier and to go on cruises with him in her 50s (that should be 70s, by the way). I kept thinking that, if she had been temporarily lured into playing happy families for the sake of getting the baby, she would have been bored witless by him within a very short time. The play was like a sad man’s fantasy that a smart woman would be prepared to take on all his flabbiness and feebleness for the sake of a bun in the oven and a half share in a people carrier. In the past women had to face the choice of taking on a saddo in order to have a family. Jane Austen portrayed this dilemma in the character of Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice, and the author unforgettably drew the life of torture the poor woman had to endure shackled to the appalling Mr Collins. But I honestly think the playwright should acknowledge that 21st century women have a lot more options open to them than those that were available to Jane Austen’s characters in 1813.

• ML

  Feb 4, 2018

  Interesting plot. Nuanced and moving performances.

• Sagi

  Feb 4, 2018

  Complete joy from start point to end

• Soenjoyedit

  Jan 31, 2018

  Loved the play Beginning.. it’s brilliantly acted by the two actors & maintains the spell for 1hr 50mins.. so true to life & awkward situations.. charming!

• Soenjoyedit

  Jan 31, 2018

  Loved the play Beginning.. it’s brilliantly acted by the two actors & maintains the spell for 1hr 50mins.. so true to life & awkward situations.. charming!

• DR

  Jan 31, 2018

  Topical subjects explored which was thought provoking unfortunately i was not convinced by the casting. There was no compatebility between them or any tangeable chemistry. I understand that they were representative characters... modern female, bloke lad and class differences but none of it really worked because their attraction seemed unbelievable somehow. Their incompatibility jarred.

• Faye

  Jan 30, 2018

  The casting for this production is superb; the play is intense, funny and beautifully awkward in places to tell the story in a really compelling and charming way. Loved it, I’d recommend it to anyone.

• David King

  Jan 28, 2018

  Outstanding performances from both actors

• Philip

  Jan 27, 2018

  Play was quite interesting. Sam Troughton was excellent in his role as a guy lacking in confidence and self esteem and wary of getting hurt a second time - though a revelation in the plot later in the play undermines this character somewhat. The play dragged in the middle and would have had more dramatic power if shorter.

• Denitsa Hristova

  Jan 27, 2018

  Amazing preforming,I enjoyed a lot Real modern life style story with a lots of funny moments! I had nice time Thank you very much Definitely will recommend people to go and see it !

• Dotty

  Jan 26, 2018

  Very good entertainment Thoroughly enjoyed

• vikil

  Jan 21, 2018

  Heat felt performances and pertinent issues well dissected. Two hours without a break passed very quickly.

• Jake

  Jan 21, 2018

  It is oft quoted that in the chaos of modern civilisation, and especially the technological advances contained therein, are doing more harm than good to the human race. That is the quandary explored in David Eldrige’s new play. Danny is the last straggler at Laura’s housewarming party. They engage in mutual awkwardness as Laura makes very open advances towards Danny; she likes him. He likes her too, but for reason which I won’t spoil here, he does everything possible to avoid contact. It is extremely refreshing to see a play that is more grounded in reality than others of its ilk; they talk about Strictly and Twitter, but it is what’s underneath that is the true driving force of the play. Despite living in the most populated city in the world, both are desperately lonely, and it’s something that I’m sure, sadly, a lot of people will be able to relate to. Eldridge’s script is peppered with pithy one liners and plenty of laughs amidst the angst, and on top of this the performances from Justine Mitchell and Sam Troughton are absolutely pitch perfect.

• Dorothy

  Jan 19, 2018

  Loved every minute of it!