Tintin Forums

Here's Paul Taylor in the Independent, and Alastair Macaulay in the Financial Times.

Ed

Tintin is the face of the week on BBC News Online's Magazine Monitor. There's a fairly lengthy piece on him here.

stuart
I only have a couple of gripes. One is Tintin's mockney bovver-boy accent. I don't know what accent Tintin should have (none of the voices I have heard on tv and radio versions sound right) but I definitely know that it's not this one.

I think that he is using more or less his own basic accent - he sounds more or less as he sounded in History Boys - so in many ways I'd rather that than some put-on voice. It certainly didn't jar for me...

The other is the mixed-race Thompsons, one white, the other black. Two black Thompsons would have been fine, but the whole point of them is that they should look identical.

I whole-heartedly disagree with you here - I thought they were brilliant! The very fact that there was a physical disparity between the actors was as unimportant to me as the fact that Snowy didn't look like a dog: they acted the Thom(p)sons so well - their unison walk, their business with their canes etc. - that the illusion was near perfect to me.

I would also bear in mind that part of the gag (to me) has been that what Hergé was making fun of is the uniformity of people in certain situations - that there are "types" (although it may have been shown not to have been one of Hergé's references, there's a much reproduced old illustration from a crime journal of the early twentieth century, showing two seemingly un-related policemen, who just happened to look the same, complete with bowler hats and moustaches, one carrying the other's cane, arresting a criminal); having this transcend race just extends the gag, to my eyes.

I give my thumbs up to all the "family" - the detectives, Castafiore, Calculus, even Nestor...!

On my way to see it in about an hour, I'll let you know my opinions. The Sunday Times actually reviewed it on Sunday (rather than just writing about the play in general) and gave it 3/5.

Rik

Got back from the production last night and I thoroughly enjoyed it. AFter getting used to Tintin's accent I thought he was very good and I must admit that Tintin doesn't really have a voice or an accent at all and is open to any interpration.

A couple of minor points though, I didn't really find Snowy all that amusing and found him irritating more than anything else, although I don't really see what else they could have done to bring Snowy to life.

They also seemed rather afraid to have a serious moment in the play, when Tintin hears the yeti and asks does he always sound so sad was a really well acted and moving scene where we learn a bit about the Yeti and his half-huuman emotion. Then to lighten the mood Haddocks passes wind in a loud manner and hilarity ensues. It was rather funny but it did ruin an emotional moment.

I also thought the Haddock insults had been misinterpreted, mainly he doesn;t use the work "Barnacles" as a substitute for swear words, he must have gone "Oh Barnacles" about 5 times.

There was plenty of comedy in the show that was great, the Nepalese Haddock who shouted back at him was very funny as was the Department of Mountains, a lot of the humour was slapstick and juvenile but to be honest so was a lot of the comedy in herge's work.

It was great to see the venue packed solid as well, we were on row C which turned out to be the front row! The Barbican has quite a high teared seating arrangement and to be honest we would have had a much better view from about 5 rows back as a lot of the stuff happening low down at the back was unviewable. Wonderful to see it full, a lot of kids but also a lot of older groups in all age ranges, plenty of Tintin talk as well, had to agree to disagree on Tintin age!

For the mostpart the show was done accurately and there were very few mistakes made, the appearance of the other characters were also well done, appearing mostly in visions. I thought Calculus was pretty amusing in the opening scene.

They had also ran out of programmes but an address was given to me to request one, so if anyone was unable to attend the show or missed out on the programme for some other reason then send a cheque for £2.50 made payable to "The Barbican Centre" to:

Bite Marketing Department
Barbican
Silk Street
London
EC2Y 8DS

Include your own name and address and a short note explaining what you want.

Only about another ten days to go, probably not many tickets left so get to it if you can!

Rik

Can I just say that this was so good I want to see it again!!!
And, if you havn't seen it, go now, before it's too late - your life depends on it! ;)

Wow, Jockosjungle! I was there on the same day as you, in the row just behind you! Weird!

The Young Vic's marketing team have created a downloadable "resource pack" to be found here. Note: File no longer available. Broken link removed.

It's 56 pages long (2.6mb) and contains masses of information; backgrounds on Hergé, Tibet, a rehearsal day diary written by the assistant director, interviews lyrics to the songs, reviews, etc. (I've not seen the official programme so couldn't say if they are one and the same.)

One slightly disappointing thing is that under "further reading" only tintin.com and Michael Farr's companion book are mentioned...

Wow, Jockosjungle! I was there on the same day as you, in the row just behind you! Weird!

I was on the right hand side of the stage, just before the seats curved off, seat 13 I think. Where abouts were you?

Cheers for that Harrock, I downloaded it and will peruse it at my leisure.

Anyone know if there are plans to sell the show as a touring production? Sure it would be well liked in the provinces and it's not really a Christmassy show

Rik

The Young Vic's marketing team have created a downloadable "resource pack"
Thanks very much for that Chris, it's very interesting.

Not wanting to go too far off topic, but (...snip..)

Moderators note: Continues here: Flight 714: Title translation...?