Chit Chat - A load of hot air

Published Monday 28 April 2008 at 18:00 by Tabard

Gone with the Wind’s opening proved to be something of an unmitigated disaster last week, leading to some of the most scathing reviews in recent memory.

As Charles Spencer observed in the Daily Telegraph, “Trevor Nunn’s production achieves the kind of paradox normally only found in the baffling field of quantum mechanics. It feels interminable, but moment by moment it also seems ridiculously rushed, so that incidents that really make a mark in the film go for almost nothing on stage.”

Nicholas de Jongh was even more caustic in the Evening Standard - clearly his brief stint as a playwright has not seen him develop much empathy for his artistic peers - and likened the production to a “cruel, unusual punishment”.

Still, the writing was on the wall, it seems, even before the press performance had begun.

One of The Stage’s reporters attending the opening night was approached by a stranger in the street, who asked him: “Would you like a free ticket to the show?”

“No, thank you,” replied said Stage employee.

Oh dear, it seems that Gone with the Wind is quite literally a show which can’t even give them away.