All About Eve

Our first experience of this streaming app on the Fire TV is this adaptation starring Gillian Anderson and Lily James. The genuine theatre atmosphere was great, establishing shots of the surroundings, the quieting of the audience as the curtain is lifted – and we could still pause, rewind and watch it over three nights instead of being confined to a lumpy chair for 3 hours!

I did enjoy the play, the staging was simple but very clever, making use of steadicams and big video screen to show what was happening in the toilets (a surprising amount really!) and also close ups of faces as they looked away from the audience into a mirror.

The middle third seemed to drag a little and I lost track of the motivations of some of the characters (Why did Karen engineer the breakdown in the car and then get upset when Eve was such a success as understudy? What was Addison trying to achieve? When did Bill move back in?)

Overall though I did enjoy this, the acting was excellent and the story was interesting despite being hard to follow at times. (Plot summary – in theatre land no-one is your friend and you are only as good as your most recent success).

Both actresses were accomplished singers so maybe more songs would have been useful (but not at the expense of increasing the running time) and Lily James mumbled her song into the piano keys and we couldn’t make out the words which was a shame.

A good introduction to home theatre, I think we will renew the subscription for a few months at least.