Wednesday 20 July 2011

LAST MINUTE THEATRE TICKETS, REVIEW of AS I LIKE IT by AMANDA ELIASCH


There are not many good roles for women, but As I Like It has one. Justine Glenton plays a thinly disguised Amanda Eliasch, in a play written and produced by Amanda. This 75 minute monologue is fun,funny, honest and sad. Glenton does an amazing job, she was absolutely brilliant.
Amanda is a British photographer, fashion editor, poet and socialite. Anyone who is Facebook friends with Amanda will know that she is creative and always working at something. Be that photography or writing.
An attractive women “of a certain age” this play, directed by renowned Lyall Watson (of the Rome TV series) and with a set design by renowned interior decorator Nicky Haslam, is a visual feast. The set is amazing. As I Like It came about when Eliasch’s father, journalist and writer Anthony Cave, he told her to write 5,000 words by the ‘end of the weekend’. Eliasch who had only met her father at the late age of 22, made it her goal to shock him. It worked but he told her to put it away until he had died. He died two years ago, and here it is.
It is hard to watch without thinking about how much is true, I think most, if not all of it is. In the Evening Standard later that evening I see Amanda in the Diary, stating that the character is not her as ‘she is brunette and we have a different eating disorder”. But a previous interview in the same newspaper keeps coming back to me as I watch, facts jumping out here and there that correlate the two people, fact and fiction. As I Like It is well written, directed, acted. And it is very different. I highly recommend it.
As I Like It runs from 4 July to 14 July, 7.30pm at Chelsea Theatre, 020 7352 1967.

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