Reviews
The Guardian
Michael Billington
"Michela Meazza is brilliant as the talking robot… Whatever its uncertainties of tone, I still warmly recommend Oglesby's play for recognising that we need to treat the old as human beings rather than statistics."
04/02/2010
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The Stage
Ben Dowell
"[It is the] creep of the truly horrific into the mundane which gives Oglesby’s impressive new work much of its frightening power, creating a clever and powerful satire which feels at the same time both eerily dystopian and scarily plausible."
08/02/2010
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The Daily Telegraph
Charles Spencer
"The play has something of the satirical bite and demented logic of Swift’s essay “A Modest Proposal” and the bad-taste zaniness of Joe Orton... The transition between satire and passages of deeper feeling make for some awkward dramatic gear changes, but Anna Mackmin’s superbly acted, niftily designed production never loses its grip."
05/02/2010
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The Times
Benedict Nightingale
"…an uneven piece, which gets a bit becalmed, scattered and (to my ageing mind) confusing in the second half. But it would be complacent to dismiss it as just another exercise in paranoid futurism… Thanks be to Oglesby for expressing [ageism] on stage, even though there is some awkwardness in a play that veers a bit unpredictably from domestic drama to social satire. Still, Anna Mackmin’s production brings us fine performances"
05/02/2010
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The Financial Times
Sarah Hemming
"...there were times when I wished she had just gone for a more straightforward family drama... As it is, Really Old, Like Forty Five ranges across an uncomfortable mix of styles between the personal and the political stories and becomes increasingly unwieldy. This is not to deny, however, that this is a much-needed drama about a crucial issue... It has wit, sympathy and, above all, anger"
05/02/2010
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The Observer
Susannah Clapp
"There are high-calibre actors here… But they have only thin pickings: too little deep family disturbance, lines which are too perky to work as dark humour, and over-familiar dystopian elements, with lots of telly screens and pills and tubes and nasty scientists."
07/02/2010
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The Evening Standard
Henry Hitchings
"The contrast here between the personal and the political has bite, but there’s a frustrating uncertainty of purpose: is this satire, farce or a poignant danse macabre? Anna Mackmin’s production is strong on localised exuberance but the overall tone is erratic, and the play suffers from a surfeit of underdeveloped ideas."
04/02/2010
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The Daily Express
Mark Shenton
"[A] muddled but potentially interesting take on the challenges that we face as a society by our ever-aging population… Anna Mackmin’s engaging cast keep us interested in [the elderly siblings'] plight but the play diffuses its impact by running too many stories in parallel."
07/02/2010
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The Independent on Sunday
Kate Bassett
"Unfortunately, other than its topicality Anna Mackmin's production has dismally little to recommend it. The play's vision of a nanny state – though part-futuristic – involves oldsters being obliged to sign up as adoptive grandparents and serve as medical guinea pigs to earn government-dispensed points. Yet it is Oglesby's script itself that needs more careful nursing, if not a complete overhaul... Really bad, like one out of five."
07/02/2010
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