HOT: Saint Joan at National Theatre

It amazes me that sometimes it is cheaper to see world-class theatre than it is to go to the movies in London. For 10 pounds I went to see George Bernard Shaw's Nobel Prize winning play Saint Joan (about Joan of Arc), 3 rows from the front, right in the middle. The elegiac music was ghostly, the use of chairs as furniture, drums, dance props and a burning pyre was incredibly imaginative and effective and because I was so close I could see every spray, every little twitch of expression. I was particularly impressed with the supporting actors - the Dauphin, the Inquisitor, the bastard son of Duke of Orleans. The play wove themes of religion, state, nationalism, politics, ambition, justice and truth into the fascinating story of Joan of Arc leading the French Army to her execution as a heretic, burned at the stake. A richly rewarding Friday night.