Theatre News from The Stage
No first night for Twelfth Night?
The press night diary is already so full already that we hardly search out shows that we are not actually invited to see. It barely entered my radar that the return of an all-male production of Twelfth Night to Shakespeare’s Globe, with Mark Rylance reprising his award-winning turn as Olivia that he first played there, when he was the theatre’s artistic director, in 2002, was not being offered for review at the Globe. Instead, a press day has already been announced for the transfer to the West End’s Apollo on...
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Is Broadway's Rebecca going up in flames before Manderley does?
It what is turning out to be the most gripping — yet also tragic — behind-the-scenes scenes to happen in modern musical history, Rebecca - the Musical is in serious trouble again. It was originally being talked up for a West End opening at the Shaftesbury two years ago. It was even ‘announced’ on a major theatre website, as I wrote here at the time: “The information came from a press release from the show’s original Austrian producers. But no release had been issued here, so I checked with the...
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Privacy -- offstage and behind-the-scenes
How much do we give away and how much do we keep of (and to) ourselves? It’s a question that arises when you’re writing a regular blog or conversing frequently, as I do, on Twitter; you’re effectively giving permission to the world to have (a little bit of) access to your life. But you can and do ultimately control just how much you give away. On Sunday evening, for example, my partner (now husband) and I threw a private party in London to celebrate our wedding that took place in...
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Taking Jesus Christ Superstar back to the rock arena
The rock world has been doing it for ages, of course; though I don’t go to many, concert tours regularly seem to turn into fully-fledged theatrical presentations. The Pet Shop Boys, for instance, have regularly sought to make more of a show of their live appearances than just concerts, employing people like the late Derek Jarman, ENO’s David Alden and David Fielding, Sam Taylor-Wood and theatre designer Es Devlin (who did the Olympics opening ceremony) to hep create their live concert shows. That, in turn, has meant that shows like...
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Short Shorts 53: Restoration levies, booking fees & ticket pricing
Where does the restoration levy go?
One of the great mysteries of the theatrical universe is just how the restoration levy is spent that most theatre chains, both in the West End and on Broadway, now routinely charge. There’s no transparency at all, despite the fact that theatregoers are forced to cough up this small but ultimately significant sum on top of their ticket price, and that’s before they’ve paid other add-ons like booking fees (per ticket) and transaction and delivery charges. (Surely the most puzzling delivery charge is the...
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Not to be passed by
The true path towards acceptance and integration of minorities isn’t made, of course, when special pleading is made for them but they’re happily, healthily and naturally integrated into the way of things. It’s why colour-blind casting in the theatre is so brilliant; both Derek Jacobi and currently Jonathan Pryce, playing the title role in King Lear at the Donmar Warehouse and Almeida Theatres respectively, had one of their three daughters played a black actress — respectively Pippa Bennett-Warner (as Cordelia) and Jenny Jules (as Regan), without comment or surprise....
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Creating a true theatrical ensemble
The family that prays together, stays together, goes one adage. You could also say that the family that plays together, stays together, too. There’s always a lot of idealistic talk about the idea of creating theatrical ensembles, as witness the RSC attempts to put together companies that work together for two years. But what about twenty? Forty? Last week I visited Cornwall to see the return to its roots of Footsbarn, a company founded there some 42 years ago, performing their latest show, Indian Tempest. Footsbarn may no longer be...
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A matinee, a Pinter play....
In Sondheim’s immortal “The Ladies Who Lunch” from Company, Joanne famously sings of a certain type of women’s desperate attempts to fill their days: Another long exhausting day, Another thousand dollars, A matinee, a Pinter play, Perhaps a piece of Mahler’s. I’ll drink to that. And one for Mahler! Notwithstanding Elaine Stritch’s hilarious admission that when she first sang the song, she thought Mahler’s was a type of cheesecake, I always think of the song when I go to matinees — not least when they’re Pinter plays....
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The costs of star rating inflation
There’s always a lot of debate around the subject of star ratings, and the necessarily shorthand way they have of reducing a show’s worth to a simple visual reference without allowing room for much critical nuance. There’s no universal standard for what the star ratings mean, either, so it really depends on which critic you’re reading and who is applying them.
One critic’s two stars for effort is another’s more generously disposed three stars; yet another critic’s four star rave is someone else’s five. The problem is particularly acute...
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Short shorts 52: Mousetrap at 60, time out for Time Out and another duff Fitzgerald
The Mousetrap has, after sixty years in the West End, gone on what its producers are billing its “first ever UK tour.” That ignores entirely the history of the play which, before it ever reached the West End, was premiered at Nottingham Theatre Royal, then played six further regional dates (Oxford, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds and Birmingham) on a pre-West End tour, before arriving at the Ambassadors.
I caught the first matinee of the tour earlier this week at Canterbury’s new Marlowe Theatre, which was almost entirely rebuilt on...
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Goodall and Guettel: A Tale of Two Composers
Arguably the two best musical theatre composers of the last 30 years are both writers that have become famous for other things: the first, Howard Goodall for his TV theme music and documentary hosting, as well as classical compositions as Classic FM composer-in-residence for whom he also presents weekly radio shows; the other, Adam Guettel for his own musical theatre heritage (as the grandson of Richard Rodgers and son of Mary Rodgers), but to which he has made his own decisive and important contribution. But seeing a show by the...
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Broadway celebrated on (and off) Broadway
I’ve just returned from a quick trip to New York, and crammed a lot more in three days than even I am usually accustomed to. I feel like I’ve seen pretty much every single show currently playing on Broadway — or due on Broadway in the next eight months — from Spider-man - Turn off the Dark (twice over, in addition to the various incarnations I’d seen three times before) to the upcoming Scandalous and Motown - the Musical; and I did it all in just one day on Sunday!...
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The how, why and wherefore of Broadway misses
Flop shows aren’t born; they are made. And mad as well as bad. But often truly unforgettable, in a way in which the merely mediocre erase themselves gently from the memory bank. No one who ever saw it, for instance, will ever forget The Fields of Ambrosia, and its immortal corresponding lyric, “Where everyone knows ya”. But my favourite moment, quite possibly of any musical ever, was the song sung by the travelling executioner’s assistant after he’s been gang-raped in prison: “If it ain’t one thing, it’s another.” No wonder...
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Getting personal in reviews
I always say there is no true objectivity in reviewing; we inevitably bring who we are to what we write, and it is sometimes (though we try to make adjustments for personal circumstances) dictated by just how we are feeling that day. You’re not always in the mood for Chekhovian or Ibsenite misery; or the last thing you want to see is a jaunty musical. But the press night diary isn’t set by what happens to us in our daily lives; we have to try to leave them at the...
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Short Shorts 51: A full press diary, regional coverage and Howard Goodall shows from Tottenham to Philadelphia
It’s a nice problem to have, I know, but critics next week face a major feast after a (relative) critical famine. This week we’ve had some fringe openings at Jermyn Street (Kissing Sid James), Southwark Playhouse (I Am a Camera, which as Michael Coveney reminded me this week Dorothy Parker once memorably damned saying, “Me no Leica”), and Theatre 503 (Life for Beginners, co-directed by Paul Robinson and Tim Roseman in their last show as joint artistic directors of the theatre, before Roseman departs and Robinson takes over as sole...
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